Key details
Dr Grace O'Rourke
Senior Lecturer of Strategy and Sustainability
Dr Grace O’Rourke is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainability and Strategy in the School of Business, Operations and Strategy at the 亚色影库. She teaches and researches in the areas of sustainability, responsible management, with a particular focus on how environmental and ethical principles can be embedded in business practice.
Grace’s research explores how sustainability, ethics, and responsible management can be embedded within organisations and business education. Her work examines both individual and organisational behaviour change, with a particular interest in how leaders and educators can foster environmental responsibility and ethical decision-making. Grace’s research has been published in leading journals, including the Journal of Management Education, Studies in Higher Education, and the Journal of Customer Behaviour. She is actively engaged in applied and collaborative research, with several externally funded projects focused on sustainability education, game-based ethics learning, and circular business practices. Her recent work includes supporting SMEs in London and Cardiff to implement sustainability strategies and working across disciplines to design innovative, evidence-based teaching resources.
Grace is currently a Deputy Program Lead for the BA Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme at 亚色影库 Business School. She contributed to the recent redesign of this programme developed to nurture creative, responsible, and future-focused leaders who think big and create meaningful change. Grace has now taught at four UK and Irish institutions, leading undergraduate and postgraduate modules in Strategy, Ethics, Marketing, Consumer Behaviour and Sustainability, and supervises numerous research projects. Grace has acted as a personal tutor to students on various occasions and has acted as an external examiner for marketing and research modules for the University of East London in 2022.
As Faculty Co-Lead for the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), Grace has delivered carbon literacy training to colleagues and students, coordinated SDG integration across the curriculum, and led staff development workshops. She is Carbon Literacy Certified and an advocate for inclusive, research-informed teaching.
Responsibilities within the university
Grace is currently a Module Leader for the following Modules:
- Strategy for Managers
- Venture Creation
Grace is/has tutored on the following modules:
- Business Ethics
- Sustainability in Business
- Research Methods
- Strategy for Managers
- Business Creation Project
- Personal and Professional Development
Research / Scholarly interests
I am primarily interested in environmental sustainability and seek to understand the nature of and solutions to environmental challenges from both consumption and production perspectives. My PhD was in the area of sustainable consumption and considered how consumers might engage with new and emerging alternative sustainable consumption practices for reasons of pleasure and self-fulfilment.
More recently, I have been involved with place management research, including a funded project to understand the nature of high street vitality post-COVID. This project was produced alongside Lewisham council, and together with my co-authors, we have a paper under review associated with this research.
With other co-authors, I am also currently working on a pedagogical piece of research which seeks to understand the nature of how sustainability is taught in business schools across the UK.
Most of my research is qualitative in natur,e and I have much experience with ethnographic methods, including observations and interviews. More recently, I have been involved with projects which also include quantitative methods and am currently working on using content analysis.
Key funded projects
Research Title/ Field |
Building Responsible and Inclusive Digitalisation through Game-based Engagement |
The 亚色影库 proposal for The Association of Commonwealth Universities Professional Development Programme for the Climate Resilience Fellowships pathway |
Double-Barrelled Scaling Up: Accelerating Transition to Circular & Sustainable Business Practices in the Tourism and Hospitality Sector |
Tangible and Intangible Aspects of Socio-Cultural Regeneration: A Study of Engagement of Young People in 亚色影库 |
Unveiling the Challenges of Circular Entrepreneurship in Tourism: A Follow-up Study of FACET Pilots |
Recent publications
Article
Czarnecka, Barbara , Baxter, Katherine, O'Rourke, Grace (2025), . SAGE Publications - OBTS Teaching Society for Management Educators. In: , , , . SAGE Publications - OBTS Teaching Society for Management Educators, Journal of Management Education (JME) ISSN: 1052-5629 (Print), 1552-6658 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/10525629251372152).
Von Schomberg, Lucien , De Vita, Katharina, Ghinoi, Stefano, De Vita, Riccardo , O'Rourke, Grace (2025), . Taylor and Francis Group - Routledge. In: , , , . Taylor and Francis Group - Routledge, Sport Management Review ISSN: 1441-3523 (Print), 1839-2083 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14413523.2025.2534245).
Alton, David , Auxtova, Kristina, O'Rourke, Grace, Tanner, Sean , Drummond, Conor , Duggan, James , Joss, Stefan (2024), . Taylor & Francis - Routledge. In: , , , . Taylor & Francis - Routledge, Studies in Higher Education . pp. 1-15 ISSN: 0307-5079 (Print), 1470-174X (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2394560) NB Item availability restricted.
O'Sullivan, Stephen R and , O'Rourke, Grace (2023), . Westburn Publishers Ltd. In: , , , . Westburn Publishers Ltd, Journal of Customer Behaviour, 22: 9 (4) . pp. 89-97 ISSN: 1475-3928 (Print), 1477-6421 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1362/147539223X17026547268547).
Graham, Charles , O'Rourke, Grace, Khan, Kamran Muhammad (2023), . Emerald. In: , , , . Emerald, Journal of Place Management and Development, 16 (4) . pp. 541-560 1753-8335 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/JPMD-10-2022-0100).