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Dr Darren Thomas Baker, Assistant Professor of Business in Society at UCD Lochlann Quinn School of Business, was included in the prestigious Financial Times Top 100 Business School Research with Social Impact List.

In his publication, Splitting and blaming: The psychic life of neoliberal executive women, Dr Baker shows how, despite enduring unfair treatment and access to opportunities, executive women continue to believe in equal opportunities in the workplace, regardless of their gender. The article explains why it is that women, and organisations, are unable to engage directly with instances of gender discrimination when they occur in the workplace, with the goal of advancing equality.

“Although organisations have tried and implemented programmes to improve gender equality in recent years, there remains much work still to be done,” said Dr Baker. “My hope is that my work continues to inform policy and organisational practices on how to improve gender equality.”

According to the Financial Times, the list was developed by asking “business schools to select up to five papers by their academics, published in the past five years, that they considered to have social impact. It then used Altmetric, a service owned by Digital Science, to quantify the online resonance that each had with the wider world beyond universities, drawing on references ranging from academic citations to social media posts.”

In the article, Global Education Editor for the Financial Times Andrew Jack described how the “science of measuring the impact of research remains in its infancy.” Continuing that, “While such early measures are unlikely to gain universal approval, they feed a growing debate on how research can help improve society.”

“The FT’s Social Impact Ranking provides greater parity and recognition for such important work that can sometimes be lost within mainstream management work and rankings,” continued Baker. “UCD and the UCD College of Business Centre for Business and Society (CeBaS) remain dedicated to responsible business research, and teaching, and have given me the funding, space and encouragement to pursue my research interests in responsible business.” 

In 2017, UCD College of Business launched CeBaS, the, a large, multi-disciplinary centre designed to understand and directly contribute to the advancement of business and business education in shaping a better society.

“In the UCD College of Business, and particularly CeBaS, our aim is to provide academic, science-based research solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems,” said Professor Donna Marshall, Vice Principal For Research, Innovation and Impact at UCD College of Business. “Working together with industry, NGO’s, government bodies, unions and other stakeholders, we can fund and conduct research that can truly have an impact on society and the planet. We look forward to more socially impactful research from Darren and the rest of the UCD CeBaS team.”

CeBaS tackles 7 Sustainable Development Goal challenges, each having a dedicated research team whose members utilise their specific expertise to work together in providing possible solutions. The inclusive centre engages with diverse groups including business, government, unions, civil society, consumer and academic communities in order to contribute to solving today’s global business and societal challenges.

“This is an amazing achievement by Darren and his research highlights the best of this work and is particularly timely and welcome due to the impacts of the pandemic, which have disproportionately affected women.”

Read the full Financial Times Top 100 Business School Research with Social Impact list here.