Ethnography "Dramas of Dignity" wins prize for responsible management research

A research project by Prof. Dr. Jana Costas shows that the everyday lives of cleaners are not only characterised by dirt and stigma, but also by complex struggles for dignity and recognition. The organisational scientist received this year's Responsible Research in Management Award for her ethnography Dramas of Dignity: Cleaners in the Corporate Underworld of Berlin. The award is sponsored annually by the Fellows of the Academy of Management and the Society for Responsible Research in Business and Management - two important professional organisations in management research.

Out of 134 entries, the book made it into the best category of Distinguished Winner, which was only awarded to three publications. According to the jury, Dramas of Dignity is exemplary of the social benefits that management research can achieve. The principles of responsible research, its transferability to politics and practice and its influence on scientific theorising were particularly present in all the winning projects.

Dramas of Dignity: Cleaners in the Corporate Underworld of Berlin was published in 2022 by Cambridge University Press. The German translation Im Minus-Bereich: Reinigungskräfte und ihr Kampf um Würde followed in 2023 from Suhrkamp Verlag.