Professor of Management
Trish Ruebottom, PhD is an Associate Professor of HR and Management at the DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Guelph, a Master of Business Administration from Trinity College Dublin, and doctorate in strategic management from York University.
Trish’s research interests lie at the intersection of social innovation and strategy, specifically exploring the ways we organize in order to create social change. She has studied processes of social change in a wide range of contexts, including the sex industry, as well as a women’s rights movement in Libya, the taxi industry, and even explored what stalls change in contexts such as the clean tech sector and Wall Street. This work has been published in numerous academic and practitioner outlets, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Business Ethics and Sloan Management Review. Her three most recent publications, with Madeline Toubiana, detail the findings from their seven-year government-funded research project exploring the sex industry. These academic publications focus on the role of entrepreneurship for women and transgender sex workers, the value created by voyeurism, and the complicated structure of community support in stigmatized occupations.
Innovating in the Sex Industry
For the past nine years I have been studying the sex industry with my colleague Madeline Toubiana from the University of Ottawa. We have published two papers from the project. The first explores the role of entreprenureship for women and trans sex workers in the industry. The second investigates the complicated nature of community in stigmatized occupations. We are currently working on a book about what we all can learn from these sex workers.
Check out Madeline Toubiana - TedX: Life lessons from innovators changing the sex industry
For the past nine years I have been studying the sex industry with my colleague Madeline Toubiana from the University of Ottawa. We have published two papers from the project. The first explores the role of entreprenureship for women and trans sex workers in the industry. The second investigates the complicated nature of community in stigmatized occupations. We are currently working on a book about what we all can learn from these sex workers.
Check out Madeline Toubiana - TedX: Life lessons from innovators changing the sex industry
Selling Voyeurism
What do reality television, slum tourism, erotic webcam and mixed-martial arts have in common? They all rely on voyeurism to entertain their audiences. Voyeurism provides a glimpse into the private life of another person to give audiences a revealing and entertaining experience.
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Authors: Trish Ruebottom, Sean Buchanan, Maxim Voronov, Madeline Toubiana
What do reality television, slum tourism, erotic webcam and mixed-martial arts have in common? They all rely on voyeurism to entertain their audiences. Voyeurism provides a glimpse into the private life of another person to give audiences a revealing and entertaining experience.
Click to read more...
Authors: Trish Ruebottom, Sean Buchanan, Maxim Voronov, Madeline Toubiana
Uber vs Taxi Drivers
Countries around the world are wrestling with whether to classify Uber drivers and other gig economy workers as independent contractors or employees.
But when Uber first came on the scene, the primary subject of debate was whether its drivers were, in fact, taxi drivers. Why was this ride-sharing or ride-hailing app run by a tech firm also applying to be a taxi company? Was Uber truly “the same as a taxi, but different?”
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Authors: Kam Phung, Sean Buchanan, Madeline Toubiana, Trish Ruebottom, Luciana Turchick Hakak
Countries around the world are wrestling with whether to classify Uber drivers and other gig economy workers as independent contractors or employees.
But when Uber first came on the scene, the primary subject of debate was whether its drivers were, in fact, taxi drivers. Why was this ride-sharing or ride-hailing app run by a tech firm also applying to be a taxi company? Was Uber truly “the same as a taxi, but different?”
Click to read more
Authors: Kam Phung, Sean Buchanan, Madeline Toubiana, Trish Ruebottom, Luciana Turchick Hakak
Identity Transitions
Whether we like it or not, change is a fact of life. Unfortunately, especially when a major change feels like it’s been forced on us, it can be easy to fall into identity paralysis: a feeling of stuck-ness in which your sense of self fails to keep up with your new role or situation. The authors conducted hundreds of interviews with people who had gone through various kinds of positive or negative identity shifts to explore why people experience identity paralysis and what can help to overcome it. Based on this research, they offer five tactical strategies to help anyone let go of the past, embrace a new identity, and move forward on a path towards growth.
Authors: Madeline Toubliana, Trish Ruebottom, Luciana Turchick Hakak
Whether we like it or not, change is a fact of life. Unfortunately, especially when a major change feels like it’s been forced on us, it can be easy to fall into identity paralysis: a feeling of stuck-ness in which your sense of self fails to keep up with your new role or situation. The authors conducted hundreds of interviews with people who had gone through various kinds of positive or negative identity shifts to explore why people experience identity paralysis and what can help to overcome it. Based on this research, they offer five tactical strategies to help anyone let go of the past, embrace a new identity, and move forward on a path towards growth.
Authors: Madeline Toubliana, Trish Ruebottom, Luciana Turchick Hakak
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Basir, N., Ruebottom, T. and Auster, E.A. (in press). Collective identity development amidst institutional chaos: Boundary evolution in a women’s rights movement in post-Gaddafi Libya. Organization Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406211044898 (Journal Impact Factor:3.926; FT50 List, A* ABDC)
Toubiana, M., Ruebottom, T. and Turchik Hakak, L. 2022. When a major life change upends your sense of self, Harvard Business Review. January 28, 2022. https://hbr.org/2022/01/when-a-major-life-change-upends-your-sense-of-self
Ruebottom, T., Buchanan, S., Voronov, M. and Toubiana, M. (2022). Commercializing the practice of voyeurism: How organizations leverage authenticity and transgression to create value, Academy of Management Review, 47 (3): 466-488. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2019.0210 (Journal Impact Factor: 8.413; FT50 List, A* ABDC)
Toubiana M. and Ruebottom, T. (2022). Stigma hierarchies: Organizing and maintaining micro-occupational communities in the sex work industry, Administrative Science Quarterly, 67 (2): 515-552. https://doi.org/10.1177/00018392221075344 (Journal Impact Factor: 12.529; FT50, A* ABDC)
Ruebottom, T. and Toubiana, M. (2021). Constraints and Opportunities of Stigma: Entrepreneurial Emancipation in the sex industry, Academy of Management Journal, 64:1049–1077. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2018.1166 (Journal Impact Factor: 7.571; FT50 List, A* ABDC)
Phung, K., Buchanan, S., Toubiana, M., Ruebottom, T., and Turcik-Hakak, L. (2021). When stigma doesn’t transfer: Stigma deflection and occupational stratification in the sharing economy. Journal of Management Studies, 58: 1107-1139. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12574 (Journal Impact Factor: 4.888; FT50 List, A* ABDC)
Zietsma, C., Ruebottom, T. and Slade-Shantz, A. 2018. Unobtrusive Maintenance: Temporal Complexity, Latent Category Control and the Stalled Emergence of the Cleantech Sector. Journal of Management Studies, 55 (7): 1242-1277. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12350 (Journal Impact Factor: 4.888; FT50 List, A* ABDC)
Buchanan, S., Ruebottom, T. and Riaz, S. 2018. Categorizing competence: Consumer debt and the reproduction of gender-based status differences. Organization Studies, 39 (9), 1179-1202. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840617736933 (Journal Impact Factor: 3.926; FT50 List, A* ABDC)
Ruebottom, T. and Auster, E.R. 2018. Reflexive dis/embedding: Personal narratives, empowerment and the emotional dynamics of interstitial events. Organization Studies 39 (4): 467-490. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840617709308 (Journal Impact Factor: 3.926; FT50 List, A* ABDC)
Riaz, S., Buchanan, S. and Ruebottom, T. 2016. Rhetoric of epistemic authority: Defending field positions during the financial crisis, Human Relations, 69 (7): 1533-1561. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726715614385 (Journal Impact Factor: 3.600; FT50 List, A* ABDC)
Cruikshank, R., Auster, E.R Basir, N. & Ruebottom, T. 2015. Middle managers’ knowledge of strategy: Antecedents, cognitive accuracy and self-awareness. International Journal of Strategic Change Management, 6(1): 73.
Ruebottom, T. 2013. The microstructures of rhetorical strategy in social entrepreneurship: Building legitimacy through heroes and villains. Journal of Business Venturing, 28 (1): 98-116. (Journal Impact Factor: 7.590; FT50 List, A* ABDC)
Crane, A. and Ruebottom, T. 2011. Stakeholder theory and social identity: Rethinking stakeholder identification. Journal of Business Ethics, 102 (1): 77-87. (Journal Impact Factor: 4.141; FT50 List, A ABDC)
Ruebottom, T. 2011. Counting social change: Outcome measures for social enterprise. Social Enterprise Journal, 7 (2): 173-182. (C ABDC)
Contributions to Books
Ruebottom, T. 2018. Deliberative democracy in social entrepreneurship: A discourse ethics
approach to participative processes of social change, in P. Dey and C. Steyaert (Eds.)
Critical Perspectives on Social Entrepreneurship, Edward Elgar.
Ruebottom, T. and McKague, K. 2014. The legitimacy paradox: Opposing tensions in social
entrepreneurship, in H. Douglas, & S. Grant (Eds.) Social entrepreneurship and
enterprise: Concepts in context. Melbourne: Tilde University Press, 114-131.
Ruebottom, T. and Toubiana, M. 2014. Languages as strategy: The role of ‘foreign’ language in
social entrepreneurship, in H. Douglas, & S. Grant (Eds.) Social entrepreneurship and
enterprise: Concepts in context. Melbourne: Tilde University Press, 284-300.
Non-Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Auster, E.R and Ruebottom, T. 2013. Navigating the politics and emotions of change. Sloan
Management Review, 54 (4): 31-36.
Ruebottom, T. and Baker, J. 2006. Creating an innovative organization. Journal of Nonprofit
Management. Support Center for Nonprofit Management, 10 (1).
Ruebottom, T. 2008. The nonprofit sector doesn’t exist: Or a new way of viewing the social
economy. Nonprofit World. Society for Nonprofit Organizations, 26 (2).
Other Publications
Ruebottom, T. June 2014. Brief to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, House
of Commons: The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (Bill C-36) on
behalf of STREET (Sex Trade Resource Empowerment Education Team).
(reprinted on The National Post, Sept. 28, 2017 View reprint)
(reprinted on Work in Progress, July 21, 2016 View reprint)
Trish Ruebottom - McMaster University Expert Profile
DeGroote School of Business
McMaster University
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Hamilton Ontario, L8S 4M4