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Dr Marrisa Joseph

Associate Professor of Organisation Studies and Business History

Programme Area Director for Business and Management Pre-Experience Postgraduate Programmes
Programme Director for MSc Management
Senior Fellow, UK HEA
Member of the University of Reading Senate, Research Staff Representative

MLP 3791 Marrisa Joseph NEW 75edwqcke

Specialisms

  • Business History, 
  • Publishing Industry, 
  • Creative Industries, 
  • Historical Institutionalism, 
  • Rights Management

Location

Edith Morley building room 265, Whiteknights campus

Dr Marrisa Joseph is an Associate Professor of Organisation Studies and Business History at Henley Business School.

A historian of the British publishing industry, her teaching focuses on management in the creative industries. Her research explores the formation of business practices in the Victorian publishing industry, examining why socio-cultural influences govern how individuals made strategic decisions. Her research interests centre on business history and she is interested in the management of creative industry organisations due to her experience of working in rights management in the publishing industry.

Linked to her research and and industry experience, Marrisa has delivered workshops on publishing research monographs. She has designed professional development courses to commercialise ideas based on intellectual property.

She sits on the management board of the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing at the University of Reading and is a member of the Senate. Externally, she is on the Chartered Management Institute's Regulation and Compliance Committee.

In 2017, she was the recipient of the Journal of Management History Award for Best International Paper at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting. Her first book, Victorian Literary Businesses, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019 and her first co-edited book, The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing 1900-2020 (Edinburgh University Press), was published in 2024.

Marrisa welcomes applications for doctoral supervision on business history, the publishing industry, creative industries and historical institutionalism.

Reference: Godley, A. C. , Hamilton, S. and Joseph, M. (2025) When does historical context matter? Explaining the emergence of competence‑creating subsidiaries. Journal of International Business Studies. ISSN 1478-6990 doi: 10.1057/s41267-024-00768-6
Henley faculty authors:
Dr Marrisa Joseph
Reference: Joseph, M. (2024) Closing ranks: the Publishers Association in Victorian Britain and its powerful place in institutional formation. Business History. ISSN 1743-7938 doi: 10.1080/00076791.2024.2393603
Henley faculty authors:
Dr Marrisa Joseph
Reference: Joseph, M. (2019) Victorian Literary Businesses. Palgrave Macmillan, London, UK, pp229. ISBN 9783030285913 doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-28592-0
Henley faculty authors:
Dr Marrisa Joseph
Reference: Joseph, M. (2019) Members only: the Victorian gentlemen's club as a space for doing business 1843-1900. Management and Organizational History, 14 (2). pp. 123-147. ISSN 1744-9359 doi: 10.1080/17449359.2019.1580589
Henley faculty authors:
Dr Marrisa Joseph
Reference: Godley, A. , Joseph, M. and Hughes, D. L. (2019) Technology transfer in the interwar U.S. pharmaceutical sector: the case of E. Merck of Darmstadt and Merck & Co., Rahway New Jersey. Enterprise and Society, 20 (3). pp. 613-651. ISSN 1467-2235 doi: 10.1017/eso.2018.97
Henley faculty authors:
Dr Marrisa Joseph
Reference: Joseph, M. (2020) Enter the middleman: legitimisation of literary agents in the British Victorian publishing industry 1875-1900. Business History, 62 (6). pp. 940-959. ISSN 1743-7938 doi: 10.1080/00076791.2018.1514013
Henley faculty authors:
Dr Marrisa Joseph
Reference: Joseph, M. (2017) Members only: the Victorian gentlemen's club as a space for doing business 1843-1900. In: Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 4 - 8 August 2017, Atlanta, USA.
Henley faculty authors:
Dr Marrisa Joseph

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