Dr Rebecca Burke
Faculties, deparments and locations
- Faculty of Business and Social Sciences
- Department of Accounting, Finance and Informatics
- Kingston Business School
- Kingston Hill
Senior Lecturer
- Email:
- [email protected]
About
Rebecca studied Philosophy at bachelor's level in London during the late 1990s, before spending the next two and a half decades delivering projects, programmes and portfolios across a wide range of businesses. Her career has focused on delivering change within new media companies emerging out of the technology boom in the early 2000s, before gaining an MBA with distinction in 2007, and then launching a project consultancy business in 2012.
In 2017 experienced pay inequity at her place of work which left her traumatized. Her very public story as documented through the film ‘Its Raining Women' by Mari Soppela has brought countless other women and their stories, into her orbit. In 2019 she returned to academia to complete a Masters of Research before embarking on her PhD that highlights theoretical and perspective gaps from across the pay inequity literature that her research has been designed to fulfil. Adopting a feminist qualitative methodology she attempts to capture the untold stories of women who have experienced pay inequity, and how it has, and continues to, impact on their lives and careers.
Rebecca lives in Hampshire with her husband, daughter, six chickens and cat and spends most of her time multitasking between running a small business, teaching project management, and reading equal pay research. In her spare time, she attempts to nurture nature by growing vegetables, and protecting the planet. She hopes to leave a positive legacy for future generations.
Qualifications
- BA (Incomplete)
- MBA
- MRes
- FHEA
- PhD
Domains
I teach across a number of modules within the Kingston Business School, with a focus on Project Management Practices across an array of organisational settings, including international business, business administration and management. My Project Management teaching focussing on delivering practical skills to students for the most commonly adopted Project Management methodologies used across all industries today. Ranging from Traditional methods (PRINCE2), as well as AGILE methodologies with a focus on the AGILE PM (DSDM) approach. Students learn methodological approaches, are introduced to the tools and techniques for key activities within the project lifecycle, such as product based planning and burn-down charts, which they then apply to case study or 'real-world' projects within each workshop session. All of my students are offered the opportunity to take a certification in both PRINCE2 and AGILE Foundation courses; and upon successful completion will receive a certification to put onto their CVs to support their future careers and job prospects. Modules that I lead at Ji8¸£ÀûÍø are the post-graduate BB7018, BB7564 including the GISMA Hamburg instances, and provide support to the undergraduate module of BB5109. I also provide guest lectures on Project Management into the Masters in Healthcare course run at the University.
I have also been involved in delivering lectures about my research topic that focusses on pay equity for women. I have delivered guest sessions at Level 5 and 6 of the HRM modules on the Business Course, and also on the Corporate Social Responsibility module for the Level 7s on the International Business Masters course.
I am also into the second part of the ILT offered at Ji8¸£ÀûÍø to enhance my teaching and learning approach, which I am using to support my development of the modules listed above. I hope to finalise my FHEA application in April 2023 so as to achieve FHEA status then.
Courses taught
I am in my 3rd year of my part-time PhD, having completed the MRes in the first year 2020. My PhD topic has been shaped around the following problem statement:
Paying women in the UK less than men for doing the same job is bad for women, families, business and society. Solving this problem will involve an entrepreneurial approach to the creation of workable interventions, aimed at breaking the systematic undervaluing of women and their skills. The current social justice movements for women (such as 'me too') could present an opportunity for positive change to happen within a five year horizon.
This research involves the following:
1. What do we know about pay inequity and how it affects people, businesses and society?
2. What happens when women discover they are being paid unfairly?
3. How can we intervene within businesses to prevent the negative affects that pay inequity has on women, businesses and society?
Qualifications
- Fellowship of Higher Education Authority (FHEA)
- Masters of Business Administration (MBA)
- Masters of Research (MRes)
- Bachelors of Philosopy (BPhil)
- PRINCE 2 Practitioner
- AGILE PM Practitioner
- MSP Practitioner
- P3O Practitioner
Specialisms
- Social Justice Theory
- Gender Pay Gap
- Gender Equality
- Pay Equity
- Story Telling
I have gained over 18 years of expertise in the field of transformational change management with a particular emphasis on strategy, portfolio management and operational performance. I now own and run a small Project Management consultancy project where I provide expertise, resource and advice into businesses on an ad hoc basis around my other commitments.
Qualifications and Professional expertise
- Project Management
- Programme Management
- Portfolio Management
- Risk Management
- PRINCE2
- AGILE
Areas of interest
- Project Management
- Programme Management
- Portfolio Management
- Delivering Strategy
Industry links
- Telecommunications
- Central Government
- Retail
- Construction
- Technology
Publications
Pay inequity : past, present and future
Burke, Rebecca, Qi Wei, Jean and Wolfram, Hans-Joachim, 2023, WorldatWork
Be fair : a qualitative investigation of pay inequity experiences
Burke, Rebecca(2023). In: 22nd European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies 2023, 6 Sept 2024 :Lisbon, Portugal
The silence of the lambs : a feminist’s story of pay inequity
Burke, Rebecca (2025), PhD thesis, Ji8¸£ÀûÍø