- Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment
About me
Senior Lecturer, School of Enterprise and Innovation, Westminster Business School
Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment
Education
PhD; Loughborough University; 2012; Union Strategies in the Era of Globalisation Case Studies from Chile’s Large-Scale Copper Mining Sector, 1982-2009.
MSc (Econ.) Industrial Relations and Personnel Management; London School of Economics; 2001; Protected democracy, neo-liberalism, and industrial relations in Chile: Reforming the legacy of the dictatorship in the transition to democracy.
Licentiate in Psychology (Industrial/ Organisational) and Licensed Psychologist; Pontifical Catholic University of Chile; 1996.
Professional Accreditations
CMBE | Certified Management and Business Educator | Chartered Association of Business Schools (Chartered ABS)
Learned Societies and Associations
BUIRA | Member | British Universities Industrial Relations Association
ILERA | Associate Member | International Labour and Employment Relations Association
SLAS | Member | Society for Latin American Studies
Teaching
I began my teaching career as a Teaching Assistant at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 1994. Before joining the University of Westminster in 2007, I taught at Loughborough University and the London School of Economics. Since joining Westminster, I have also been a guest lecturer at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Over the years, my teaching has developed around a long-standing interest in how institutions, workers and employers respond to economic and social change. This is closely connected to my research in comparative employment relations and worker organisation, and it also draws on my earlier professional experience.
At Westminster, I have designed and led a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules that draw on my research. A central theme is that similar economic and technological pressures can produce very different outcomes across countries because work is organised, regulated and represented in different ways.
In my current modules, Global Employment Relations (PG) and Comparative International Management (UG), students are encouraged to compare how socio-economic institutions shape employment regulation and the balance of power between capital and labour, and how workers organise and act collectively across countries. In this way, my teaching reflects the same questions that run through my research: how institutions can constrain or enable worker action and organisation, and why institutional differences matter in understanding employment outcomes.
I try to keep my teaching practical and accessible. My professional work with large public-sector and industrial organisations, including Codelco and Santander, gave me first-hand experience of organisational change, training, workplace structures and employee relations. I draw on this experience to help students connect theory with the realities of organisational decision-making and working life.
My teaching has been recognised through repeated student nominations for awards in teaching, academic support and supervision, and most recently through the 2025 Best Postgraduate Module Award for Global Employment Relations.
Research
My research has grown out of a long-standing interest in how workers and unions respond to economic and institutional change, especially where established forms of labour protection are weak, fragmented or under pressure.
Much of my work has focused on Chile, where I have studied the effects of neoliberal reform on employment relations, union strategy and the organisation of precarious and subcontracted workers. I have been particularly interested in how workers organise and build collective power in difficult conditions, but also in the limits they face when the wider institutional framework remains weak. This work has contributed to a better understanding of both the possibilities and the fragility of collective action under conditions of insecurity.
More recently, I have taken these questions into the European construction sector. Here, I have looked at how training systems, occupational structures and worker representation shape skills, gender equality, apprenticeship, technological change and job quality.
Across these different areas, the common thread in my research is an interest in how labour-market outcomes are shaped by the institutions through which work is organised, represented and regulated. My contribution has been to show how these institutions can both constrain and enable worker agency, and why similar economic or technological pressures can produce very different outcomes across national and sectoral contexts.
Research Interests
Thematic Research Fields: Employment Relations | Comparative Employment Relations | Trade Unionism | Worker Mobilisation | Precarious Work | Advanced Technologies
Regional and Sectoral Research Focus: Latin America | Chile | Western Europe | Construction Industry | Extractive Industries
I welcome applications from prospective doctoral researchers working in these and related areas.
Featured Research Projects
2026 - 2028 | Principal Investigator | Advanced Technologies, Worker Voice and the Future of Work - A Comparative Study of the Scaffolding Sector in the UK and Denmark | British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant | SRG25\251615 | Awarded: £9,960
2023 - 2025 | Principal Investigator | Research Coordinator for SCAFFOLD: Improving Training, Working Conditions and Transformation in the European Scaffolding Sector | Commissioned by the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers (EFBWW) and Funded by the European Commission | Awarded: £24,400
2023 | Co-Investigator | Women in Construction, Wood and Forestry: A Resource Toolkit for Gender Equality at Work | Commissioned by European Federation of Building and Woodworkers (EFBWW) and Funded by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Foundation | Awarded: £12,000
2017 - 2018 | Principal Investigator | Varieties of Collective Action and Organisation by Atypical and Precarious Workers in Latin America | Funded by University of Westminster Strategic Research Investment Fund (Phase 4 Excellence with Impact) | Awarded: £10,000
2016 - 2019 | Project Researcher and Co-Author | Inclusive Vocational Education and Training for Low Energy Construction (VET4LEC) | Funded by the European Commission and coordinated by European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC) and the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers (EFBWW) | VS/2016/0404 | Awarded: £310,000
Publications
For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.