Professor Shaun Ruggunan is a professor of Human Resources Management and an NRF-rated scholar at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His doctorate examined the agency of organised labour to shape processes of globalisation in the global shipping industry.
His subsequent work has seen him publish on the sociology of professions, maritime labour markets and management education. More recently, Professor Ruggunan is working on what it means to decolonize management and organisational knowledge in a South African context. He has had two well-received books published. The first is “Waves of Change: Globalization and Seafaring Labour Markets (HSRC Press, 2016) and “Management Studies in South Africa: exploring the trajectory in the apartheid era and beyond (2019, Palgrave – with R. Sooryamoorthy).
In 2019, Professor Ruggunan organised a decolonising management and organisational knowledge colloquium at UKZN, South Africa, which resulted in a special issue of Organization published in 2021. The special issue was co-edited with Gavin Jack, Nimruji Prasad and Alex Faria. He is a member of the African Academy of Management, the Academy of Management and the International Sociological Association.