Professor Rohit Varman

Professor Rohit Varman

Department of Marketing
Professor of Marketing and Consumption
Head of the Department of Marketing

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 415 8356
Email
r.varman@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Birmingham Business School
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT

Rohit Varman is Professor of Marketing and Consumption and Head of the Department of Marketing at Birmingham Business School. He uses interpretive methodologies and his current inter-disciplinary research focuses on corporate violence, exploitation, modern slavery, and resistance to corporatization and marketization.

He has published in leading journals that include Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Retailing, Organization Science, Human Relations, Journal of Service Research, and Marketing Theory. Rohit’s research was awarded Emerald Citation of Excellence in 2015. He is also former President of the International Society of Markets & Development.

He is currently an associate editor of Consumption, Markets & Culture and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Macro Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, and Journal of Historical Research in Marketing. He has guest edited special issues of Marketing Theory, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Macro Marketing, and Journal of Historical Research in Marketing. He has also co-edited books published by Cambridge University Press on alternative organizations in India and on critical marketing published by Routledge.

He is interested in supervising PhDs in the following areas:

  • Critical Theory
  • Marketing and Society
  • Consumer Culture
  • History of Marketing
  • Subaltern Consumption
  • Resistance and Consumer Movements
  • Colonialism, Consumption, and Markets

Qualifications

  • Ph.D, University of Utah
  • MBA, McGill University

Biography

Past Positions:

2017 – 2019: Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

2015 – 2017: Professor, Deakin University

2012 – 2015: Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

2010 –2012: Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

2009 – 2010: Senior Lecturer, Henley Business School, University of Reading                                  

2006 – 2008: Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta                                  

2002 – 2006: Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Teaching

  • Social Marketing and Societal Issues
    BSc Programme in Singapore
  • Cross Cultural Communication
    MSc Programme

Postgraduate supervision

  • Four Successful PhD Supervisions
  • Served on Supervisory Committees of Several PhD Students

Research

Research interests

Rohit uses interpretive methodologies and his broad areas of research are critical management/marketing and consumer culture. His current inter-disciplinary research focuses on corporate violence, exploitation, modern slavery, consumer ethics, and resistance to corporatization and marketization. He is also interested in history of marketing and impact of colonialism on consumer culture.

Other activities

  • Associate Editor, Consumption, Markets and Culture
  • Member, Editorial Review Board of Journal of Macromarketing
  • Member, Editorial Review Board of Journal of Historical Research in Marketing
  • Member, Editorial board of Journal of Marketing Management
  • Guest Co-Editor (with Nikhilesh Dholakia) Special Issue on India of International Journal of Historical Research, 2018
  • Guest Editor, Special Issue on Markets, Marketing and Violence of Journal of Marketing Management, 2018
  • Guest Co-Editor (with Giana Eckhardt and Nikhilesh Dholakia) Special Issue on Globalization of Marketing Ideology of Journal of Macromarketing, 2013
  • Editor, Decision (Journal published by Indian Institute of Management Calcutta), 2008-10
  • Ad Hoc Reviewer:
    Marketing Theory
    Journal of Consumer Research
    Journal of Service Research
    Journal of Public Policy and Marketing
    Journal of Business Ethics
    Human Relations
    Organization Studies

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Varman, R & Vijay, D (eds) 2022, Organizing Resistance and Imagining Alternatives in India. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009193405

Article

Varman, R, Belk, RW & Sreekumar, H 2023, 'Post-Colonial Consumer Respect and the Framing of Neocolonial Consumption in Advertising', Journal of Consumer Research. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad063

Varman, R & Srinivas, N 2023, 'Theorizing necroptics: Invisibilization of violence and death-worlds', Organization. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505084231189188

Varman, R, Al-Amoudi, I & Skålén, P 2023, 'Workplace Humiliation and the Organization of Domestic Work', Organization Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406231157034

Eckhardt, GM, Belk, RW, Bradford, T, Dobscha, S, Ger, G & Varman, R 2022, 'Decolonizing marketing', Consumption Markets and Culture, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 176–186. https://doi.org/10.1080/10253866.2021.1996734

Varman, R, Sreekumar, H & Belk, RW 2022, 'Money, sacrificial work, and poor consumers', Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 657–677. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucac008

Varman, R, Vijay, D & Skålén, P 2022, 'The conflicting conventions of care: transformative service as justice and agape', Journal of Service Research, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 86-107. https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705211018503

Chatzidakis, A, Maclaren, P & Varman, R 2021, 'The regeneration of consumer movement solidarity', Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 289–308. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucab007

Varman, R, Skålén, P, Belk, RW & Chaudhuri, HR 2020, 'Normative violence in domestic service: a study of exploitation, status, and grievability', Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04444-1

Chapter

Varman, R 2023, Poverty, Modern Slavery, and Caste-Based Biopolitics. in Researching Poverty and Austerity: Theoretical Approaches, Methodologies and Policy Applications. Taylor and Francis, pp. 71-88. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003226222-6

Varman, R & Vijay, D 2022, Capitalist Deathworlds and Alternative Worldmaking. in R Varman & D Vijay (eds), Organizing Resistance and Imagining Alternatives in India. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-40. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009193405.001

Varman, R & Vijay, D 2021, The Thanatopolitics of Neoliberalism and Consumer Precarity. in Y Minowa & R Belk (eds), Consumer Culture Theory in Asia: History and Contemporary Issues. 1st edn, Routledge Frontiers in the Development of International Business, Management and Marketing, Routledge, New York. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003111559-14

Sreekumar, H & Varman, R 2019, The Development of Political Consumerism in India. in The Oxford Handbook of Political Consumerism. Oxford University Press.

Editorial

Chatzidakis, A, Kerrigan, F & Varman, R 2023, 'Academic integrity, quality scholarship, and critical perspectives cannot be suppressed', Marketing Theory, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 557-560. https://doi.org/10.1177/14705931231199557

Kravets, O & Varman, R 2022, 'Introduction to special issue: Hierarchies of knowledge in marketing theory', Marketing Theory, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 127–133. https://doi.org/10.1177/14705931221089326

View all publications in research portal