Professor Rohit Varman

Professor Rohit Varman

Department of Marketing
Professor of Marketing and Consumption
Director of PhD Studies (Marketing)

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 415 8356
Email
r.varman@bham.ac.uk
Address
Room G40, University House
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT

Rohit Varman is Professor of Marketing and Consumption at BBS. 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

Edited Books

  • Varman, Rohit and Devi Vijay (2022) Organizing Resistance and Imagining Alternatives in India, Cambridge University Press.
  • Tadajewski, Mark, Matthew Higgins, Janice Denegri-Knott, and Rohit Varman (2018) Routledge Companion to Critical Marketing, London: Routledge.
  • Vijay, Devi and Rohit Varman (2017) Undoing Boundaries: Alternative Organisations in India, Cambridge University Press.

Recent Journal Articles

  • Varman, Rohit, Hari Sreekumar, and Russell W. Belk (2022). Money, Sacrificial Work, and Poor Consumers. Journal of Consumer Research.
  • Varman, Rohit, Devi Vijay, and Per Skalen (2021). The Conflicting Conventions of Transformative Care. Journal of Service Research.
  • Chatzidakis, Andreas, Pauline McLaren, and Rohit Varman (2021) The Regeneration of Consumer Solidarity.  Journal of Consumer Research.
  • Sreekumar, Hari, & Varman, Rohit (2019). Vagabonds at the Margins: Acculturation, Subalterns, and Competing Worth. Journal of Macromarketing, 39(1), 37-52.
  • Varman, Rohit and Devi Vijay (2018).  Dispossessing Vulnerable Consumers: Derealization, Desubjectification and Violence. Marketing Theory.

  • Varman, Rohit, Paromita Goswami and Devi Vijay (2018). The Precarity of Respectable Consumption: Normalizing Sexual Violence Against Women. Journal of Marketing Management

  • Varman, Rohit and Ismael Al-Amoudi (2016), Accumulation through Derealisation: How Corporate Violence Remains Unchecked, Human Relations. 69 (10) 1909–1935.

  • Ram M. Vikas, Rohit Varman, and Russell W. Belk (2015) Status, Caste, and Markets in a Changing Indian Village, Journal of Consumer Research, 42(3), 472-98.