Dr. Stephen Murphy

• Murphy, S., Patterson, M., O'Malley, L, Learning How: Body techniques and the consumption of experience, Marketing Theory , 2019Journal Article, 2019, TARA - Full Text
• O'Leary, K., Murphy, S., Moving beyond Goffman: The performativity of anonymity on social networking sites, European Journal of Marketing, 2019, p83-107Journal Article, 2019, TARA - Full Text
• O'Malley, L., O'Dwyer, M., McNally, R. C., and Murphy, S, Identity, collaboration and radical innovation: The role of dual organisation identification, Industrial Marketing Management, 2014, p1335-1342Journal Article, 2014, TARA - Full Text
• Murphy, S. and M. Patterson, Motorcycling Edgework: A Practice Theory Perspective, Journal of Marketing Management, 2011, p1322-1340Journal Article, 2011, TARA - Full Text
• O'Dwyer, M., O'Malley, L., Murphy, S., & McNally, R. C, Insights into the creation of a successful MNE innovation cluster, Competitiveness Review, 2015, p288-309Journal Article, 2015, TARA - Full Text
• Murphy, S. and M Patterson, Elucidating a Theory of Practice for Consumer Research, European Advances in Consumer Research Conference, 2013Journal Article, 2013, TARA - Full Text
• Murphy, S, Assembling Embodiment: Body, Techniques and Things, Advances in Consumer Research , 48, 2020, p1112 - 1117Journal Article, 2020, TARA - Full Text
• Murphy, S, He's got the touch': Tracing the masculine regulation of the body schema in reciprocal relations between 'self-others-things', Marketing Theory , 1, 2022, p21 - 40Journal Article, 2022, URL , TARA - Full Text
• Cirella, S. & Murphy, S., Exploring intermediary practices of collaboration in university- industry innovation: A practice theory approach, Creativity and Innovation Management , 2022, p1 - 18Journal Article, 2022, DOI , URL , TARA - Full Text
• Stephen Murphy, Tim Hill, Pierre McDonagh, Amanda Flaherty, Mundane emotions: Losing yourself in boredom, time and technology, Marketing Theory, 2023Journal Article, 2023, TARA - Full Text
• Hill, T., Murphy, S., Canniford., Communities of Stigmatized Knowledge: Social Exclusion, Political Sovereignty, and Globalized Capitalism, Advances in Consumer Research Conference,, Paris, 1 - 4 October, Vol 48, 2020, pp1198-Conference Paper, 2020
• O'Leary, K., Murphy, S., Online Gambling during/after Covid, Academy of Marketing 2022 Annual Conference, Huddersfield., 5-7 July, edited by S. Roper & C. McCamley , 2021Conference Paper, 2021
• Murphy, S., Hill, T.,, `Training the Senses to Succeed in Craft', Consumer Culture Theory Conference, Lund, 27 - 30 June, 2023Poster, 2023

I am a consumer researcher specialising in the relationship between technology, embodiment, and identity. My research examines how individuals interact with technology and the profound impact it has on their lives. I have a keen interest in exploring how emotions, sensations, and skills play a role in these interactions. I aim to show how technology influences identity, by shaping how consumers think, feel, and act, and as a result who they become. These interests have led to recent studies on boredom and technology use during the pandemic, the social life of conspiracy theorists and the challenges craftworkers experience in turning their hobbies into a business. I welcome inquiries from potential PhD students on a variety of topics, including but not exclusively: Conspiracy theories Craftwork and creativity Emotions, skills and consumption experience Embodiment and the senses Voluntary risk taking

• Title

  'Do Your Own Research': How and when conspiracy theories resonate
  Summary

  How and when do people become conspiracy theorists? Answers to this question vary by discipline and include explanations made at both individual and societal levels of analysis. Recently, the concept of 'resonance' has been put forward as a means to unite these levels of analysis. Resonance describes how individuals can experience conspiracy theories as 'awakening moments', particularly when these alternative claims to truth enable social groups to handle social problems and grievances. To date, however, studies have not explained the processes and contextual conditions by which experiences of resonance occur. Drawing on data from an extended ethnographic study of the British 'truth seeker' movement, this study examines the specific contexts in which persons, situations and cultural objects combine to create resonance. We show that people's initial receptivity to conspiracy theories is primed by moral emotions, which include feelings of indignations, contempt and resentment. Next, we demonstrate how 'awakenings' are sparked by interactive situations where people work together to solve shared problems. Finally, we explain how the participatory qualities of conspiracy theories sustain lasting transformation in worldviews. This research shows that in the myriad of activities involved in 'doing your own research' the truth seeker subjectivity is created and maintained.
  Date From

  2018
• Title

  "Making something from nothing": Phenomenological insights into handling craftwork from home
  Summary

  How are craftworkers lives influenced by the demands and expectations of working from home? And how are craft workers' identities enacted to demonstrate an ability to cope with these additional home-based demands? This study brings a phenomenological perspective on home and situated experience to bear on a combination of ethnographic material and interview data collected over a three-year period with female craftworkers in Ireland and the UK. This research shows that while craftwork presents consumers with opportunities to pursue creative work, doing so from the home, also means coping with additional risks, responsibilities, and expectations. In contributing to the growing interest in the contemporary craft revival, this research shows that where craft happens matters to how it is experienced, and that the pursuit of craftwork is compelled and constrained by a range of social, cultural, and economic demands.
  Funding Agency

  Dublin City Council
  Date From

  2021
• Title

  Mundane Emotions: Losing Yourself in Boredom, Time, and Technology
  Summary

  Much marketing and consumer research has drawn attention to the positive and joyful emotional feature of consumer tribes. However, research has little to say on boredom, an emotional state prevalent in consumers' lives that was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic due to lockdown restrictions. Informed by Heidegger's understanding of boredom as a fundamental mood tied to temporality, this research uses semi-structured interviews to identify two kinds of boredom - superficial and profound boredom - and their specific temporal dynamics. Superficial boredom is common, and refers to a situational restlessness in which people desire distractions. In contrast, profound boredom refers to an existential discomfort in which people struggle with a sense of self, but ultimately can result in authentic self-disclosure. We explain superficial boredom as a symptom of a dominant capitalist temporal regime that comprise connectivity and acceleration. Together these temporal logics fragment and compress time in ways that encourage mundane social media consumption that simply fills time. We also explain how profound boredom stems from an abundance of uninterrupted time spent in relative solitude. We highlight two paradoxes. On the one hand, social media consumption exploits superficial boredom and at the same time suppresses the time and opportunity for its overcoming. On the other hand, it is the depths of distress within profound boredom that reveals possibilities for authentic self-disclosure. In providing a theory of boredom, our research contributes to consumer research's understanding of mundane emotions, and the organisation of time in contemporary consumer society.
  Date From

  2021

Economics and Business Administration,

• TBS Excellence in Teaching Award 2021
• Best Conference Poster - Consumer Culture Theory Conference Montreal 2019
• TBS Excellence in Teaching Award 2023
• Best Paper in Track - Academy of Marketing Annual Conference, Liverpool 2011
• Best Paper in Track - Academy of Marketing Annual Conference Limerick 2017
• Essex University Student Choice Award for "Innovative Teaching" 2017
• Top cited article for 2023 (Wiley) 2023
• TBS Excellence in Teaching Award 2024
• Performance Excellence Award 2022

• Consumer Culture Theory Consortium
• Fellowship of The Higher Education Academy
• Academy of Marketing

• External Research Supervisor University of Essex 2020
• Reviewer for Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana 2024
• Expert Reviewer for Marketing Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) conducting a review of accreditation application for Dublin Business School's MSc Marketing Programme. 20024
• Reviewer for Consumer Culture Theory Conference 2023
• Reviewer for Marketing Theory 2019
• External Examiner University of Bath 2021