Ms. Sarah Browne

Assistant Professor, Trinity Business School

Biography

Sarah Browne is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Trinity Business School. Sarah completed her Ph.D. at the Dublin Institute of Technology, College of Business. Her research interests center on critical perspectives in marketing challenging problematic hyperconsumption, and exploring the role of (macro social) marketing in transitioning to a post-growth society.

Sarah's current research projects explore the commercial determinants of health, specifically critical food marketing and lobbying by the food industry and its impact on public health and policy. Other research and teaching interests are in the area of social marketing; how the principles of commercial marketing can be applied in both downstream (individual behavior) interventions for societal good and upstream advocacy and interventions for policy change. Her work has been published in Globalisation and Health, Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Ethics, Medicine and Public Health, Journal of Business Strategy, and Irish Marketing Review. Her co-authored conference papers have been awarded Best Literature Review, Best in Track and Most Innovative paper, at Academy of Marketing conferences in recent years.

She has also co-written several news articles and been interviewed by national and international media outlets (including The Irish Times, The Irish Examiner, Journal.ie, RTE Drivetime and CNN) on subjects ranging from critical food marketing, conspicuous consumption, advertising standards and rulings, and consumer behaviour during Covid-19.

Publications and Further Research Outputs

Peer-Reviewed Publications
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications

Browne, S., Sharkey-Scott, P., Mangematin, V., Lawlor, K. and Cuddihy, L., Adapting a book to make a film: how strategy is adapted through professional practices of marketing middle managers, Journal of Marketing Management, 30, (9-10), 2014, p949 - 973Journal Article, 2014, DOI , URL
Sarah Browne, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin, Patrick Gibbons, Shaking up business models with creative strategies: when tried and true stops working, Journal of Business Strategy, 2018Journal Article, 2018, URL
Sinclair, G., Campbell, N. and Browne, S., "Bunker Down: Using game-based simulations to investigate consumer-object attachment in catastrophic risk settings", Consumer Culture Theory Conference 2018, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark, 28th June 2018, 2018Conference Paper, 2018, URL
Campbell, N. Sinclair, G., and Browne, S., "Apocalyptic objects: The Bug-out Bag as an Emblematic Object of Extreme Preparation" , Academy of Marketing Conference 2018, University of Stirling, Scotland, July 2018, 2018Conference Paper, 2018, URL
Browne, S. Sharkey-Scott, P. Mangematin, V , "Commotion, conflict and chaos: How top managers allocate their attention to get strategy done", European Group for Organizational Studies, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, July 2017, 2017Conference Paper, 2017, URL
Browne, S. Sharkey-Scott, P. Mangematin, V , Ownership for Openness in Strategy Implementation., European Group for Organizational Studies, The American College of Greece, Athens, July 2015, 2015Conference Paper, 2015, URL
Fiona Grouse, Sarah Browne, Norah Campbell, The efficacy of voluntary codes of practice in relation to the advertising and marketing high fat, salt and sugar foods to children, World Social Marketing Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, 4 June 2019, 2019Conference Paper, 2019
Sarah Browne, Pamela Sharkey Scoot, Vincent Mangematin, From Strategy Making to Strategy Shaping: Middle Managers' Divergent and Convergent Activities in Shaping Strategy, Academy of Management Proceedings, Academy of Management , Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Aug 7 2015, 1, 2015Conference Paper, 2015
Norah Campbell, Gary Sinclair and Sarah Browne, Preparing for a world without markets: legitimising strategies of preppers, Journal of Marketing Management, 2019Journal Article, 2019, URL
Campbell N., Mialon M., Reilly K., Browne S. & Finucane F., How are frames generated? Insights from the industry lobby against the sugar tax in Ireland, Social Science and Medicine, 264, 2020, p113215-Journal Article, 2020, DOI
Campbell N., Browne S., Claudy M., Mialon M., Hercberg S., Silva F. & Finucane F., The Gift of Data: Industry-Led Food Reformulation and the Obesity Crisis in Europe, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 2021Journal Article, 2021, DOI , URL
M. Steele, M. Mialon, S. Browne, N. Campbell, F. Finucane, Obesity, public health ethics and the nanny state, Ethics, Medicine and Public Health, 19, 2021, phttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.jemeJournal Article, 2021, URL
Caulfield, B., Browne, S., Mullin, M., Bowman, S., & Kelly, C., Re-open our city and campus post-Covid: A case study of Trinity college Dublin, the University of Dublin, Case Studies on Transport Policy, 9, (2), 2021, p616 - 625Journal Article, 2021
Norah Campbell, Sarah Browne, Marius Claudy, Kathryn Reilly, Francis M. Finucane, Ultra-Processed Food: The Tragedy of the Biological Commons, International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 2022Journal Article, 2022, URL , TARA - Full Text
Fodhla O Connell-Grennell; Sarah Browne, Reimagning a new role for marketing: A critical discourse analysis on economic growth and prosperity., Macromarketing conference 2025- Questioning markets and marketing: Advancing Macromarketing from multiple worldviews, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 22nd to 25th, 2025Conference Paper, 2025
O Connell- Grennell, F. and Browne, S., Decolonising the political imaginary- A critical discourse analysis on the ideological narratives of economic growth, 18th Conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics and 11th International Degrowth Conference Building socially just postgrowth futures - linking theory and action, Oslo, Norway, 24-27 June 2025, 2025Conference Paper, 2025
Campbell, N., Browne, S, Claudy, M., Reilly, K., Finucane, F.M.,, Food industry degrowth as a public health strategy: the case of ultra processed baked goods, Globalization and Health, 22, 2025, p10-Journal Article, 2025, DOI , TARA - Full Text
O'Connell-Grennell, F. and Browne, S., Paving new ways for doing business: A case on degrowth-compatible organisations, 12th International Conference on CSR, Sustainability, Ethics, and Governance, Limerick, Ireland, June 17th-19th 2026Conference Paper
Browne, S. and Cuddihy, L., Questioning the Currency of Marketing Planning Today, Irish Marketing Review, 21, (1 & 2), 2011, p49 - 57Journal Article, 2011, URL

Sarah Browne , Social marketing workshop, HSE Tobacco Free Ireland 2020, HSE, Dublin, January, 2019, HSEInvited Talk

My research focuses on critical marketing, commercial determinants of heaLth, and policy. I am an established member of a productive inter-disciplinary research team. Since 2020, we have published 5 paper in top-tier international journals. Our research has had a notable impact on public health policy, offering fundamental breakthroughs in understanding the aggressive marketing and powerful industry lobby driving the overconsumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs).

I have a strong track record in outreach activity, writing articles for The Conversation, The Irish Times, The Irish Examiner and RTE Brainstorm. I have delivered a social marketing workshop to HSE management and have been an invited speaker on national radio broadcasts discussing advertising standards, food marketing and UPFs.

Since 2025, I have undergone a trajectory shift in my research. Maintaining my critical marketing perspective, and broadening my focus to public and planetary health, I am now focused on the concept of degrowth-a planned and democratic reduction of energy and resource use to bring the economy back into balance with Earth's ecological limits, in a way that reduces inequality and improves wellbeing. My research pipeline is focused on challenging growth logic and marketing-fuelled systems of overproduction and overconsumption.

I co-authored a paper published in Globalization and Health (2025), which combines two core research interests, critical food marketing with a degrowth perspective.

I currently have a paper under review at Environmental Politics (5 year Impact Factor 13.7 H-Index 98), co-written with my PhD student, which explores how a pro-growth master narrative is established in political discourse. We received positive, constructive comments from reviewers and have revised and resubmit the paper in July 2026.

In 2026, I secured funding for a new project with colleagues in social policy, exploring co-sustainable, co-operative housing as an alternative solution to the housing crisis, a key pillar of the degrowth paradigm.

Title

An Interdisciplinary Deliberative Forum: Building a Policy Framework for Cooperative Housing in Dublin

Summary

This project employs an innovative Deliberative Forum method to examine the potential of cooperative housing as a more democratic alternative to Dublin's housing crisis. The research design progresses through five key stages during a half-day event: it begins with a pre-deliberation survey to establish a baseline, provides participants with balanced briefing materials, facilitates small-group discussions, holds a plenary Q&A session with experts, and concludes with a post-deliberation survey to measure changes in knowledge and attitudes. Moderated deliberation allows for capturing how participants' opinions evolve from uninformed to considered judgments. This approach is fundamentally interdisciplinary, integrating social policy, sociology, and business studies to holistically analyse housing as a social good, a democratic endeavor, and an economically viable model.

Funding Agency

Trinity College Dublin, FAHSS

Date From

01/01/2026

Date To

31/12/2027

Recognition

Trinity Business School Teaching Excellence Award June 2020
Best Paper in Track Award- Academy of Marketing Conference July 2013
Trinity Business School Teaching Execllence Award June 2026
Trinity Business School Teaching Excellence Award June 2019
Trinity Business School Teaching Excellence Award June 2022
Trinity Business School Research Excellence Award June 2020
Most Innnovative Paper Award- Academy of Marketing Conference July 2018
Trinity Sustainability Leadership Award March 2026

Member of International Social Marketing Association (ISMA) 2020
Member of the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability (FEASTA) Current

Reviewer for European Journal of Marketing
External Examiner for Level 9 Postgraduate Taught Programme, Technological University Dublin 2017-present
External examiner for Munster Technological University for level 8 and 9 programmes for the academic year 2023-24 Sept 2023