Dr Sheree Gregory
Dr. Sheree Gregory is a Senior Lecturer in Human Resources and Management in the School of Business, teaching undergraduate and post-graduate students, supervising higher degree candidates, and mentoring early career researchers. She has received awards for teaching (individual), best academic paper in entrepreneurship (with co-authors), and international education (with team).
Sheree is a national convenor of the Sociology of Work, Labour and Economy (SWLE) thematic group of The Australian Sociological Association, joint editor of two monographs on Women and Work (RMIT 2005, 2007), Editorial Advisory Committee Member of the International Small Business Journal (SAGE), and lead guest editor of an upcoming Special Issue on Equity in the Creative Industries, for the Journal of Sociology in 2025. Sheree is editing a book on motherhood in contemporary Australia with Associate Professor Kate Huppatz; previously sub-committee member of the Global Talent Flows project appointed by the Innovation and Productivity Council, and Reviews Editor of Media International Australia (SAGE).
Sheree’s funded research focuses on women entrepreneurs, the future of work and care, and aims to improve our understanding of working life by highlighting the contradictions and complexities around equality, households and workplaces in the 21st century. She has worked with partner organisations such as William Buck (financial advisors), Women in Film and Television (WIFT), Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), Pitcher Partners, GM Holden.
In 2021, Sheree concluded her role as Board Director and Chair of the Crack Theatre Festival – a national theatre festival for emerging artists, held annually in Newcastle, NSW. She served on the Board since 2017 and assisted with successful funding applications and collaborations in the sector. This role complemented her research on work and employment issues in creative industries – Australian theatre and screen production.
In 2019, Sheree was a visiting scholar at the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at Brown University (USA). In 2016, her WSU Women's Fellowship investigated the barriers to women's employment participation in the cultural industries and gender equality policy and practice in film and television. Sheree was selected as a visiting scholar to the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam in July 2016 for cross-cultural research development around her work on the entrepreneurial urban economy, family business networks, and work/life balance.
As a scholarly academic with a growing public intellectual profile, Sheree is frequently called on for invited keynote addresses in community forums, industry conferences, seminars, and Dean's lectures. Her work has been featured in industry magazines, national newspapers in Australia and internationally such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Age, ABC News, among others. She has been an invited reviewer for proposed books in gender, family business and entrepreneurship.
In 2015, Sheree was appointed by the Dean of the School of Business to the Research and Higher Degrees Committee. Sheree has supported students as a mentor and convenor of the HR and Management discipline for The Lucy Mentoring Program in 2016, for third year female high-achieving students, and student and staff collaboration hackathons in 2016 and 2017 with the Institute for Culture and Digital Humanities Research Group, and Academic Program Advisor in 2020 to 2021.
Prior to joining Western Sydney University, Sheree was an ARC Linkage Project Post-doctoral Research Fellow investigating family business succession planning decision-making and gender equality among intergenerational firms across Australia, which involved co-designing the Global Succession Planning Survey translated into 9 languages and involving 56 countries.
Qualifications
- PhD, 2011, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
- BA (Hons), 2002, Sociology and Anthropology, University of Newcastle, Australia
Research Focus
- Work/family policies, innovative strategies and interventions for transitions around pregnancy, motherhood/parenthood, work/life blend/interference and flexible work
- Work-based gender inequality and the 'care economy'
- Family business succession planning and entrepreneurship
- Social, Collaborative and Innovation Networks
- Success strategies for social and cultural change in cultural industries
- Gender equality policy initiatives
Awards and Recognition
- 2021: Best Academic Paper, Small Enterprise Assoc. of Australia and NZ conference (with co-authors)
- 2020: Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Awards, Meritorious Service in International Education, School of Business, Wester Sydney University (with team)
- 2015: Recognition of excellence in teaching, School of Management, College of Business, RMIT University (individual award)
Selected Publications
Gregory, S 2023, ‘Emerging Issues in Gender and Leadership: Succession Planning and Gender Equality in Australian Universities’, Chapter 4, In Samad, A, Ahmed, E, and Arora, N, (Eds) Global leadership perspectives on industry, society, and government in an era of uncertainty, Chapter 4, IGI Global. ISBN 9781668482575.
Condie, J, Ayres, L, Bridges, N, Gregory, S, Huppatz K, James, D, Khorana, S, Third, A, Tusasiirwe, S, and Woodrow, C 2023, The Future of Work and ChildCare: Towards Equity and Justice for Western Sydney communities, Western Sydney University, DOI: 10.26183/6thz-fh85
Rodriguez Serna, L, Bowyer, D M, and Gregory, S K 2023, ‘Management control systems. A non-family stakeholder perspective on the critical success factors influencing continuous stakeholder support during businesses succession’, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 290-310. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/10.1108/JSBED-09-2021-0364
Gregory, S., and Verhoeven, D 2021, ‘Inequality, Invisibility and Inflexibility: Mothers and Carers Navigating Careers in the Australian Screen Industries,’ In Liddy, S., and O’Brien, A. (Eds.) Media Work, Mothers and Motherhood: Negotiating the International Audio-Visual Industry, Chapter 2, Series: Routledge Studies in Media and Cultural Industries. ISBN 978036753600-8.
Gregory, S 2021, ‘Managing Labour Market Re-entry Following Maternity Leave Among Women in the Australian Higher Education Sector,’ Journal of Sociology, vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 577–594.
Gregory, S & Verhoeven, D 2018, ‘Honey, I Hid the Kids!’, The Conversation, 12 October, online: https://theconversation.com/honey-i-hid-the-kids-australias-screen-industry-is-letting-down-carers-104843
Gregory, S & Brigden, C 2017, 'Gendered scenes: conceptualising the negotiation of paid work and child care among performers in film, television and theatre production' (opens in new window), Media International Australia, vol. 163, no.1.
Gregory, S 2016, 'International women's day: equality and work in the screen industry under the microscope', Institute for Culture and Society Blog, 8 March.
Gregory, S 2016, 'Behind the scenes: new research will shine a light on the precarious work/life balancing act in the entertainment industry', Equity Magazine, Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, January.
Smith, M & Gregory, S 2016, 'Award modernisation and barriers to gender pay equity: towards a new analytical framework', Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia & New Zealand Conference, Sydney.
