Sarah E. Dempsey

Assistant Professor
Organizational Communication

AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION

Dr. Sarah Dempsey’s research and teaching focuses on communication, collaboration, and representation in relation to nonprofit, community-based, and gendered forms of organizing. In her research, she draws on qualitative methods and critical/cultural approaches. Recent projects investigate the negotiation of accountability and grassroots representation by international NGOs, gendered representations of communication technologies, and the role of difference within transnational feminism. A current project examines the role of communication and power within campus-community engagement initiatives, and is informed by her work with the Center for Integrating Research and Action at UNC-Chapel Hill, http://www.cira-unc.org/. She is also currently researching the rise of social entrepreneurship, including how it is impacting meanings of work within the nonprofit sector.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Dempsey, S. E., & Sanders, M. L. (In press). Meaningful work? Marketization and work/life imbalance in popular autobiographies of social entrepreneurship. Organization.

Dempsey, S. E. (2009) Critiquing Community Engagement. Management Communication Quarterly. Online First, doi:10.1177/0893318909352247.

Dempsey, S. E. (2009). NGOs, Communicative Labor, and the Work of Grassroots Representation. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 6, 4, 328-345.

Dempsey, S. E. (2009). The Increasing Technology Divide: Persistent Portrayals of Maverick Masculinity in Advertising. Feminist Media Studies, 9, 37-55.

Dempsey, S.E. (2009) Stakeholder Theory. In S. W. Littlejohn & K. Foss (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Communication Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 929-931.

Dempsey, S. E. (2007). Negotiating Accountability within International Contexts: The Role of Bounded Voice. Communication Monographs, 34(3), 311-322.

Dempsey, S. E. (2007). Towards a critical organizational approach to civil society contexts: A case study of the difficulties of transnational advocacy. In B. J. Allen, L. A. Flores & M. P. Orbe (Eds.), The International and Intercultural Communication Annual (Vol. 30, pp. 317-339). Washington, D. C.: National Communication Association.

Dempsey, S. E. (2006). Globalizing Feminist Social Change: A Review of Valentine M. Moghadam’s “Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks,” and the Sangtin Writers’ and Richa Nagar’s “Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India.” Women’s Studies Quarterly, 34, 1 & 2, 481-486.

COURSES TAUGHT

COMM 082: Globalizing Organizations
COMM 625: Communication and Nonprofits
COMM 629: Organizing for Social Change
COMM 629: Communication, Work & Globalization
COMM 703: Communication and the Social
COMM 825: Labor and Collectivity in the Global Context