Associate Professor
Bree Hurst
Faculty of Business & Law,
School of Advertising, Marketing & PR
Biography
Bree is an Associate Professor at the QUT Business School. She has a PhD in corporate social responsibility and organisational communication.Her research in corporate responsibility, social licence to operate, and food waste is critical in a world where organisations need to be held accountable for their impacts on communities, society and the environment. Her research recommends organisations take a whole of system view to engage with stakeholders, move beyond a narrow focus on profits and legal requirements, and critically examine their social and environmental impacts.
Bree has had her work published in a number of academic journals and books, including the the Journal of Business Ethics (Financial Times Top 50 journal) and awarding winning handbooks, Handbook of Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility and Handbook of Communication Engagement. She has been awarded research funding in food waste, agriculture and mining and has co-edited a special issue on social licence to operate, social impact, and engagement in Public Relations Review.
Bree is Deputy Director of QUT's Centre for Decent Work & Industry, and is a Chief Investigator within the Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy. She is also the Subject Area Coordinator for the public relations discipline at QUT.
Her research interests include:
- Corporate responsibility
- Food waste
- Social licence to operate
- Social impact
- Stakeholder engagement
- Organisational communication
Personal details
Positions
- Associate Professor
Faculty of Business & Law,
School of Advertising, Marketing & PR
Keywords
Public relations, Corporate social responsibility, Sustainable governance, Communication, Institutional theory, Legitimacy, Rhetoric, Qualitative research
Research field
Marketing, Strategy, management and organisational behaviour
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2020
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (Queensland University of Technology)
- Bachelor of Business (Honours) (Queensland University of Technology)
- Bachelor of Business (Public Relations) (Queensland University of Technology)
Professional memberships and associations
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Member - Public Relations Division, International Communication Association
Teaching
Bree is the Subject Area Coordinator for the Public Relations discipline and teaches across the postgraduate and undergraduate majors.
Publications
- Devin, B. & Richards, C. (2018). Food waste, power, and corporate social responsibility in the Australian food supply chain. Journal of Business Ethics, 150(1), 199–210. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/222970
- Richards, C., Hurst, B., Messner, R. & O'Connor, G. (2021). The paradoxes of food waste reduction in the horticultural supply chain. Industrial Marketing Management, 93, 482–491. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/207428
- Hurst, B. & Johnston, K. (2021). The social imperative in public relations: Utilities of social impact, social license and engagement. Public Relations Review, 47(2). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/210222
- Hurst, B., Johnston, K. & Lane, A. (2020). Engaging for a social licence to operate (SLO). Public Relations Review, 46(4). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/202038
- Hurst, B., Roper, J. & George, M. (2019). Can corporations take political roles [and should they]? The case of Papua New Guinea and the extractive industry. Resources Policy, 64, 1–6. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/133902
- Hurst, B. & Ihlen, O. (2018). Corporate social responsibility and engagement: Commitment, mapping of responsibilities, and closing the loop. In K. Johnston & M. Taylor (Eds.), The handbook of communication engagement (Handbooks in Communication and Media) (pp. 133–147). John Wiley & Sons. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/127469
- Johnston, K., Lane, A., Devin, B. & Beatson, A. (2018). Episodic and relational community engagement: Implications for social impact and social license. In K. Johnston & M. Taylor (Eds.), The handbook of communication engagement (Handbooks in Communication and Media) (pp. 169–185). John Wiley & Sons. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/109798
- Lane, A. & Devin, B. (2018). Operationalizing stakeholder engagement in CSR: A process approach. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 25(3), 267–280. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/115559
- Hurst, B. & Lane, A. (2014). Communicating engagement in corporate social responsibility: A meta-level construal of engagement. Journal of Public Relations Research, 26(5), 436–454. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/74780
- Koya, N., Hurst, B. & Roper, J. (2021). In whose interests? When relational engagement to obtain a social license leads to paradoxical outcomes. Public Relations Review, 47(1). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/207889
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Bree, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).