Dr Samantha Evans

Dr. Samantha Evans is an experienced scholar in Human Resource Management (HRM) with a specialist interest in equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). This underpins her academic career and informs both her leadership roles and her growing body of research on social class and workplace inequality.

She holds a PhD from the University of Greenwich and has held several senior academic leadership roles, including Programme Director for the MSc Human Resource Management and EDI Lead at Kent Business School. In this role, she led the School’s successful application for a Bronze Athena Swan Award in 2020.

Dr. Evans is a member of the British Academy of Management and contributes to the academic community through journal and grant reviewing.

Samantha’s research is grounded in her expertise in Human Resource Management and driven by a commitment to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion. Her work explores underexamined dimensions of workplace inequality, with a particular focus on social class - an often invisible and legally unprotected characteristic in the workplace.

Through her research, she seeks to expose and understand the organisational and individual consequences of class-based inequality, alongside related topics such as the role of line managers in employee experience and HR-policy implementation, and women’s experiences of menopause at work. Her research has led to peer-reviewed publications, external funding (BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant) and wider engagement beyond academia.

Samantha teaches across the management curriculum with a focus on Human Resource Management (HRM) at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including MBA. Her teaching covers a range of core and applied topics, including the strategic and practical aspects of HRM, employee resourcing, development, and the broader contextual factors influencing people management in organisations. She is committed to delivering research-informed teaching that engages students with real-world issues and prepares them for professional practice. Samantha also supervises student dissertations.    

Samantha is happy to consider supervising proposals in the broad area of human resource management, but is particularly interested in discussing projects with applicants who have an interest in the following areas:

• Social class, Equality & Diversity       
• Menopause and the workplace    
• Work-life balance     
• Line managers and the employee experience

Current Supervisees: 

• Rebecca Ashley: The Role of Accents in Influencing Employee Behaviours and Inequalities in British Workplaces 

Past Supervisees:

• Tejumade Siyanbola: HRM and Employee Turnover in SMEs

Samantha is Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and sits on the Chartered Association of Business School’s Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Committee.