William Fleming

I am a Research Fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre, University of Oxford. 

My research expertise is in work, wellbeing, interventions and change: how work is better or worse for us and how organisational life can be improved.  

Before taking up my current post, I completed my PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. My thesis amounted to an empirical critique of the dominant approach in workplace wellbeing practices and narratives. Research papers from my thesis have been published in Industrial Relations Journal, Social Theory & Health and Organization, with international media coverage in outlets like the New York Times, Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune and many more (even going viral on TikTok). 

My future research agenda is more positive and has three overlapping themes: workers wellbeing, strategic HR practices, and institutional change. Specific projects focus on AI, working time, digital demands, methodology, conflict resolution, and coproduction. This includes organisational field experiments, survey studies, and large-scale text analytics, as well as increasingly qualitative work using interviews, critical cases and action research. These projects are supported by grants from the Nuffield Foundation, British Academy and National Academy of Arbitrators.

After my PhD I shortly held a part-time role as a postdoctoral Research Associate with NIHR ARC East of England (Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge), exploring digital transformation and co-production in public mental health services. You can read our article from this project in JMIR Human Factors. 

I am currently Visiting Fellow at the LSE Department of Management and was a visiting fellow at Waseda Business School Tokyo in Spring 2026. I'm an affiliate of the University of Cambridge Department of Sociology and a member of the Oxford Sociology Network.

If you would like to discuss anything relating to my research, please email me.
william.fleming@hmc.ox.ac.uk

Wellbeing Research Centre profile:
Dr. William Fleming — Wellbeing Research Centre 

Twitter/X: @WillJFleming

LinkedIn: William Fleming