Igor Pyrko is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the University of Bath School of Management, where he also serves as the School Director for MRes and PhD Studies. He previously held appointments at the Universities of Strathclyde, Aston, and Bristol.

Igor’s research examines how knowledge, social learning, and judgement enable work in organisations. Intellectually, he draws on practice theories, phenomenology, virtue ethics, and the philosophy of Michael Polanyi. He is a qualitative researcher with a particular interest in integrative literature reviews and conceptual paper writing.

One strand of Igor’s research investigates situated learning and communities of practice as lenses for understanding evolving relational dynamics in everyday organisational life. His work explores how people are “formed” and how their expertise develops through social interaction and identity investment in practices. His widely cited paper, "Thinking Together," illustrates how communities of practice emerge through mutual engagement around shared concerns, rather than through external imposition. He has also examined how landscapes of practice can be mobilised to enable adjacent professions to learn from one another, particularly when tackling wicked problems such as improving mental health care or enhancing patient safety in hospitals.

A second stream of Igor’s work explores tacit knowledge, embodiment, and the exercise of practical and moral judgement in contemporary organisations. He investigates how knowledge is experienced in the moment, how it integrates mind and body, and how it informs judgement as a way of “seeing distinctions” in practice. In pursuing this line of inquiry, he has published works such as “Beyond Tacit Knowledge”, which invites management scholars to engage more deeply with Michael Polanyi’s theory of knowledge, and an integrative review that “sheds new light” on the concept of judgement in management studies.

Beyond these two core strands, Igor also examines space, time, and temporality in organisations, strategy-as-practice, and the facilitation of strategy meetings. His related publications include “Making Space for Garbage Cans”, which revisits the classic garbage can model to analyse collective action in crisis; an integrative review of the concept of temporality in organisations; and studies of facilitation and group support methodologies.

Igor is an active member of academic communities, regularly organising symposia, workshops, and seminars aligned with his research interests, both at Bath and at major international conferences. His work has appeared in leading journals, including Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Annals, Organization Studies, Human Relations, and Management Learning.

I seek PhD students in the following areas:

1. Communities of practice and situated learning 

2. Knowledge, expertise, embodiment and/or judgement from a phenomenological or process perspective 

3. Time and temporality in organisations

4. Strategy-as-practice: various topics

I only work with qualitative research. I aim to assist PhD students in writing and publishing articles as they progress with their studies. Please feel free to contact me to discuss your ideas for a research proposal.