Transforming Society podcast

Is class truly in the past, or do invisible workplace codes still govern who gets a place in elite workplaces?
In this Transforming Business episode, Martin Parker speaks with Lee Elliot Major and Anne-Marie Sim, authors of ‘Cracking the Class Code’, about how leading employers can dismantle these class barriers.
They discuss the hidden codes passed down through generations, why it matters for both people and businesses that talent is assessed beyond these codes, and how we can build a fairer system in which everyone has a genuine chance to lead a decent life.

Lee Elliot Major is Britain’s first Professor of Social Mobility, based at the University of Exeter. Anne-Marie Sim is co-founder and lead of the South-West Social Mobility Commission at the University of Exeter.

Find out more about the book at: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trade/cracking-the-class-code

The transcript is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2026/08/25/podcast-cracking-the-class-code/

Timestamps:
01:16 - Why do you care about social class at the present moment?
04:27 - Has social mobility stalled in some way?
10:49 - What do you mean by 'class code'?
16:04 - Isn't judgement in organisations inevitable?
20:01 - How do gender, ethnicity and social class intersect?
23:05 - What should firms be doing in order not to be discriminating on the basis of social class?
28:03 - How does tax come into this equation?
31:09 - Are these steps necessary in our current 'meritocracy'?

Intro music:
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We take markets for granted. Whether it's your local car boot sale, the supermarket or the most sophisticated financial exchange, markets are so interwoven into everyday life that we rarely stop to think about them. Yet they are ingenious human creations: organized and adapted, regulated and legislated for. They evolve over time, and they create both winners and losers.
In this episode of the podcast, George Miller speaks to Philip Roscoe, professor of management at the University of St Andrews and author of What are Markets For? They discuss why a shopping trolley is more interesting than it at first appears, how markets of all sorts come to seem natural and inevitable, and what happens when we start to see them as things that people make – and can therefore remake.

Philip Roscoe is Professor in Management at the University of St Andrews.

Find out more about the book at: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trade/what-are-markets-for

The transcript is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2026/08/14/podcast-theres-more-to-a-shopping-trolley-than-meets-the-eye/

Timestamps:
01:24 - Tell me about your career path
05:25 - What lens do you see markets through?
07:52 - What is the significance of the shopping trolley?
10:46 - Why do markets feel inevitable?
15:28 - Was the 1980s a critical turning point for the idea of market thinking?
19:50 - Why is Santa a theme in your book?
26:02 - What is the darker side of markets?
30:44 - What do you think the prospects are for changing away from what we currently have?
38:07 - What is one thing you'd like the listeners to hang on to as an idea?

Intro music:
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Today’s organisations are increasingly complex with many rules and procedures and little space to think outside the box and take personal responsibility.
In this Transforming Business episode, Martin Parker speaks with Mats Alvesson and Dennis Nørmark, co-authors of ‘Return to Judgement’, about how we can tackle this and give workers more space to use their judgement.
They discuss the rise of managerialism, the problem with having an excess of an administrative ‘knowing better class’ and what can be done to give employees their agency back.

Mats Alvesson is Professor at the University of Bath, Lund University and City University of London. Dennis Nørmark is an anthropologist, author and speaker.

Find out more about the book at: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/professional-business/return-to-judgement

The transcript is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2026/06/26/podcast-why-work-needs-less-management-and-more-judgement/

Timestamps:
00:38 - What was your motivation for writing this book?
04:05 - Do you think the infantilisation we're seeing now is different in kind or quality from what we've seen in the 20th century?
06:28 - How does this fit with other complaints about modern organising?
10:52 - What are some examples of infantilisation in the workplace?
15:59 - Are there examples from private sector organisations too?
19:13 - Is this primarily a complaint by professionals, or is it wider than that?
21:05 - Are IT systems a way infantilised management gets embedded?
25:49 - What are the solutions?
33:17 - Who do you hope will read this book?

Intro music:
Cold by yoitrax | @yoitrax
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Among the challenges for FIFA, the world governing body for football, when it was set up in 1904, was securing agreement on a shared set of rules for the game. It’s come a long way since then: it’s now a multi-billion-dollar behemoth, an unparalleled power in world sport. But on the eve of what it bills as ‘the greatest show on earth’ – the 2026 World Cup hosted in North America – it’s worth pausing to ask how well it serves the interests of the fans of the planet’s biggest spectator sport.
To discuss the past, present and future of FIFA, George Miller is joined by Alan Tomlinson, Emeritus Professor of Leisure Studies at the University of Brighton and author of What is FIFA for?
Tomlinson is the antithesis of the ivory tower academic; his interest in understanding FIFA’s inner workings has taken him on years’-long quests more akin to investigative reporting than abstract theorising. This book, which one reviewer called the ‘capstone’ of his long interest in FIFA, distinguishes the reality from the rhetoric, the better to map the possible future of the game.
Throughout the conversation, two themes recur: accountability and transparency. For Tomlinson, the greatest challenge FIFA poses is not its size but the difficulty of holding such a powerful organisation to account.

Alan Tomlinson is Emeritus Professor of Leisure Studies at the University of Brighton UK and a pioneer of critical sport and leisure research, blending cultural studies with investigative and in-the-field research.

Find out more about the book at: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trade/what-is-fifa-for

The transcript is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2026/06/05/podcast-fifa-the-beautiful-game-and-billions-of-dollars-where-does-accountability-lie/

Timestamps:
01:22 - What is your football background?
04:22 - What is it about FIFA that has engaged your interest?
08:28 - How did your research approach affect what insights you gathered?
13:13 - Why is the question of what FIFA is for more complicated than it first appears?
18:45 - How transparent and accountable is FIFA?
29:18 - How vulnerable is FIFA to corruption?
33:28 - What are the top 3 priorities for a reformed FIFA?

Intro music:
Cold by yoitrax | @yoitrax
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Immigration policy is one of the most contested areas of contemporary politics. It is also one of the most misunderstood. Public debate often degenerates to trading numbers – how many people are coming in, and whether that number is too high or too low – but as Madeleine Sumption argues, the reality is both more complex and more difficult to resolve than that suggests.
In this episode of the podcast, George Miller speaks to Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford and author of 'What is Immigration Policy for?'. They discuss why there is no single ‘right’ level of immigration, how the same evidence can lead to such different conclusions, and why attempts to control migration numbers so often fail.
Their conversation also explores the limits of data in policymaking, the trade-offs between economic, humanitarian and political objectives, and the ways in which public debate often misses the fundamentally different purposes served by work, family and asylum migration.

Madeleine Sumption is the Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, which provides impartial analysis of migration in the UK.

Find out more about the book at: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trade/what-is-immigration-policy-for

The transcript is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2026/05/05/podcast-why-immigration-policy-doesnt-add-up/

Timestamps:
01:33 - What drew you into immigration policy as a career?
07:39 - Do most people cost the state more than we pay into it?
08:48 - Why is data and policy such a tricky relationship?
14:41 - Why can't you effectively cap net migration?
19:54 - What is the current state of the immigration debate in the US?
24:35 - How can we improve immigration policy?
31:11 - What's the one thing you wish everyone understood about immigration?

Intro music:
Cold by yoitrax | @yoitrax
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Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.