Dirk vom Lehn is Professor of Organisation & Practice. He is a member of Public Services Management & Organisation (PSMO) and the Work, Interaction and Technology Research Group.

Dirk’s research is primarily concerned with looking and seeing and with the practice of walking together. He has undertaken studies in museums and galleries, in optometric consultations, on street-markets, and at dance workshops. Through detailed ethnomethodological studies of interaction using video as principal data Dirk has examined the social organisation of talk and bodily action and pursued questions such as,-

• how do museum visitors constitute features of works of art?,
• how do museum visitors manage to organise their concerted navigation and exploration of galleries?,
• how do novice dancers manage to move in step with each other and with the music?,
• how do optometrists arrive at a measure describing how clearly a patient can see?, and
• how do optometrist use standard charts in assessing the eye-sight of their patients?

Dirk also has undertaken studies on street-markets and investigated the marketing practices traders use to attract customers to their stalls, to keep customers interested in the goods on offer, and to price goods in negotiation with customer.

In his studies, Dirk has a keen interest in how technology features in the interaction between participants. The technologies he has been considering include (low-tech) labels, hands-on interactive exhibits in museums and science centres, standard charts and trial frames in optometric practices as well as computer-based interactives, digital, mixed-reality artworks in museums.

Apart from empirical studies, Dirk also has an interest in the creation and development of ethnomethodology, in the relationship of ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism as well as in the further advancement of video-based research methods for the study of the organisation of action.

Dirk teaches a module titled “Marketing, Interaction, and Technology” on the MSc in “Management and Technological Change” and the MSc in “International Management” (MiM). He also contributes to the teaching of Qualitative Research Methods in the BSc undergraduate programmes and PhD programme at King’s Business School.

Areas of Expertise:

• technology in interaction
• organisation studies and social practice
• ethnomethodological analysis of interaction
• interactionist sociology
• video-analysis and ethnography
• interaction in museums, in optometric consultations, on street markets, and in dance workshops

Dirk’s research has been published in international journals in sociology, management and marketing, including Academy of Management Journal, International Journal for Research in Marketing, British Journal of Management, Sociology, Symbolic Interaction, and others. He also has written and co-edited 10 books:

• Peopling Marketing: Interactionist Studies of Marketing Interaction (Routledge, 2024)
• People, Technology, and Social Organization (co-edited with N. Ruiz-Junco and W. Gibson, Routledge 2024)
• The Anthem Companion to Harold Garfinkel. (co-edited with P. Sormani, Anthem Press, 2024)
• The Routledge International Handbook of Interactionism (co-edited with N. Ruiz-Junco and W. Gibson, Routledge, 2021)
• The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites (with H. Lewi, W. Smith & S. Cooke, Routledge 2019)
• Kleines Al(e)phabet des Kommunikativen Konstruktivismus: Fundus Omnium Communicativum - Hubert Knoblauch zum 60. Geburtstag. (co-edited with B. Schnettler, René Tuma, Dirk vom Lehn, Boris Traue und Thomas S. Eberle, Springer, 2019)
• Institutions, Interaction, and Social Theory (with Will Gibson, Palgrave, 2017)
• Harold Garfinkel: The Creation and Development of Ethnomethodology (Routledge, 2014) (in German 2012, in Japanese 2024)
• Ethnomethodologische Interaktionsanalyse (Belz-Juventa, 2018)

Dirk also co-edited Special Issues of international journals:

• “Producing and Consuming Art: a marketing perspective” in Consumption, Markets, and Culture (with F. Kerrigan and D. O'Reilly, 2009, Vol.12(3)),
• “Phenomenology-based Ethnography” (with R.Hitzler, 2018) in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (Vol.44(5))
• “Interaction and Symbolic Interactionism” in Symbolic Interaction (with W. Gibson, 2011, Vol.34(3))
• “The Senses in Social Interaction” in Symbolic Interaction (with W. Gibson, 2021, Vol.44(1))

Currently, he is an Associate Editor of Symbolic Interaction and on the editorial board of Arts and the Market, Cultural Sociology, and the Journal of Organizational Ethnography.

Dirk is a member of the American Sociological Society (ASA) and has been the co-chair (with Erik Vinkhuyzen) of the ASA Section Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (2012-2014). He also is a member of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI) and of the British Sociological Association (BSA).

Dirk accepts PhD application, in particular in the following areas;-

• Looking and Seeing in Work- and Public Places

• Art Perception in Interaction

• Art and Empathy

• Technology in (Inter)action
• (Multi)sensory interaction

At King’s Business School, Dirk is the Programme Director of the BSc International Management, and at King's College London he is a member of the Collaborative Provisions Sub-Committee.

Dirk's Research Excellence Framework 2021 impact case study was called Developing New Training to Improve Communication in Optometry. Read the impact feature on this case study here.

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