My research focuses on precarious work and zero hours contracts, corporate social responsibility, democracy in the workplace, trade union strategies, the future of work, the impact of automation on work design and employment conditions and the impact of change within organisations. Underpinned by the Quality of Work research cluster current research projects include:

• Comparative analysis of the regulation of zero hours and on-call work across seven Anglo-Saxon countries in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
• Future of Work Project: Research with large private sector organisations to investigate the impact of automation on the design of work and employee skills requirements.
• Childrens Hospital Project: Conducting research for a large public sector hospital undergoing change to investigate the process of change management and the impact on employees.
• Research commissioned by the Financial Services Union to investigate the impact of automation on the quality of work.
• Comparative research with international colleagues in Denmark and Norway to compare the extent and regulation of marginal part-time work across countries.

Other research interests include working time, annual hours and collaborative bargaining, workplace partnership and mutual gains, workplace bullying, employment law and industrial relations in the airline industry.

Lorraine is a lecturer in Employment Relations and; Human Resource Management in the Department of Work and; Employment Studies. She graduated from the University of Limerick with a BBS in 2002, an MBS (Human Resource Management) in 2003 and a PhD in 2010. Lorraine is a former IRCHSS government of Ireland scholar.andnbsp; Her main research interests include precarious work,andnbsp;zero hours contracts, automation and the future of work, workplace democracy, workplace bullying, annual hours agreements and mutual gains,andnbsp;employment law and employment relations. She has published widely including in Economic and Industrial Democracy, International Journal of Human Resource Management and Employee Relations and has presented at numerous international conferences. Her research includes commissioned reports on zero hours work to the Irish Government and the International Labour Organisation (ILO).andnbsp;