Research
My research to date has focused on empirical research into multinational company responses to globalisation pressures and the impact on their subsidiaries in different national contexts. The research has explored the complex interplay between global and national business system influences on multinational company policies and practices at both headquarter and subsidiary levels, focussing specifically on how they help to shape work organisation.

I have just started a 2 year international research project looking at ‘Work and Employment Relations in European Multinational Food Retailers-Discounters and Supermarkets’ financed by the Hans Boeckler Foundation in Germany. This will be carried out across 6 countries by a team of researchers based in the countries concerned. This is the first pan-European project based in research institutions outside Germany which the Foundation has financed. I have also been working on funding bids to look at a European comparison of health care coordination in the area of breast cancer.

Administration
Director of Postgraduate Studies, School of Business and Economics
Member of the Learning and Teaching Committee, School of Business and Economics
Member of the School Management Group

Other
Graduate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Member of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association
Research fellow in the Centre for Organisational Learning in International Settings (COLIS), School of Management, University of Surrey, Guildford

Selected recent publications:

• Williams, K. and M. Geppert, (forthcoming 2011), ‘Bargained globalization: employment relations providing robust ‘tool kits’ for socio-political strategizing in multinational companies in Germany’ in Dorrenbacher, C. and M. Geppert (editors), ‘Power and Politics in Multinational Corporations’, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Williams, K. and M. Geppert (2006), ‘The German model of employee relations on trial: negotiated and unilaterally imposed change in multi-national companies’, Industrial Relations Journal, Vol. 37, no.1, pp.48-63 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2338.2006.00389.x]
• Williams, K. and M. Geppert (2006), ‘Global, national and local practices in multinational corporations: towards a sociopolitical framework’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 17, no.1 (Jan), pp.1-21. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585190500366243]
• Williams, K., Geppert, M., (2006) ‘Employment Relations as a resource in the socio-political construction of  transnational social spaces by MNCs: Evidence from German and British subsidiaries’, Chapter two in Geppert, M., Mayer, M., (eds), ‘Global, national and local practices in MNCs’, Basingstoke, Palgrave,
• Geppert, M., Matten, D., Williams, K., (eds), (2002), Challenges for European Management in a Global Context-Experiences from Britain and Germany, Basingstoke, Palgrave.
• Geppert, M., D. Matten and K. Williams, (2003), Change management in multinational companies: how global convergence intertwines with national diversities’ Human Relations, Vol.56, no.7, pp. 807-838. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00187267030567003]. This paper won the Carolyn Dexter Best International Paper Award, Academy of Management Conference, Denver Colorado 2002
• Geppert, M., D. Matten and K. Williams, (2003), ‘The Social Construction of Contextual Rationalities in MNCs: An Anglo-German Comparison of Subsidiary Choice’, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 40, no. 3 (May), pp.617-641. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-6486.00354]
• Geppert, M., Matten, D., Williams, K., (Eds), (2002), Challenges for European Management in a Global Context-Experiences from Britain and Germany, Basingstoke, Palgrave.