Members of the group address questions concerning the ‘creation and exploitation of advantage across boundaries’. Creating advantage builds on research in the group about entrepreneurship, innovation, new combinations, capability development, dealing with uncertainty and change and sense-making. This research often deals with various ways to develop opportunities that can be the basis for new ways to satisfy customers and stakeholders. Relatedly, are the strategies or strategising to defend or sustain a position in the market and among stakeholders.
Members of the group regularly publish in the top journals in each of these three fields (such as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of World Business, Journal of Business Venturing), but also in more general management journals, such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, and Organization Studies. Research at the group is led by its 11 Professors, and is home to over 20 PhD students. Staff members from the group have editorial positions on leading journals, including the International Small Business Journal and Organization Theory, as well as editorial board memberships at Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, and the Journal of World Business.
SIBE group members are involved in the delivery of specialist undergraduate and postgraduate programmes including a BA (Hons) International Business and an MSc International Business, and also contribute to a wide range of modules to the School’s general management programmes with leading role son the Online MBA, the Online DBA, the Thoroughbred Horseracing Industries MBA, ULMS’s Doctoral Programme and Entrepreneurship modules.
Strategy
The processes of strategy development, strategic change as well as corporate communication and sensemaking within large mature corporations as a basis for retaining and regaining competitive advantage is the focus of research by the School Dean Professor Julia Balogun as well as Professor Joep Cornelissen. Prof Jordi Surroca’s work intersects strategic management, corporate social responsibility, and corporate governance. Ms Abigail Stewart brings international expertise in law while Professor Terry McNulty has an international reputation for his portfolio of research on corporate governance, board effectiveness, strategic leadership and change in corporations and healthcare organisations. Dr Carola Wolf adds a focus on middle management as well as strategy-practice and and Dr Anup Nair study processual aspects of strategy. MNEs’ strategic choices (investment decision, location choice) and their performance implications under macroeconomic uncertainty and country heterogeneity are examined by Professor Elizabeth Maitland as well as Dr Shubin Wu and both have published their work the Strategic Management Journal as well as other leading academic journals.
International Business
Advantages arising in cross-country settings relate to multinational firm configurations, including the interactions of headquarters and subsidiaries (Professor Balogun, Professor Wolfgang Sofka), Governance (Professor Terry McNulty), the roles of affiliations and alliances, FDI and entry decisions (Dr Andreas Procipiou), the strength of international patent systems (Professor Nikolaos Papageorgiadis, Dr Danai Christopoulou), and legal elites (Dr Jingqi Zhu). Dr Andrew Smith’s research focus in this area is on the evolution of business and financial institutions over time as well as conducting research international knowledge flows.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
The Group has substantial expertise in creating advantage, in particular through innovation and entrepreneurial ventures. Professor Wolfgang Sofka investigates firms’ searches for innovative ideas and commercialization, including the strategic choices of multinational companies, the hiring of strategic human capital as well as value capturing strategies and the Group has experts in R&D innovation (Dr Paul Ellwood, Dr Hammad Akbar, Dr Drubah Borah, and Dr Aparna Venugopal), technology transfer (Dr Sam Horner), and the role of government affiliation and firm innovativeness (Prof Vasilis Ganotakis).
Group members further study specific characteristics of entrepreneurial and small firms, including their responses to recessions (Professor Robert Blackburn), the life-course and the household as key units of analysis in the study of entrepreneurship (Professor Dilani Jayawarna) as well employment relations (Dr Sara Nadin), and historical research (Dr Andrew Smith). A particular theme in the Group’s entrepreneurship research lies on sustainable and ethical enterprise, leading to insights into prosocial cooperatives and sustainable ventures (Dr Sofia Angelidou, Dr Allan Macpherson and Dr Alan Southern). These themes are augmented Dr Julia Brennecke’s work on the antecedents and consequences of knowledge transfers within and between complex organisations, for instance within the biotech industry.
Knowledge Exchange
The Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship provides leadership training for owner-managers of growing small firms based in Greater Merseyside. The Growth Catalyst Programme has been delivered to almost 200 local small firms, which have benefitted from substantial increases in turnover.
Commitment to knowledge exchange is also demonstrated by the success of group members in obtaining ESRC CASE awards for projects based in Liverpool Vision, Unilever, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). There are also close links with the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy through the work of Dr Alan Southern. Research shows the economic value of the social economy to the Liverpool city region generates revenue of around £3 billion per annum with an employment base of around 45,000 people. Working with the Social Enterprise Network, Alan has established a practitioner group for the social economy in the city region: the Liverpool City Region Social Economy Panel consists of representatives from social enterprises, housing associations, cooperatives and charities and seeks to influence social and economic policies in the city region. The work of the Panel was presented to the Global Social Economy Forum in Montreal in 2016. Through the Heseltine Institute, Alan has been involved in setting up events on: policy for the social economy, social value and social innovation.
Members of the SIBE Group work closely with business, the public sector and the third sector in impactful research and knowledge exchange. Such activities are funded by a range of national and international funding agencies. Professor Terry McNulty obtained a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to investigate business judgements and the Courts. Dr Jennifer Johns recently obtained an ESRC CASE studentship from the North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP). Working with the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), this interdisciplinary research project is entitled ‘Commercialising innovation, knowledge assets and research excellence to enhance local economic development in the Liverpool city-region (LCR).’ This follows Benito’s previous successful CASE awards with Unilever and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and Jennifer’s CASE award with Liverpool Vision.
Supporting Postgraduate Research
Dr Dilani Jayawarna is a Reader in Entrepreneurship and is Director of Postgraduate Research the University of Liverpool Management School (ULMS). Approximately 100 students are registered on the Doctoral programme at any one time. Research topics are aligned with the School’s three subject groups: Organisation & Management, Economics, Finance and Accounting, Marketing & Operations. Many students engage in research that is linked into wider social science domains (e.g. music and sociology) as well as the natural sciences (e.g. healthcare and medicine as well as engineering). In addition to thematic diversity, there is substantial breadth of research methods and methodological stances, ranging from econometric modelling to organisational ethnography, encompassing conceptual and empirical work in combination with quantitative as well as qualitative methods. This wide array of work is supported by ULMS’s community of over 130 research active staff offering a broad range of research expertise.
Strategy, International Business and Entrepreneurship Leads
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