Doctoral researchers in SIBE

Slava Baranovskiy

Research theme: Entrepreneurship theory, process, context and practice

The project aims to understand challenges and opportunities emerging from digital transformation of accelerator infrastructure for business model innovation of sustainable and socially driven enterprises; to explore how to maximise these opportunities and mitigate challenges, and to develop a working model of an efficient virtual accelerator to facilitate business model development of sustainable and socially-driven enterprises.

• 1^st Supervisor: Professor Dilani Jayawarna
• 2^nd Supervisor: Dr Chanchal Balachandran

Matthew Bond

Matthew.Bond@liverpool.ac.uk

Forecasting in-play football and their various applications

During my PhD, I developed the first in-play football forecasting model that dynamically adjusts for on-field players using multi-state modelling and player ratings. My second paper is work with the English Football League, examining the cost of incorrect referee decisions to see how incorrect referee decisions effect the standings Championship, the second tier of English Football. Then a simulation is run to explore how the league table of the Championship would look if it had VAR. The final paper of my PhD looks at incorporating player fatigue into the in-play forecasting model by applying an exponential decay function to the player ratings based upon their age, ability and the number of minutes they have taken part in the match. We can then measure how well a manger makes a substitution, whilst also optimising substitutions.

• 1st Supervisor: Professor Ian McHale
• 2nd Supervisor: Dr Juan De Dios Tena Horrillo

Vanessa Cashmore

hsvcashm@liverpool.ac.uk

Female Jockey Performance

• 1st Supervisor: Professor Ian McHale
• 2nd Supervisor: Dr Babatunde Buraimo

Wun Mei Cheung

c.cheung6@liverpool.ac.uk

Autism and Entrepreneurship 

• 1st Supervisor: Professor Robert Blackburn
• 2nd Supervisor: Professor Dilani Jayawarna

Jacqueline Claire Dallas

Research theme: Entrepreneurship theory, process, context and practice

Female small businessowners providing a fundamental contribution to the UK economic development are hindered by significant gender prejudices. These biases are evidenced to limit the longevity and growth of their businesses.

This research project explores how female entrepreneurs scale-up their businesses by exploring multiple stakeholder interdependencies in an entrepreneurial ecosystem context. This thesis is structured to provide three empirical papers for publication.

• 1^st Supervisor: Professor Dilani Jayawarna
• 2^nd Supervisor: Dr Anup Nair

Aqib Wassy Deepta

A.Deepta@liverpool.ac.uk

Reframing Governance in Social Enterprises: The Role of Deliberative Stakeholder Engagement in Creating Value and Legitimacy

• 1st Supervisor: Professor Dilani Jayawarna
• 2nd Supervisor: Dr Ruomei Yang

Charlie Marie Harding

Research theme: Innovation, collaboration and emerging digital technologies

Using the Leverhulme Research Centre (LRC) as the venue, the purpose of this project is to understand how we can innovatively redesign organisations that integrate human expertise and intelligent technologies.

Theoretically, this study will contribute to the understanding of how robots may impact, and become part of, organisational network(s).

Practically, and from an organisational design perspective, the findings of the project will inform the redesign of the LRC, to enable the scientists and technology to work effectively.

• 1^st Supervisor: Professor Charlotte Croft
• 2^nd Supervisor: Dr Anup Nair

Qi Yu

qi.yu@liverpool.ac.uk

How External Uncertainty Influences Women's Entry into Corporate Boards: A Real Options Perspective

This research examines how external uncertainty, particularly fluctuations in gender equality movements, influences women’s entry into corporate boards. Rather than focusing on how institutional environments directly shape board gender diversity, the study emphasizes the intensity and volatility of institutional change. Real Options Theory (ROT) is adopted as the core theoretical framework to explain how firms respond strategically to uncertainty. The project not only investigates the appointment of female directors but also considers their subsequent development and broader implications for firms.

• 1st supervisor: Professor Jordi Surrocca
• 2nd supervisor: Dr Shubin Wu

Sinead Johnson

Research theme: Entrepreneurship theory, process, context and practice

Social enterprises operate beyond a focus on just profit, and instead seek to change the world for the better. They often work to address grand challenges that are intertwined with the state of institutional supports and are influenced and shaped by the institutional environments in which they operate.

My research seeks to provide a qualitative insight into how social enterprises, as institutional entrepreneurs, achieve social change and secure hybrid objectives, in a grand challenge context.

• 1^st Supervisor: Professor Panagiotis Ganotakis
• 2^nd Supervisor: Dr Aparna Venugopal

Rafaella Konstantinou

Rafaella.Konstantinou@liverpool.ac.uk

Strategic Stakeholder Management and Greenwashing in the Fashion Industry

This research investigates how fashion brands strategically manage stakeholder relationships in relation to sustainability claims and greenwashing concerns. Drawing on Stakeholder Theory and the Power–Interest Matrix, it examines how firms identify, prioritise, and engage stakeholders with different levels of power and interest. The study focuses on how managers interpret stakeholder expectations and regulatory pressures, and how these interpretations shape sustainability communication and stakeholder engagement practices. The project contributes to stakeholder theory and corporate sustainability research by improving understanding of how strategic stakeholder management relates to greenwashing in the fashion industry.

• 1st supervisor: Dr Sam Horner
• 2nd supervisor: Dr Ruomei Yang
• 3rd supervisor: Professor Jordi Surroca

Sihang Liu

Research theme: Sustainable strategy and its governance

Due to the uncertainty created by Brexit, UK businesses have been propelled to strengthen their engagement in Shanghai.

By the end of March 2020, the UK and much of the global economy was in lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting an additional, immediate shock.

We examine how investment decisions have been influenced by these events, adopting a novel multi-method approach in order to untangle their immediate and longer-term effects.

• 1^st Supervisor: Professor Robert Blackburn
• 2^nd Supervisor: Dr Shubin Wu

Yuan Ma

ym331@liverpool.ac.uk

Entrepreneurial support is often described as inclusive, but who, exactly, is being supported?

This research explores how international student founders, navigating visa restrictions and institutional uncertainty, engage with university-based entrepreneurial support organisations (ESOs) not just to access resources, but to be recognised as legitimate entrepreneurs.

Their experiences suggest that support is never just technical or neutral; it is shaped by institutional rules, legal constraints, and assumptions about who qualifies as an entrepreneur.

At its core, the project asks: Are we designing support for businesses, or for the people trying to build them?

• 1st Supervisor: Dr Sam Horner
• 2nd Supervisor: Professor Robert Blackburn

Caroline Makoni

Research theme: Sustainable strategy and its governance

A recent stream of Management and Organization Literature has brought attention to our limited understanding of the organizational responses to grand challenges, suggesting that understanding organizational responses present an exceptionally useful contribution towards addressing them.

Organisations play a central role in both causing and solving these problems. With the increasing awareness of Grand Challenges, understanding how organizations impact society, and the natural environment has become more urgent than ever.

Equally important is how they take responsibility of their actions in the contexts they operate in. This study seeks to interrogate how organizations understand and respond to Grand Challenges.

Perceiving organizing towards tackling grand challenge as a communicative process, the study explores how organizations utilize multimodal framing to respond to grand challenges.

Central to the study is the plastics crisis, which is part of the Tripple Climate Crisis and arguably the most significant environmental problem of the 21^st century.

• 1^st Supervisor: Dr Carola Wolf
• 2^nd Supervisor: Professor Joep Cornellisen

Ragnhild Nordset

Research theme: Sustainable strategy and its governance

Growing awareness around mental wellbeing has brought specific attention to the arts industry and its lack of appropriate support available for its workers.

The myth of the mad artist and assumptions of what an artist is, enable attitudes and structures that often write off the need for better support for our working artists.

This research considers the elements that impact on artist’s mental health and how relational leadership may enable better support for their wellbeing.

• 1^st Supervisor: Professor Joep Cornelissen
• 2^nd Supervisor: Dr Sam Horner

Guowei Qiu

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have emerged as significant institutional investors globally, exerting influence in the international landscape.

The primary objective of my PhD project is to investigate the impact of SWFs on the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices of target companies following cross-border equity investments.

This endeavor will contribute both a theoretical framework and empirical insights, offering a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between SWFs investments and the decision-making process of target companies regarding CSR behaviors.

• 1^st Supervisor: Dr Jordi Surroca 
• 2^nd Supervisor: Yuxi Cheng

Victoria Randa

Research theme: Innovation, collaboration and emerging digital technologies

The complexity of modern innovation requires the collaboration of different actors not confined to traditional industry boundaries and supply chain networks (Adner & Kapoor, 2010).

Innovation ecosystems offer opportunities for these actors to tap into novel markets or create novel products and access resources and competencies that a single actor would not have.

My research adopts a social network perspective to highlight the scope of the different relationships between actors in an innovation ecosystem, the particular mechanisms underpinning these relationships and how they shape the dynamics of the ecosystem.

This provides a better understanding of the roles of various actors, how and why they are connected, and how they position themselves to create and capture value from innovation activities, which is crucial to understanding how the ecosystem functions and evolves.

The research project aims to contribute to the current debates and existing academic literature on innovation ecosystems and network dynamics by providing transferable insights into the structure, relationships and evolution of an innovation ecosystem and shedding light on innovation activities in the so-far overlooked African context.

• 1^st Supervisor: Professor Julia Brennecke
• 2^nd Supervisor: Dr Francesca Hueller

Jeongheon Ryu

J.Ryu@liverpool.ac.uk

International Strategic Alliance: MacroExamination of Managerial Discretion in Governing Mode Choice and Firm Performance

• 1st Supervisor: Professor Panagiotis Ganotakis
• 2nd Supervisor: Dr Thomas Yoon

Akshita Sharma

Akshita.Sharma@liverpool.ac.uk

Strategic IP management and business model innovation in SMEs

• 1st Supervisor: Professor Nick Papageorgiadis
• 2nd Supervisor: Professor Wolfgang Sofka
• 3rd Supervisor: Professor Robert Blackburn

Thahfah Thaha

Research theme: Entrepreneurship theory, process, context and practice

The UK left the EU in 2021, and it no longer participates in EU Cohesion Policy and funding will cease after 2023. Prior to Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, the spatial and social inequalities in the UK were already greater than in other ‘rich’ countries but the ‘gap’ is now widening.

In response, the UK government's (HMG) Levelling Up policy promotes ‘place-based’ interventions to level up productivity and growth in the whole country, particularly tackling disparities in lagging behind places.

The aim is to explore the lessons from several decades of EU CP implementation in the UK to inform ongoing academic and policy debates related to levelling up. 

• 1^st Supervisor: Professor Robert Blackburn
• 2^nd Supervisors: Dr Sue Jarvis and Dr Tom Arnold

Daniel Waugh

Daniel.Waugh@liverpool.ac.uk

Regulating Britain’s gambling market in the 21st century: policy intentions and market outcomes

• 1^st Supervisor: Professor Ian McHale
• 2^nd Supervisors: Professor David Forrest