School of Management Online Research Seminar Series

Despite considerable research on the intersection between maternity and employment, little academic attention has been paid to the stages before conception, and how those struggling to become, or stay pregnant, navigate these issues in the workplace.  This seminar reveals key insights from a two-year Leverhulme Trust funded study into ‘complex fertility journeys’ and employment, which explored various challenging experiences including fertility treatment, pregnancy loss and coming to terms with childlessness.  Data comprised 80 in-depth lived-experience interviews; 20 interviews with line managers and fertility counsellors and an online review.  As well as presenting the key findings, the seminar will touch on how the researchers engaged with various stakeholder groups to instigate change in the workplace.

Speaker Bio

Dr Krystal Wilkinson is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Human Resource Management at Manchester Metropolitan University, whose research focuses on the work-life interface and wellbeing at work, especially in relation to solo-living; complex fertility journeys and perinatal mental health.  Her research has been featured in journals including Human Resource Management Journal; Work, Employment and Society and Gender, Work and Organization, and has informed CIPD guides; charity resources; and features in the Wall Street Journal, the BBC and People Management magazine.  Prior to doctoral studies at Leeds University, she worked in operational HRM roles in construction, retail and hospitality. She is a Chartered Member of the CIPD, and has been part of the National examinations team for over a decade.

What does the future of FinTech look like? How does disruptive FinTech innovation affect and shape my business? What kind of novel business models and applications will determine the next era of financial technologies? How can FinTech reposition the competitive dynamics of my organization’s ecosystem? How FinTech, ESG stewardship and corporate sustainability go hand in hand? The session will unveil the value logic and relevance behind the new era of financial technologies and the tectonic shifts behind global dynamics that will shape the future of business venturing. The presentation will be based on research, industry, and policy-level insights.

Speaker Bio

Dr Dimitrios Salampasis is a global FinTech thought leader and advisor. He is an Assistant Professor of FinTech Innovation and Entrepreneurship and FinTech Capability Director at the Swinburne School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship in Melbourne, Australia. He is leading the 1st of-its-kind industry co-created postgraduate FinTech program in Australia, while conducting research, advisory and policy work and delivering keynote presentations around the world.

Engaging in recovery experiences is essential for functioning at work, especially during unexpected events and disruptions. Yet, surprisingly little research has examined the implications of recovery experiences for an individual’s resilience, that is the ability to cope with change and setbacks at work, which can make positive contribution to individual and organizational performance under adversities. Drawing on the Effort-Recovery Model and the Conservation of Resources Theory, we propose that specific recovery experiences increase state resilience by enhancing positive reappraisal and reducing insomnia. Data collected during a global pandemic at multiple time points among entrepreneurs—individuals who face a particularly strong need to adapt to challenges and manage change or setbacks at work­—generally support our model. Our investigation uncovers a menu of recovery experiences that represents various pathways to greater resilience. We conclude that recovery experiences provide a powerful source of performance in the workplace by cultivating individuals’ capacities in resilience and offer meaningful implications for research on recovery and resilience, particularly in times of acute, wide sweeping crises or periods of intense change.

Speaker Bio

Martina is currently Professor of Entrepreneurship at Grenoble Ecole de Management (France). Prior to joining GEM, she was Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of Portsmouth (UK) where she also served as Impact Director for the Faculty of Business and Law and PhD Director for Business and Management. She held Visiting Professor appointments at Turku School of Economics (Finland), Hitotsubashi University (Japan), University of Bergamo (Italy), University of Innsbruck (Austria) and University of Waikato (New Zealand). Since 2018,Martina has been accredited by the UK Higher Education Academy as Senior Fellow and since 2020, she is a Research Fellow at the Institut fuer Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn.

Martina currently serves on the board of the European Council of Small Business (ECSB). In the past, she served on the board of the International Council of Small Business (ICSB), the Small Enterprise Association Australia and New Zealand (SEAANZ), the Research Committee of the UK Chartered Association of Business Schools, as well as a number of government advisory boards.

Since 2014, she is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and since 2020 of the International Small Business Journal.

Martina has undertaken commissioned research and consultancy for a number of government agencies in Europe and the wider Asia Pacific region including the European Commission, the OECD, the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Her current research is at the intersection of entrepreneurship and psychology with a particular focus on emotional and cognitive microfoundations of entrepreneurial behaviour as well as drivers and outcomes of entrepreneurial wellbeing and health. Beyond that, she is interested in topics related to startups, SMEs and entrepreneurship more widely. Her work has been published in leading journals including Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, British Journal of Management, International Small Business Journal, Small Business Economics, Journal of Business Research and Industrial Marketing Management.

This paper explores the potential for resistance among refugee women entrepreneurs in the UK who have to construct new identities in the host country. Drawing upon post-colonial feminist perspectives and a theory of marronage, it builds upon previous work on positionality and entrepreneurship to further conceptualise issues of structure and agency, oppression and the potential for transformation such as exist for those who have been forcibly displaced from the Global South to the Global North as they construct entrepreneurial identities.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Ketch Adeeko is a Lecturer in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the University of Bristol Business School. Her research interests lie within the broad area of entrepreneurship and focus upon women’s entrepreneurial activities,  entrepreneur identity construction and the implications of inequalities on entrepreneurial experiences. Additional interests include social entrepreneurship, social innovations, entrepreneurial ecosystems and  strategy.

The research comprises the studies accomplished before the pandemic crisis of COVID-19 and during the pandemic (the first total lockdown and the second partial lockdown). The COVID-19 pandemic boosted the digital transformation of many services. Many online platforms have been developed to accommodate patients’ needs. In our research, first, we investigated the perception of telemedical services in 2018 before the pandemic crisis, but right after the French medical insurance approved the coverage of such services. Further studies examined the factors that predict the intention to use medical teleconsultation internationally (comparison between France, Italy, China, and UK) during the first total lockdown. And the final study presented a survey of French patients who had used a teleconsultation platform during the pandemic. One of the largest studies, with a sample of 1233 respondents collected by the leading platform in telehealth, extended the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) with the three dimensions of trusting beliefs and self-efficacy. The findings of all studies contribute to both theory and practice of telemedical consultation.

Speaker Bio

Galina Kondrateva holds a Ph.D. in Business Management obtained at Paris-Saclay University. Dr. Kondrateva is an associate professor and head of the marketing department at EDC Paris Business School (France). Her research interests are in marketing and the adoption of technologies, with a big part in cross-cultural comparison. Her research topics comprise but are not limited to analysis of users’ behaviour in use of mobile applications, telemedicine, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. Dr. Kondrateva has published papers in high-ranked journals like Futures, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Journal of Global Information Management, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, and Technovation.

Values and ethics are important in research and in this context ensuring that research is inclusive is a central consideration.  In this presentation I will discuss research inclusivity which I interpret here as working with, and for, traditionally underrepresented groups so that those with lived experiences can have an authentic voice in shaping the research process. I discuss the challenges and opportunities of inclusive research including the role of emotions and reflexivity, complexities associated with intersectionality, structural barriers and systemic biases, and the effects of disciplinarity. 

Speaker Bio

Donna is Professor, Cultural and Creative Industries at Northumbria University, Newcastle.   She is a critical scholar who is interested in how people and places are represented primarily through cultural and heritage tourism, the link between heritage and national identities, and postcolonial and decolonial epistemologies in research and teaching.  Importantly, she is also interested in how women are represented in tourism through the lens of critical race theory and Black feminism.   Donna has been an Associate Editor of Annals of Tourism Research since 2013, a member of the Editorial Board and a Managing Editor of Leisure Studies since 2016 and 2019 respectively.  She also serves on the editorial board of two other journals - Tourism Cases and Tourism Critiques: Practice and Theory.  She is a reviewer for several journals including Tourism Geographies, Tourism Management, Tourist Studies, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, and Tourism Management Perspectives. She has published numerous journal articles, books, book chapters and delivered many keynote sessions at national and international conferences.

Digital technologies have been transforming the traditional workplace and reshaping how work is designed, performed and managed in organizations. This makes understanding digital work and its impact on job performance critically important. This study investigates the impact of digital work on job performance in organizations from the perspective of technology affordance. A comprehensive review of the related literature has been conducted, leading to the development of a conceptual model for exploring the impact of digital work on job performance from the perspective of technology affordance. Such a model is then tested and validated using structural equation modelling on the survey data collected in Australia. The study shows that the use of digital technologies significantly improves coordination and knowledge sharing between individuals, leading to better work-life balance and improved job performance. Furthermore, the study reveals that the use of digital technologies that can enhance communication and decision-making does not have significantly influence on work-life balance and job performance in digital work. This study presents a comprehensive investigation of the impact of digital work on job performance in organizations from the perspective of technology affordance. It explores the changing role of digital work in transforming existing working practices in organizations, and how different technology affordances in digital work can be actualized for improving work-life balance and job performance in a digitalized working environment.

Speaker Bio

Dr Sophia Duan is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor in the American system) and Deputy Head of Department, Information Systems and Business Analytics at RMIT University. Her research focuses on the intersection between the social and technical aspects of digital technology, looking at the effective use of digital technology for digital transformation in business and society. She is particularly interested in conducting impactful research that has practical significance to the sustainable development of society for a better digital future. Sophia published more than 60 articles in high-quality peer-reviewed academic outlets such as Transportation Research Part A, Internet Research, Information Technology & People, International Journal of Production Economics, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Journal of Knowledge Management, and Journal of Enterprise Information Management among others. She has attracted over $250K national and international competitive research funding to support her research activities. Sophia has recently been named one of the "Top 25 Analytics Leaders in Australia" by Australia Analytics Professional Peak Body.

We explore the regional engagement of universities in non-core regions in a Global South context and uncover how new universities form and institutionalise regional ties. Through case studies of five new universities in India, we identify three routes – personal, organisational, and brokered – through which new universities form regional ties, and four logics – incrementalism, social responsibility, legitimation, and rationalisation – through which these ties become embedded. We unpack and combine each of the routes and logics into a framework that explains how new ties are formed and developed between a new university and its surrounding non-core region.

Speaker Bio

I am a senior lecturer in innovation studies at the centre for innovation research at Lund University (CIRCLE). I previously worked in Uppsala and Örebro Universities in Sweden, and Lancaster University Mangement School in the UK. I have a PhD in economic geography from Cardiff University. My research covers various topics including innovation policy, regional development, engaged universities, entrepreneurial ecosystems. I'm currently working on 3 projects funded by Swedish national funders: innovation policy in the periphery; the entrepreneurially organised economy; and cross-border regions during the Covid pandemic. 

After being a quantitative researcher for almost all may career, I’ve been introducing more and more diversity in my work. Using my previous publications and current projects, this seminar wants to focus on the key elements of a mix-method research. It answers some of the following questions: Why mix-method research? In which order? What should you expect from the reviewers? What the future of Management research holds about mix-method research?

Speaker Bio

Vincent Dutot is a full professor of MIS and member of Métis Lab at EM Normandie, France. He holds a PhD from Laval University (Canada) and a HDR from IAE Poitiers (France). His undertakes research and consultancy in technology adoption, strategic alignment, and digital transformation of SMEs. In addition to the four books on digital, he has published in ranked journals including Journal of Business Research, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Systèmes d'Information et Management (French Journal of Management Information Systems), International Journal of Information Management, The Journal of Technology Transfer, Psychology & Marketing or European Journal of Innovation Management.

Persistent bottlenecks at container ports have severely disrupted global supply chains especially since the outbreak of COVID-19. High yard density and port congestion urgently call for more efficient operations at seaports. An important mitigation measure is to predict the out-terminals of containers when they are discharged from vessels so that containers can be managed more efficient throughout the port logistics processes. In response to a shipping port’s request for a prediction tool to classify containers to the destined out-terminals, we developed an innovative methodological framework integrating four key components: utilising both structured and unstructured data, practice and knowledge informed feature engineering, explanatory machine learning based classification models, and model-induced cost analysis. Through empirical research at a Western European port, it is demonstrated that the predictive framework can lead to cost savings in the range of 10.42% ~ 20.65% compared to the Business-as-Usual scenario. Moreover, the predictive framework can be easily integrated into the existing operation system with very low risk. Further, the proposed methodological framework has broad applications beyond the shipping industry. Each of the four key components can contribute to the development and deployment of the predictive framework in other industry sectors.

Speaker Bio

Ying Xie is Professor in Supply Chain Analytics at Cranfield University, UK. Her research interests cover machine learning, big data analytics, forecasting, decision support system, supply chain modelling and simulation, supply chain digitalisation and circular economy. She specialises in healthcare supply chain, international shipping, port management, and sustainable aviation supply chain.

Ying has successfully won and completed many research and consultancy projects, totalling more than £1million, including projects from EPSRC, Innovate UK, ERDF, EU Horizon, Health Education England and industries. Funded by EPSRC, Ying is working with Felixstowe Port (UK) to improve the utilisation of rail transport of containers and to reduce impacts on environments. In 2022, Ying won a KTP project from Innovate UK, helping Hexcel Composites to make their supply chain more sustainable. Ying also actively works with institutions from the Oxford-Cambridge Arc Universities Group to build the future of sustainable aviation in the UK.

Ying is a board member in the Strategy Advisory Board for Digital Supply Chain Innovation Hub, Digital Catapult. This is a £10m programme funded by UKRI and it draws another £10m investment from the private sector.

This seminar introduces the role critical incident technique as an effective collection and analytical tool for conducting qualitative business research.  Some of challenges of using CIT are addressed and examples shared.  This seminar would be of particular interest to qualitative researchers aiming to extend the narrative quality and to gain insights in addressing challenges of presenting their qualitative findings in research studies.  

Speaker Bio

Natasha Evers is Associate Professor in Business Strategy at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. She holds a PhD in international entrepreneurship from University College Dublin. Her main research lies in the field of international marketing strategy of SMEs and international entrepreneurial growth.  She has co-authored two international books editions: Technology Entrepreneurship-Bringing Innovation to the Marketplace (2021 and 2014).  She has published widely in international prestigious journals including: International Marketing Review; International Business Review; Journal of World Business; Management International Review; Journal of Business Research; Entrepreneurship and Regional Development; Journal of International Marketing among others.  Natasha is also Visiting Professor of International Marketing and Entrepreneurship at Halmstad University, Sweden and is a Research Fellow in the Strategy and International Business Group, Molde University College, Norway.

Points redemption programs (PRPs) have become increasingly popular among e-commerce platforms, providing a powerful incentive for customers to make repeat purchases. However, many PRPs perform poorly, and the reasons for their failure remain unclear to both marketing practitioners and researchers. We believe that a critical obstacle in the accretion of knowledge around the impact of PRPs lies in the variation of points redemption designs, which obstructs our understanding of the mechanisms through which PRPs influence desired outcomes. To the best of our knowledge, three different point redemption designs exist in marketing practice to date. We term the first design fixed-rewarding, where the consumer is informed of the exact amount they can accrue in exchange for a specific number of points, e.g., "450.47 life points for $4.49". We refer to the second design as under-rewarding, where the redemption platform displays the upper limit of the redeemable amount, e.g., "you will receive up to $4", but the actual amount received upon redemption is lower than $4. The third design is named upward-rewarding, where the consumer is presented with the lower limit, e.g., "you will receive at least $2", but the actual amount received is higher than $2. Despite the frequent usage of these designs in practice, scholarly works have hitherto overlooked the potential impact of these discrepancies between the initially specified value of a reward and the actual value received at redemption, otherwise termed reward shifts.

Drawing on the yield shift theory of satisfaction, we examine the effects of reward shifts (i.e., fixed, under, and upward-rewarding) on perceived equity and satisfaction. In addition, we investigate the boundary conditions of these effects. We conducted two online experiments. Study 1 finds that compared to fixed rewarding and upward rewarding, under-rewarding reduces participants' perceived equity and satisfaction. In contrast, the differences between fixed rewarding and upward rewarding are only marginally significant. In study 2, we find that increasing participants' situational optimism can attenuate the negative effects of under-rewarding on perceived equity and satisfaction. These effects are more salient for participants with higher chronic optimism. More importantly, we find that the feeling of disappointment accounts for the interaction effects between reward shift, situational optimism, and chronic optimism. Next, an EEG study will be conducted to unveil the neural correlates of these reward redemption designs.

Speaker Bio: 

Dr. Oteng Ntsweng is a research fellow in the Department of Information Systems and Analytics at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She received her Ph.D. in Information Systems & Analytics from NUS. She has a BSc (Hons) in Computer Security from Staffordshire University. Oteng's research focuses on human-computer interaction and human-AI interaction in the context of complex adaptive systems such as health information technologies, gamified technologies, and educational technologies, with a particular interest in the mechanisms through which the use of these technologies impacts desired outcomes. Dr. Ntsweng is enthusiastic about undertaking research projects that have a beneficial effect on real-world applications. Therefore, she engages in industry collaborations in projects related to digital interventions in healthcare and education. Her research has been nominated for the best paper award at a leading academic conference—International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). 

Over the past few centuries, financial innovation proved that it was a critical part of the economic landscape, democratising economic participation and shaping many financial systems, and it continues to produce a multitude of financial products or services and processes.
The first focus of this research is to understand and identify the most relevant financial innovations in the financial industry, The second focus would be to explore the effect these financial innovations have on the core functions of the financial system, the impact of these innovations on the performance and the structure of the financial industry, while essentially comparing these characteristics in the BRICS countries with those of the G7 countries. And last but not least, financial services is one of the most regulated industries in any economy and financial innovations historically have been a useful tool when trying to bypass prudential regulation, it comes as no surprise that regulation must never be static.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Jihane Aayale is an Associate Professor at the Economics department of “Groupe Institut Supérieur de Commerce et d’Administration des Entreprises” (ISCAE). She is a member of the Laboratory of Research for Finance and Economic Issues (LAREF), the Hubei Research Center for Scientific and Technological Innovation and Economic Development, as well as an active member of the International Engineering and Technology Institute based in Wuhan.  Her academic and research interests include The Economics of Innovation, Financial Innovations, Capital Markets, Cryptocurrencies and Artificial Intelligence, and Scientific and Technological Innovation for Economic Development. 

The sustainable competitiveness of nations and their transition towards more sustainable practices are issues that have gathered global attention. These require nations to pursue growth strategies that ensure economic, environmental, and social development. Sustainability transitions involve a series of complex interactions between multiple factors including technology, policy, economics and markets. Within this scope, the introduction of digitalization and the promotion of eco-innovation, the move towards financial development and the appearance of alternative financial practices such as crowdfunding as well as the adoption of freer economic systems represent plausible enablers of the sustainable transition. However, knowledge is scarce about how these concepts drive this transition and contribute to nations’ sustainable competitiveness. This talk presents twofold findings of related research works that fill this gap.  The first presents the finding of applying complexity theory on dataset spanning 18 countries over a four-year period to capture the possible configuration of the chosen factors like digitalization, crowdfunding, financial development and eco-innovation that allow countries to achieve sustainability transitions and realize sustainable competitiveness. The second assesses the potential implications that sustainable practices such as sharing economy have on sustainable economic development and energy efficiency. We conclude this talk with an open discussion on future endeavours towards sustainable competitiveness.

 Speaker Bio

Abbas A. Tarhini is an associate professor at the Information Technology and Operations Management Department at the Lebanese American University (LAU). He received his BS and MS in Computer Science from the Lebanese American University, Lebanon and his PhD in Information Systems from University of Reims, France. Dr. Tarhini is a member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) and an honourable member of the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society. He is the past president of the Middle East and North Africa Association for Information Systems (MENA-AIS), the AIS MENA chapter and at the President of the Lebanese Association for Information Systems (AIS Lebanon chapter) and the VP for research at the Information and Communication Technologies in Organizations and Society alliance (ICTO), France. He is on the steering committees of a number of international conferences and on the editorial board of the Journal of Innovation and Knowledge and the Journal of Computers & Industrial Engineering. His research is published in recognized journals including IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Systems, Journal of Business Research, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Annals of Operation Research and more.