Strategy, International Business and Society Research Community
The Strategy, International Business and Society (SIBS) research community is a multi-disciplinary group. We're concerned with the management of strategic international business and societal issues.
We aim to contribute to the management of major strategic, international business, and societal issues. Our group takes a multi-disciplinary approach to do this. We draw from a diverse range of theories, spanning:
- economics
- sociology
- psychology
- political science
- ethics
As a result, our studies employ a variety of empirical approaches. These include quantitative, qualitative, comparative, and historical methods.
Our research builds on collaborative efforts to address key regional, national, and global issues.
We take an interdisciplinary approach which transcends geography and cultural contexts. Our colleagues collaborate with scholars from universities in the UK, US, Europe, Asia, and Latin-America. Their work provides insights for both the business community and wider society. These insights have both theoretical significance and practical impact.
Business model innovation for sustainable development
Developing theories of value in sustainable business models (Christina Neesham)
SDGs and business model innovation for sustainable development (Noemi Sinkovics)
Alternative business models and community-led innovations within food chains in the Brazilian Amazon (Patricia Prado)
Social enterprises
Working for impact but failing to experience it. Exploring individual’s sensemaking in social enterprises (Wee Chan Au)
Social enterprises in a developing context: insights from Nigeria (Domnan Miri)
Bringing the family logic in: From duality to plurality in social enterprises (Wee Chan Au)
Education for sustainability
Capturing the material impact of educational programmes for sustainable development and programme development to tackle climate change (Jenny Davidson)
Using the theory of planned behaviour to develop business students into capable change agents for socially sustainable development (Wee Chan Au)
Migrant workers
Networks amongst Syrians: Situated migrant positionalities and the impact on relational embedding (Peter Edward)
The work-life experiences of an invisible workforce: The case of live-in women migrant domestic workers in Malaysia (Wee Chan Au)
How do refugee entrepreneurs navigate institutional voids? Insights from Malaysia (Wee Chan Au)
Sustainable supply chains
Innovating towards a circular bio-economy, dynamic capabilities of firms in the Brazilian Amazon (Patricia Prado)
Sustainability initiatives by MNEs (Mayank Sewak and Irene Chu)
Environmental, social and governance performance
Corporate social innovation alignment with UN SDG's: A Study of India MNCs subsidiaries (Irene Chu)
Corruption, FDI inflows and global middle-class growth: Multi-country study of political risks and FDI; (Amy Nguyen)
ESG performance of multinationals: Global multi-industry study (Stephen Chen)
Accountability and governance in pursuit of sustainable development goals (Cristina Neesham)
Diversity in international business
Language, linguistic clustering and the effects on identity and relationships in multinational enterprises (Komal Kalra)
Diversity, national Institutions, and the nature of inventions (Rafael Corredoira)
Female expatriates on the move? Gender diversity management in global mobility (Ben Bader)
Knowledge flows and innovation
How far should we go? An exploration of international footprint configurations in knowledge intensive service firms (Rany Salvoldi)
International mobility, formal/informal connections and the nature of inventions: Worldwide study of pharma and chemical industries (Rafael Corredoira)
International knowledge transfer characteristics and local learning: Analysis of patent and trademark data from Vietnam pharma industry (Amy Nguyen)
Cross-border knowledge transfer in the digital age: The final curtain call for long-term international assignments? (Ben Bader)
Local knowledge and MNC subsidiaries: India (Mayank Sewak)
Global value chains
The dark side of trust in global value chains: Taiwan’s electronics and IT hardware industries (Noemi Sinkovics)
Global value chains and the governance of ‘embedded’ food commodities (Patricia Prado)
Organisational resilience and upgrading
Public private institutions and family firms: Internationalisation and upgrading in the Argentine wine Industry (Rafael Corredoira)
Organizational resilience, innovation capabilities and SME performance in high-risk contexts (Domnan Miri)
Impact of digital technologies
Digital technology integration in informal economies: A micro-entrepreneurial study (Domnan Miri)
Digital globalization of creative industries in the UK, Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, Caribbean, Turkey, and Indonesia (Stephen Chen)
Strategy and sensemaking
Categorisation and inference: experiments on strategic sense-making and positioning (Johannes Schmalisch)
Paradoxical cognition as a micro foundation of organizational ambidexterity: the role of international strategy (Rany Salvoldi)
Resolving paradoxical tensions in organisations by increasing technological capacity (Xin Li)
Open strategy: Northern Russell Group universities (Elie Chadha and Tom McGovern)
Headquarter attention on subsidiaries in emerging markets: India (Mayank Sewak)
Exploring the Black Forest distilleries: A category-focused investigation of positions in feature space (Johannes Schmalisch)
Behavioural foundations of international business in a globalized world (Stephen Chen)
Sustainable Development Goals
We are working with Netpositive Futures, a UK-based consultancy specialising in sustainability strategies.
Together we are in the process of developing an online tool. This will measure the material impacts of educational programmes against the SDGs. It will capture personal and professional priorities, actions and measures.
Funding and grants
Our research and scholarship receives funding from a range of bodies, such as:
- the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (ESPRC)
- the British Academy of Management (BAM)
- the British Council
- local organisations and businesses
Examples of work funded by external organisations include:
- assuring citizen agency in a world with complex online harms
- employer duty of care in international human resource management
- capturing, sustaining and growing value in cultural heritage organisations: The case of museums
