BU Research Blog

BU is continuing to strengthen the partnership with Financial University under the Government of Russian Federation (FU) in Moscow, Russia. Faculty of Management academics, Dr Elvira Bolat (Department of Marketing), Dr Sukanay Ayatakshi Endow and Dr Parisa Gilani (both from the Department of Leadership, Strategy and Organisations) are organising one day FBU workshop titled ‘Digital momentum for SMEs’. FU is hosting the event which will take place on 12th March 2016. The FBU interactive workshop is targeting 40 attendees including Russian SMEs, marketing and management academics, and FU students.

Digital technologies have expanded the business opportunities made possible by the invention of the Internet. SMEs are particularly benefiting from the deployment of digital technologies and respective capabilities. Benefits include new jobs, new experiences in the form of services and products, innovative and cost-effective business models, new ways to fund startups as well as numerous options to effectively communicate with various stakeholders. Numerous workshops and conferences across the subjects around SMEs’ finances, SMEs’ marketing and management are all fragmented focusing on particular nuances of various aspects within the SMEs’ decision-making processes. Nevertheless, an interdisciplinary nature of this research field requires collective academic thinking – to result in recommendations which are meaningful and instrumental to increasing the impact of SMEs globally.

BU has teaching, research and professional practice interests across the disciplines contributing to the theme of the workshop, “Digital momentum for SMEs”. The aim of the FBU workshop is to communicate the existing research expertise of BU academics. Hence, the FBU workshop is grounded on previous events hosted and delivered by BU academics, (1) BU Festival of Learning 2013 workshop “Mobile momentum: Creating opportunities and being SMART ” (led by Dr Bolat); (2) “Social Entrepreneurship – What, How and Why?” event, in association with the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) Hampshire (led by Dr Ayatakshi Endow). Hence, in addition to nurturing the BU and FU partnership, the FBU workshop will boost BU’s interdisciplinary research output, and increase contributions to teaching and grant proposals related to the following themes: (1) digital marketing; (2) entrepreneurship.

The FBU international workshop will cover the following list of research areas unique to BU:

• Understanding SMEs and their owners;
• Leadership in the context of SMEs;
• Digital leadership;
• Digital marketing for SMEs;
• Digital capabilities and their role in SMEs’ innovation practices;
• The crowdfunding phenomenon;
• Digital crowdfunding: main drivers of success;
• Digital momentum for SMEs: Lessons from the UK SMEs.

The overall visit to Moscow will last up to four days which will include meetings with Russian academics regarding collaborative research agendas.