BU Research Blog

14 February 2016

New NHS article by BU Visiting Faculty Minesh Khashu

open access, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Minesh Khashu (BU Visiting Faculty and clinician in Poole Hospital) and Jeremy Scrivens published their third instalment of a series of online papers on the NHS. This contribution is called ‘Can We Heal an Ailing Healthcare System? Part 3’. They deep dive into this idea of transformation through a strengths-based approach. They consider how we can build an NHS Social Movement by bringing the whole system together to inquire into and extend NHS’s Positive Core. The blog (online paper) can be accessed here!

For more information you can also follow the two authors on Twitter: Minesh Khashu(@mkrettiwt) & Jeremy Scrivens (@jeremyscrivens)

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

4 February 2016

New paper by Dr Julie Robson in the Journal of Business Research

Research themes jmemery

Dr Julie Robson (based in FoM) has had her article ‘ Senior management perceptions of aspirational groups: A study of the UK general insurance market’ published in the Journal of Business Research. The paper, co-authored by Professor Hans van der Heijden at the University of Sussex, draws insight from consumer marketing on aspirational groups to explore the composition and structure of aspirational groups compared to strategic groups in a market setting. The findings contribute to knowledge on strategy formation by highlighting the important role aspirational groups play in understanding competitive market movements.

4 January 2016

Fusion Investment Fund (Santander) — in collaboration with the Financial University, BU is organising “Digital momentum for SMEs” workshop

Fusion Investment Fund, Public engagement ebolat

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.

17 December 2015

Impacting on policy and process: BU Corporate Social Responsibility expert informs discussions at German Football Association’s annual congress

Fusion, international, Publishing tbreitbarth

Management academic Dr Tim Breitbarth (Department of Sport & Physical Activity) was invited by the German Football Association (DFB) to provide input and add to the discussions at DFB’s 1^st Annual Congress on Social Responsibility. With over six million members, DFB is the largest single sports federation in the world.

Held in Hennef on November 26^th-27^th, the event brought together 70 of the DFB’s executives and leadership team from across the country, including vice-presidents, directors and representatives from all regions and states. Tim contributed as an external expert panelist for the moderated ‘fireside discussion’ that kicked-off the ambitious program and provided guidance at the start of the workshop on communication and marketing value of corporate social responsibility in the context of the sports association.

The DFB seeks to take a proactive stance on reflecting upon and invigorating its socio-political role and policies, especially by encouraging its regional and local entities and more than 25,000 individual clubs to embrace the process.

Recently, Tim provided Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communication expertise to DFB’s Social Responsibility Commission (see this blog post) and moderated a similar event for Sport Federation Lower-Saxony, which is the umbrella organization for almost 10,000 sports clubs and 3 individual million members.

His engagement and expertise is underpinned by his research, e.g. manifested in a recent special issue of Corporate Governance on “Governance and CSR management in sport” and an upcoming special issue of Journal of Public Affairs on “The marketing and public affairs of sustainability”.

14 December 2015

Dr Lenia Marques expands collaboration with Recife, Brazil

Fusion, international, Knowledge Exchange, Publishing lmarques

Dr. Lenia Marques recently visited Recife, in Brazil, where she was invited as a keynote speaker for the celebrations of the 20^th anniversary of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism at the Federal University of Pernambuco. The audience warmly welcomed her presentation on creative economy, tourism and events.

Besides this talk, Dr. Lenia Marques participated in a number of other meetings, including discussions to prepare future projects related to the development of creative economy activities in Pernambuco State. These meetings involved different stakeholders, including representatives of the public administration, creative entrepreneurs and NGO’s. One of the outputs of this collaboration is a study on network sociality, which has now been submitted for publication.

1 December 2015

HSS Writing Week 4th-8th January – How can Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit support you?

Publishing, writing Lisa Andrews

The Faculty of Health and Social Sciences is holding a Writing Week between 4th-8th January 2016 aimed at supporting staff to find time in their busy academic diaries to prioritise writing grant applications and papers for publication.

The Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit offers methodological and statistical collaboration for all healthcare researchers in the area. It supports researchers in improving the quality, quantity and efficiency of research across Bournemouth University and local National Health Service (NHS) Trusts. It incorporates the Dorset office of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Design Service who offer free methodological support to researchers who are developing research ideas in the field of health and social care.

BUCRU will be supporting Writing Week in HSS by holding two drop-in sessions on Tuesday 5th January and Thursday 7th January 12-2pm in R508 Royal London House. We would also like to extend the invitation across the other Faculties for anyone who feels we may be able to support them. For those unable to attend the drop-in sessions, we would be delighted to arrange an alternative appointment.

Please see further information here, contact our adminstrator Louise Ward on 01202 961939 / bucru@bournemouth.ac.uk or visit our website. We look forward to seeing you!

23 November 2015

Jaeyeon Choe PhD, recent book chapters.

Knowledge Exchange, Women's Academic Network jchoe

Jaeyeon Choe PhD, a new member of the Department of Events & Leisure has just published book chapters that you might be interested in using for teaching or research. Please contact Jaeyeon at jchoe@bournemouth.ac.uk for a PDF copy of each chapter for research and/or teaching purposes.

“Developing Student Engagement in China through Collaborative Action Research” in Tourism Education: Global Trends and Issues (2015) Amazon Book link

“China’s Tourism’s March Forward: Towards a Green Transition or Unsustainable Tourism” in Tourism in the Green Economy (2015) Amazon Book link

“Religious Tourism Experiences in South East Asia” in Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Management: An International Perspective (2015) Amazon Book link

Thank you! 🙂

20 November 2015

Creating Impact: BU Partner of 1st German CSR Communication Congress

Business Engagement, conferences, international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer tbreitbarth

More than 200 communication and corporate social responsibility (CSR) professionals attended the 1^st German CSR Communication Congress last week in Osnabrueck. Due to management academic Dr Tim Breitbarth’s involvement in initiating, organising and moderating this successful event, BU was recognised as one of its academic partners.

This first congress was based on a collaboration between the German Public Relations Association (DPRG), the European Business Ethics Network Germany (DNWE) and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU). Dr Breitbarth is a founding member of the CSR working group within the DPRG.

Welcoming speeches (e.g. from a representative from the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs), the keynote (from the editor-in-chief of a well-known business magazine), the panel discussion (e.g. with the director corporate sustainability of Tchibo and a board member of Transparency International Germany) and special workshops of the 1.5-day congress revolved around the rising relevance of internal and external CSR communication – e.g. in the context of increasing pressure to report on CSR; the need for constructive stakeholder dialogue; and in order to manifest internal support for sustainability strategies. Dr Breitbarth moderated the workshop on social media and online communication.

Mainly, attendees came from large firms like Aldi, Audi and German Telecom; internationally successful SMEs; leading sustainability and communication agencies; and influential civil society organisations. Reviews of the congress are widely available in respective German media. Feedback from participants very much suggests that the event built-up specific knowledge, provided inspiration to solve individual challenges and helped to create valuable business contacts. The second congress will be held in 2017.

9 November 2015

Upcoming CfE / FM Event: Meet the Entrepreneur – Simon Phelps

Business Engagement Nikki Harvey

Tuesday 24 November 2015
2pm arrival for a 2:30pm start
Executive Business Centre, 89 Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, BH8 8EB

The Business School and Centre for Entrepreneurship are delighted to invite you to the first in our series of ‘Meet the Entrepreneur’ events.

Simon Phelps founded Fluvial Innovations Ltd alongside BU in 2006 and designed, developed and patented the modular flood barrier, Floodstop. Floodstop was specifically designed to fill a gap within the market for a functional and rapidly deployable flood barrier.

This is a great opportunity to hear about Simon’s personal journey as an entrepreneur and learn more about his own experiences as a business owner and his approach to founding and growing an innovative business.

Floodstop is used throughout the UK, US and parts of Europe and won the Emergency Planners Society’s Award for Most Innovative Product of The Year 2009 and voted “The Most Innovative Product of 2009” by the Emergency Planning Society.

Simon’s achievements include UK South West Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 and HSBC Start-Up Stars Regional Finalist 2008.

THIS IS AN INTERNAL EVENT FOR BU STUDENTS & STAFF ONLY

To book please click here

27 October 2015

BU Events research and disaster management research at ATLAS conference

conferences, Publishing, REF Subjects lmarques

Prof. Lee Miles and Dr. Lenia Marques presented their latest research outcomes at the ATLAS (Association for Tourism and Leisure Education) annual conference, which took place in Lisbon (Portugal), between 20-23 October 2015.

In this international encounter, the topics and discussion were around the umbrella theme of “Risk in travel and tourism: Geographies, behaviours and strategies”.

Prof. Lee Miles, representing the Disaster Management Centre developed further contact and cooperation with scholars of tourism by presenting two papers at the conference. The first single authored paper was on “Integrating Crisis Management and Tourism? Key Roles for Policy Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurial Resilience?” that represents an area of major research development at BUDMC. This was followed by an additional paper, co-authored with colleague Richard Gordon, that explored conceptualising blame wars during and after the onset of disasters affecting the tourist sector, entitled “Blame Games and Meaning Making: Influencing Decision-Making on Disasters for Tourist Destinations”.

Dr. Lenia Marques participated in an ATLAS SIG (special interest group) meeting with a focus on events, which she has been part of since its foundation in 2011. In this meeting, she presented the first results of a joint research project with Maria Podesta, researcher at the Politecnico di Milano (Italy). The paper analysed how knowledge-based events are playing a strategic role in place-making. This topic relates closely to the challenges policy-makers and the events sector are currently facing in developing relationships between urban development and social cohesion.

The papers led to fruitful discussions and the conference was also a good opportunity for networking activities.

26 October 2015

BU management academic advises German Football Association on CSR

Business Engagement, Fusion, international, Publishing tbreitbarth

Principal Academic Dr Tim Breitbarth (Department of Sport & Physical Activity) was invited by German Football Association (DFB) to provide CSR communication expertise to its Social Responsibility Commission. Speaking yesterday, his input focused on the interlink between CSR integration and communication, and concluded with some strategic and operational suggestions. The impact of Tims’ consultation will be felt, his presentation sparked lengthy discussion and reflection amongst members of the Commission who proposed additional action and follow-up work.

Input perhaps never been more timely

At present the DFB is challenged by investigative media stories about non-transparent financial transactions in the context of hosting the 2006 FIFA World Championship. The long-standing Commission comprises of leaders of the association (e.g. vice president, director, heads of regional football associations), leaders from civil society organisations and other relevant external experts.

Expertise on CSR drawn upon by media and academic sources

Recently, Tim was interviewed a few times on his area of expertise, e.g. for the article “Where the money comes from” in Le Monde diplomatique (www.exacteditions.com/read/diplomatique/july-2015-43324/13/3 ). Furthermore, amongst other, he was the lead convenor of the well-attended workshop “CSR communication in sport” at the recent 23^rd European Association for Sport Management in September; is the lead guest editor of the special issue “Governance and CSR management in sport” in Corporate Governance (ABS 2*), published in summer (www.emeraldinsight.com/toc/cg/15/2); and is co-organiser of and moderator at the industry-focused 1^st German CSR Communications Congress, held in November (www.csr-kongress.de).

12 October 2015

Faculty of Management research seminar series resumes with talk on accounting, rhinoceroses and sustainability

PG research dnordberg

Professor Jill Atkins of Henley Business School at the University of Reading will speak to the first of a new series of staff research seminars organized in the Faculty of Management on Wednesday, October 14, at 15:00 at Bournemouth House, BG14. Her topic, “Exploring rhinoceros conservation and conversation: The emergence of emancipatory accounting for ‘extinction’,” links problems of sustainability of natural resources with theoretical developments that seek to take better account of the environment.

On October 21 (also 15:00 in BG14) the research seminar series, organised by Drs. George Filis and Christos Apostolakis, will hear a paper drawing on identity theory from Dr. Caroline Rock of Anglia Ruskin University concerning “Authenticity in the Workplace”.

Starting on October 28 the seminar series will link with a new season of the discussion forum for postgraduate researchers and staff. That week the PhD forum (now on Wednesdays at 14:00) in BG14 will hear from its organiser, Dr. Fabian Homberg, on “‘Conversations’ and expectations, literature searches and open questions”. Then at 15:00 Dr. Davide Parrilli, newly recruited as Associate Professor in the business school, will speak on “STI and DUI Innovation Modes: Scientific-Technological and Context-specific Nuances” – exploring the differences between science-led and use-led innovation.

Please join us. Both series are open to everyone interested in the research, across all faculties.

1 October 2015

Bournemouth University listed in top 800 global universities

REF Subjects, Research assessment Edwin van Teijlingen

Bournemouth University ranked just over the half way line in the top 800 universities in the world. Bournemouth University is in good company in the bracket (401-500) with other well-known universities such as the University of Cagliari (Italy), Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic), Curtin University (Australia), University of Waikato (New Zealand), Louisiana State University (USA) or the University of Tampere (Finland) to name but a few.

The full list of 800 universities is available here!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

3 August 2015

My month at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain)

Fusion, Publishing mmoital

Last week my month long stay in Ciudad Real (Spain) as a guest of the University of Castilla – La Mancha (UCLM) came to an end. Over the period I worked with Dr. Angel Millan and Ph.D. student Marta Retamosa Ferreiro from the marketing department, exchanging ideas and experiences about research in marketing. Our main focus was on University branding as they have a substantial database about the perceptions of their university’s brand by multiple stakeholders.

Farewell lunch with Dr. Millan and PhD student Marta Retamosa Ferreiro

We worked on a paper about student satisfaction across different courses (engineering, business and nursing), using customer-based brand equity as the theoretical underpinning. This involved doing a factor analysis followed by a logistic regression and, as always, statistical analysis takes longer than you anticipate (even though we were already familiar with the tests!). In the end we got there and we are now continuing to write the paper.

Interestingly, I had not met Dr. Millan in person prior to my arrival in Ciudad Real. Five years ago I presented a paper in Portugal about emotions in events which Dr. Millan attended. He then started supervising a Ph.D. on business travel which featured a strong component of emotions (experienced by business travellers during their trip). In October they sent me an email asking if I was interested in co-authoring a paper with them. We ended up collaborating and submitted the paper to a good journal (three star according to the U.K.’s ABS list). After submission he commented that UCLM had funding for guest researchers and asked whether I would be interested in spending some time working with him. Fortunately I had a pretty uneventful July ahead and therefore we applied to the grant, which was awarded.

By the way, the paper we submitted got quite positive reviews, but as always we were asked to do some changes which we also worked on during my stay. We are now awaiting feedback about the revised version (we are optimistic as the changes requested were all possible to address!).

The month in Spain was not only about work. I have written about some of my non-work experiences in my blog.

24 July 2015

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Project – ENEFOR

Awarded & submitted bids gfilis

We would like to welcome you to our Marie Sklodowska – Curie project “ENEFOR”. We proudly present you our website (http://enefor.eu) and we look forward for a live discussion on the project’s output!

This project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement (No 658494). The project started on April 2015 and it will be completed on April 2017.

This exciting and innovative project aims to develop new econometric model frameworks to forecast oil price and oil price volatility, which will be successful in enhancing internal consistency, forecasting accuracy and easiness to communicate extracting added-value (in terms of predictability) information from the ultra high sampling frequency. In addition, this project aims to use the forecasted oil price volatility to predict the economic policy uncertainty in Europe, given that oil price shocks exert significant impact on the effectiveness of economic policy.

16 July 2015

Festival of Enterprise this Saturday

Business Engagement, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement Sally Gates

Festival of Enterprise promotional postcard

On Saturday 18 July (this Saturday), BU hosts its first ever Festival of Enterprise – a free event designed to give help and advice to startups, SMEs, established businesses, budding business-minded teenagers or anyone wanting to turn a business idea into a reality.

The Festival is open to anyone and takes place in the Student Centre between 10am and 3pm. There will be four ‘sofa’ sessions – Marketing, Finance, Cyber Security and Creativity – with industry experts giving their advice and taking questions, all aimed at engaging with and supporting local businesses.

There are other activities taking place too – business ‘speed dating’ sessions, an Enterprise Den specifically for college-aged teens and a keynote presentation from local entrepreneur Steve Bolton.

If you’d like more information, visit the Festival of Enterprise webpages. And most importantly, please spread the word. If you know of anyone (colleagues, friends, family) who may benefit from talking about business and enterprise in Dorset then send them along.

27 May 2015

Launch of BU and DCCI Short Courses

Business Engagement, Public engagement Nikki Harvey

A programme of high level short courses run in partnership with the DCCI launched with a 1 day ‘Developing Leadership Skills’ course at the Executive Business Centre on the 21st May.

Mark Painter, Centre for Entrepreneurship Manager, commented, ‘I am absolutely delighted that we have launched this programme and that our first course attracted 13 delegates. The feedback was excellent and I am looking forward to working with the DCCI and my academic colleagues to run further short courses in the future.’

These new interactive short courses are targeted specifically at business owners and senior managers enabling them to access specialist training and expertise to help them develop and grow their businesses. DCCI members also enjoy the benefit of an exclusive discounted rate.

The course was delivered by Faculty of Management academics, Dr Lois Farquharson, Head of the Human Resources and Organisational Behaviour Department, and Melissa Carr, Senior Lecturer in Leadership Development. Objectives of the course included helping delegates to understand the core skills for leadership effectiveness and to consider the requirements of their current leadership situation. The course also looked at how to develop leadership skills and competencies to meet organisational goals.

BU academics interested in getting involved with this programme and delivering future courses are welcome to contact Mark Painter at the BU Centre for Entrepreneurship on mpainter@bournemouth.ac.uk

13 May 2015

What’s Happening at the Consumer Research Group?

Research themes jmemery

The Consumer Research Group (CRG) has a number of activities planned over the coming months, which it would like to inform colleagues about.

Forthcoming Events

1. Interdisciplinary Research Week – May 13^th, 12-2pm, Barnes LT, Talbot Campus

As part of this week of events, Juliet & Jeff (Management School), Janice (Media) and Siné (Science & Technology) will be presenting on interdisciplinary research in Consumer Behaviour. The event will start with lunch at 12 followed by our presentation at 12.30. All are welcome to attend.

Contact: Juliet Memery is hosting this event so please contact her if you have any queries or just come along!

2. Ideas Camp – 11^th June, Russell-Coates Museum
Most of you will have seen Janice’s email about this. The idea is to have a day away from Campus when we can meet together as a group and start to think about working on research together. We hope that each of us will emerge with the beginnings of a research project that we can take forward.
Contact: Janice Dengri-Knott is hosting this event so please contact if you have yet to book a place on this event. We already have 20 bookings so please hurry as we may soon reach capacity for this event.

3. Making Contact with Business Event – 23rd June, Venue: TBA, Talbot Campus

As we work out our research we may wish to make contact with business in order to seek funding or work with industrial partners. Jayne Codling, Liam Toms and Rachel Clarke have kindly agreed to give a short workshop introducing you to how you might go about this. Many of you will have been involved with business previously but this will provide an up-to-date picture of how this is working at BU currently.

4. Writing effective research grants and getting research grant support – TBA, September

5. Speaker Series
Speakers are now being booked for September, November and January. We hope to be able to hold these in the early evening to allow both academics and business contacts to come along. Our aim is to provide high profile speakers talking on interesting/controversial subjects. More news will follow shortly.

Best wishes

Siné, Juliet, Janice & Jeff

Category / Business & Management Studies