Category / Business & Management Studies

Centre for Entrepreneurship student event with Business Mania

The Centre for Entrepreneurship continued its program of activities for BU students just before Christmas with a joint event with Business Mania, the BU student enterprise society.  We were delighted that CfE tenant and student entrepreneur Robin Humphries, from award winning Static Games, was able to give a presentation to a group of 70 students about his experience of setting up a business.  Robin gave the group an insight into the challenges he has faced and provided hints and tips for budding entrepreneurs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Static Games has been a tenant in the Centre for Entrepreneurship since early 2014 and the CfE have been delighted to support the growing company, even assisting them to successfully pitch for £10,000 equity-free Creative England funding.  This business event is one of many forthcoming student activities the Centre for Entrepreneurship will be involved in. If you have any student entrepreneurs on your courses who would like to find out more please do contact us: nharvey@bournemouth.ac.uk

For the full write up and video please visit the BUCFE website

 

News from the Consumer Research Group: The CR@B is dead … long live the CRG!!

PG research, REF Subjects, Research themes

 

The newly renamed ‘Consumer Research Group’ (formally known as CR@B (Consumer Research @ Bournemouth) … but now rebranded!) held its second meeting last week which again brought together consumer researchers from a wide range of disciplines across the University for lively discussions around the opportunities for cross-disciplinary research (over coffee and mince pies!).  The aim of the meeting was to begin to identify themes around which groups or clusters of consumer researchers could discuss potential collaborations and plan activities for the future.  From the meeting seven themes were initially proposed (see diagram above), and whilst these may initially remain fluid, they offer great opportunity for further discussion.  A notable outcome from this meeting was the variety of consumer research areas being explored at BU, and the number of potential linkages that could be made between different groups, across and between these themes, to develop an even stronger research profile for the CRG.

The next meeting for the ‘Consumer Research Group’ will be 2-4pm on Wednesday 28th January in PG19.  Professor John Fletcher – Pro Vice Chancellor – Research and Innovation – will open the meeting.  

Anyone who is doing consumer research of any description is welcome to join and contribute to the discussions – and as before there will be coffee and cake to help our consumer thinking along.

If you would like to come along please email any of the other contacts below so that we can get a feel for numbers.  If you are unable to make this meeting but are interested in being involved please email us to let us know and we will keep you informed about future events.

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Reminder For All Consumer Researchers – December Meeting of Consumer Research @ BU

Just over a month ago we held a very successful meeting bringing together consumer researchers from a wide range of disciplines across the University.  Our ‘Hands-On Information Sharing Session’ made it clear that there was tremendous potential for cross-disciplinary research and that as a united group we could not only act as a forum for research and ideas but also to provide a platform for interaction with industry.

This is a reminder that our next meeting is going to be held on:-

Wednesday, 3rd December in CG01, Christchurch House between 3-5pm.  [Please note the change in venue.]

Anyone who is doing consumer research of any description is welcome (e.g. consumer behaviour, retail, marketing, advertising, psychology, consumer neuroscience …) and there will be coffee and mince pies to help our consumer thinking along.

At this meeting we will be begin to identify groups or clusters of researchers, to discuss potential collaborations, and discuss plans for the future.

So if you think this might be of interest, please do come along next Wednesday.  If you are unable to make this meeting but are interested in being involved please email us to let us know and we will keep you informed about future events.

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk)

 

A Fishy Tale: BS Consumer Researchers visit Norway

Funding opportunities, REF Subjects, Research themes

Last week Professor Juliet Memery and Dr Dawn Birch from the Business School, supported by the Cyber Security Unit, travelled to Tromso in Norway at the invitation of the University of Tromso.  The aim of the trip was to discuss future research collaborations and funding opportunities around the areas of food security, food crime, food waste and technology with a particular emphasis on fish and seafood.

Whilst there Juliet and Dawn met with academics from the University of Tromso, including Professor Svein Ottar Olsen and Professor Kåre Skallerud, as well as Pirjo Honkanen, Director of Research (Consumer and marketing research) and Petter Olsen, senior scientist, from Nofima, one of the largest institutes for applied research within the fields of fisheries, aquaculture and food industry in Europe.  A series of research presentations revealed a number of areas of mutual interest which will be scoped out and explored further with a view to securing EU/Research Council funding.  Additionally they met with analysts at the Head Office of the Norwegian Seafood Council to discuss their role and research in the seafood industry and explore potential opportunities for them to be included in future research collaborations.

Overall it was a very successful networking trip, and a reciprocal visit to Bournemouth is anticipated in the coming months to further strengthen relationships and collaborations.

Members of Bournemouth University and Erasmus School of Law hold workshop on organizational behaviour and legal development

Knowledge Exchange

Academics from Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands joined fellow researchers at Bournemouth University for a two day workshop on November 6-7. The workshop focused on organizational behaviour and legal development.

Presentations ranged from examining corruption in terms of foreign owned firms paying bribes and organizational wrong doing to legal issues involving IP issues and trademark violations at the London Olympics.

Bournemouth University PhD candidate, Nick Coppola, presented his paper “EU competence in IP matters: the strange case of geographical indications”. Coppola’s presentation explored the division of competencies between the European Union and its member states with regards to an often controversial form of intellectual property.

“I am presenting this paper again to the Italian Association of Agricultural Lawyers November 27 in Rovigo, Italy, so the opportunity to get feedback from colleagues in a smaller forum prior to the conference will help me to respond to potentially difficult questions from subject matter experts,” said Coppola. “Additionally, it was a good opportunity to discuss my paper with professors and peers who take a different approach to law. This has helped me to consider my research from an alternative perspective.”

Legal issues were further addressed when Dr. Lingling Wei presented her joint paper with Erikson about the event specific legislation for mega sporting events. Their paper intersects social sciences discussions with legal analysis.

“I think these interdisciplinary research workshops are a good way to work outside of the restriction of the legal field and have a good interaction with the social scientist,” added Wei.

Organizational behaviour was also explored at the workshop. Erasmus University Rotterdam candidate, Shaheen Naseer, presented her paper “Bureaucratic power and corruption, Imprinting of the past” which gave a contextual overview of how Pakistan’s bureaucracy has been influenced during its time as a British colony.

“The conference was a great opportunity for me to interact with academics from diverse backgrounds,” said Naseer. “The papers were at the forefront of knowledge and the floor discussions helped cross-fertilization of ideas. The conference was held in an atmosphere of collegiality and I enjoyed the great hospitality of the organizers”

Dr. Fabian Homberg, Bournemouth University and Prof. Klaus Heine, Erasmus School of Law, have started these workshops in 2011 as an informal way to foster intellectual exchange and to develop interdisciplinary research projects. This initiative will continue in the future and has also resulted in an ERASMUS+ Agreement between BU’s Business School and Erasmus School of Law which is active since the start of this academic year (2014/2015). This means exchange opportunities for undergraduates, post-graduates and post-graduate researchers and staff are now available between these two institutions.

Reminder For All Consumer Behaviour Researchers … A forum for discussion around CB research.

REF Subjects, Research themes

The study of consumer behaviour has always been a multi-disciplinary endeavour, so perhaps it is not too surprising that there are pockets of related research activity all around BU.  These include consumer related research clusters in the Business School, the Media School, School of Tourism and Psychology.  What is surprising is how little we are aware of each other’s work.

Given this the ICB research cluster are hosting a ‘Hands-on Information Sharing Session’ to provide a forum for discussion around CB research at BU.  The session will provide an opportunity to meet others with similar research interests and learn more about the variety of consumer research being carried out across the University through brief research presentations, followed by discussions over refreshments to look for potential cross-discipline research opportunities.

Wherever you are in BU, if you think that you would like to be part of a forum aimed at developing a stronger research presence in this area please come along to a meeting over coffee and cakes ….

‘CB Hands-on Information Sharing Session’

Wednesday 22nd October at 15:30 in TAG22, Talbot Campus.

Please could those wishing to attend let Juliet Memery know as soon as possible to ascertain likely numbers for catering purposes, and then send three Powerpoint slides (max) that briefly cover your research/interests in issues relating to consumer behaviour research to her by Monday 20th October (email: jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk ).

All welcome – we look forward to seeing you there!

 

Congratulations to BU Visiting Faculty on latest publication

PG research, Publishing

Congratulations to Bournemouth University’s Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada and Prof. Padam Simkhada for the paper on financial barriers to the uptake of antenatal care in a rural community in Nepal.1   The first author (a native Nepali-speaker) conducted 50 face-to-face interviews with women and their families in rural Nepal.  These interviews were thematically analysed after transcription.

This latest paper adds to our knowledge into user costs related to maternity services in Nepal as we had already published our findings on users costs in the largest obstetric hospital in the capital. 2

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Simkhada, B., van Teijlingen, E.R., Porter, M., Simkhada, P. & Wasti, S.P. (2014) Why do costs act as a barrier in maternity care for some, but not all women? A qualitative study in rural Nepal International Journal of Social Economics 41 (8), 705-713

 

  1. Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E., Sharma, G., Simkhada, B., Townend, J. (2012) User costs and informal payments for care in the largest maternity hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, Health Science Journal 6(2): 317-334.  www.hsj.gr/volume6/issue2/6212.pdf

 

Cyber Security seminars for 2014-2015 start with a bang

Fusion

Yesterday, we held the first of this academic year’s cyber security seminars.  We hosted Dr John Lyle from Facebook, who spoke to a packed audience in the Barnes Lecture Theatre about some of the challenges fighting spam at Facebook.  After his talk, John described how impressed he was with some of the thought provoking questions raised by audience.

Our next seminar will be on Tuesday, 25th November and will be delivered by Dr Andrea Atzeni from the Computer and Network Security group at Politecnico di Torino.  Andrea will be visiting us that week as part of our Fusion funded Bournemouth European Network in Interdisciplinary Cyber Security (BENICS) project.  Watch this space for more details about  Andrea’s talk.

Our interdisciplinary seminar series on Cyber Security is a wonderful opportunity to hear interesting, thought-provoking talks on a variety of topics related to security and privacy.  Although some of these speakers will be academic, their talks will be approachable and require nothing more than a general interest in security, and an enquiring mind.  We’re also interested in ideas about possible speakers or seminar topics, so please get in touch if you have any suggestions.

Calling All Consumer Behaviour Researchers … A forum for discussion around CB research.

Research themes

 

The study of consumer behaviour has always been a multi-disciplinary endeavour, so perhaps it is not too surprising that there are pockets of related research activity all around BU.  These include consumer related research clusters in the Business School, the Media School, School of Tourism and Psychology.  What is surprising is how little we are aware of each other’s work.

Given this the ICB research cluster are hosting a ‘Hands-on Information Sharing Session’ to provide a forum for discussion around CB research at BU.  The session will provide an opportunity to meet others with similar research interests and learn more about the variety of consumer research being carried out across the University through brief research presentations, followed by discussions over refreshments to look for potential cross-discipline research opportunities.

Wherever you are in BU, if you think that you would like to be part of a forum aimed at developing a stronger research presence in this area please come along to a meeting over coffee and cakes ….

‘CB Hands-on Information Sharing Session’

Wednesday 22nd October at 15:30 in TAG22, Talbot Campus.

Please could those wishing to attend let Juliet Memery know as soon as possible to ascertain likely numbers for catering purposes, and then send three Powerpoint slides (max) that briefly cover your research/interests in issues relating to consumer behaviour research to her by Monday 20th October (email: jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk ).

All welcome – we look forward to seeing you there!

 

BU helping to evolve security and privacy by design

On Monday, BU researchers co-organised a workshop on Evolving Security and Privacy Requirements Engineering (ESPRE) at the 22nd IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2014) in Karlskrona, Sweden.  The workshop brought together practitioners and researchers from around the world, who shared their thoughts about how security and privacy can be incorporated into the design of software as early as possible, without compromising productivity or sacrificing innovation.  The RE conference series is one of the premier conferences in software engineering, and the ESPRE workshop is the successor of several successful secure software engineering workshops.  Shamal Faily (SciTech) organised this workshop, together with colleagues from Germany (University of Duisberg-Essen), South Korea (Ajou University), and the USA (Carnegie Mellon University).

The workshop began with a keynote talk from Professor Angela Sasse (UCL), who described some recent research examining how companies build security into products they develop, and the need to change the discourse around usability and security.  Three technical paper sessions followed, before the workshop was concluded with an invited talk by Aljosa Pasic (Atos Research & Innovation) on some of the market trends and business challenges in security engineering.  Further information about the workshop itself can be found at http://espre2014.org .

We’re grateful to the Faculty of Science & Technology for co-sponsoring this workshop, and to all the workshop attendees for sharing their work.

Could new framework take pressure off businesses who have to deal with privacy compliance?

 

 

The next Cyber Security seminar will be on:

‘Legal – URN (User Requirements Notation) Framework for Privacy Compliance’

Tuesday, 13th May

Coyne Lecture Theatre, Talbot Campus

4pm -5pm.

 

Bournemouth University is delighted to welcome Dr. Sepideh Ghanavati from CRP Henri Tudor, who will be visiting on the 13thMay to present an overview of the Legal-URN framework, which includes compliance analysis techniques and provides guidelines to manage multiple regulations at the same time.

The number of regulations an organisation needs to comply with has been increasing, and the pressure is building for them to ensure that their business processes are aligned with these regulations. However, because of the complexity and intended vagueness of regulations in general, it is not possible to treat them the same way as other types of requirements.

The cost of being non-compliant can also be fairly high; non-compliance can cause crucial harm to organisations, who may incur financial penalties or loss of reputation. Therefore, it is very important for organisations to take a systematic approach to ensuring that their compliance with related laws, regulations and standards is established and maintained. To achieve this goal, a model-based privacy compliance analysis framework called Legal-URN has been proposed.

If you would like to join us for this presentation, please book your place via Eventbrite.

We will look forward to seeing you!

Fusion Investment Fund – BU research and education visit in Mexico

Fusion

Dr Christos Apostolakis from the Business School has been awarded Fusion Investment Fund to establish working relationships with Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Tecnologico de Monterrey), Mexico in terms of research and education. Christos has accepted an invitation by the Global Research Chair in Entrepreneurship Eugenio Garza-Laguera at Tec de Monterrey and he will travel to Monterrey on the 5th April 2014 for a week’s visit to engaging in a series of intellectual and networking activities.

During his 5 working-day visit, Christos plans to:

  • Give a guest lecture about Bournemouth University Business School (vision; goals; history; future plans; suggestions for collaboration with Tec de Monterrey and EGADE Business School);
  • Give a presentation about his research work on social entrepreneurship expanding on the significant role of entrepreneurship in biotechnology the main research theme of the host research centre;
  • Attend student classes on Entrepreneurship and, Strategy;
  • Collect material and other secondary data about entrepreneurship activities run or supported by the host research centre;
  • Visit wherever possible local businesses that promote entrepreneurship in biotechnology (in collaboration with the Global Research Chair in Entrepreneurship Eugenio Garza-Laguera);
  • Do networking with colleagues who work for EGADE Business School and the Global Research Chair in Entrepreneurship Eugenio Garza-Laguera;
  • Collaborate in expanding the paper the abstract of which has already been accepted for the ECIE 2014 conference with Dr Marcia Villasana Campos.

It is envisaged that this visit can initiate long term collaboration between the two universities such as staff and student exchange, joint PhD supervision and, student recruitment with a focus on entrepreneurship (and not only). The project contributes to both research and education of the Fusion concept as it aims to develop gradually a strategic partner for BU’s internationalisation process.

Tecnológico de Monterrey is one of the largest private multi-campus universities in Latin America, with over 90,000 students. Based in Monterrey, Mexico the University has 31 campuses in 25 cities throughout the country. It has one of the top graduate business schools in the region and it is well-known for having a large number of students studying abroad every year.

For more information, please contact Dr Christos Apostolakis (capostolakis@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Bournemouth European Network in Cyber Security (BENICS)

Fusion

In recent years, the field of Cybersecurity has attracted researchers and practitioners from academic fields ranging from Computer Science and Design, through to Psychology and Business Studies. To date, however, these communities have not been influenced by each other. Their research are disseminated in a variety of workshops and conferences across these fields. As a result, there is a misunderstanding of the role these different fields play in improving cybersecurity. For example, some researchers describe people are “the weakest link” and encourage designers to build systems that “Homer Simpson” can use safely. Unfortunately, treating users as a problem limits opportunities for innovation when people are engaged as part of a solution. Similarly, treating practitioners like cartoon characters disenfranchises the very people that a design is meant to support. Bournemouth University is one of the few institutions in the world with interests across the disciplines contributing to Cybersecurity, a small enough size for academics across these disciplines to engage with each other, and the vision necessary to fuel this engagement. To take advantage of the opportunities afforded to Bournemouth, an interdisciplinary seminar series in cybersecurity was launched in September 2013. The seminar series has attracted both staff and students from across the university, together with practitioners from local industry with interests in cybersecurity. So far, this has led to connections forming across the Faculty of Science & Technology, and the Media and Business schools. Resulting collaborations with our seminar speakers have also led to prospective KTP and Horizon 2020 proposals, and invitations to deliver guest lectures at other universities.

To build on this momentum in interdisciplinary cybersecurity activity at Bournemouth, we have created the Bournemouth European Network for Interdisciplinary Cyber Security (BENICS): a FUSION funded SMN activity. Over the coming year, BENICS will bring five invited European cybersecurity academics to Bournemouth to engage in short (one-week), focused collaborative visits. These visits will introduce invited academics to Bournemouth’s cybersecurity capabilities, allow them to share their interests with us as part of the cybersecurity seminar series, and engage in short and focused proposal building, research, or teaching resource creation activities.

Following each visit, Bournemouth and the visiting academic will engage in pump-priming activities; these will refine deliverables produced to sustain the momentum created during the visit. These deliverables will form the basis of a joint publication at an agreed international conference or journal.

Watch this space for more information about these visits, and please get in touch if you’re interested in engaging with BENICS and our cybersecurity research in general.