Research Group Director: Dr Katerina Nicolopoulou, Reader in Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation, Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Innovation

Processes, tools and content through impactful conversations that matter.

The scope of the Global Socially Progressive Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Group encompasses socially sensitive ways to develop entrepreneurship and innovation in different Global contexts. Core areas of the Research Group include: Social, Sustainable and Diversity-focused Entrepreneurship and Innovation, strategies for Social and Business Sustainability and Impact as well as related Educational and Business Models.

The Group shares close links to the existing University Strategic Sub-Theme of Socially Progressive Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The Group’s unique value proposition emerges from ways in which it is:

• responding in an agile manner to opportunities for research collaboration and engagement in its core areas
• leading research outputs and research activities with KE potential in its core areas
• catalysing relationships between academics, organisations, stakeholders in different geographical regions
• supporting HCE with expertise and competencies via affiliated scholars and PGRs
• connecting disciplines, and in particular, socially-informed perspectives to elucidate phenomena in Entrepreneurship and Innovation

The ethos of the Research Group is emerging and synergistic, favouring creative targeted conversations and output-focused collaboration towards KPIs that are important for the university, the wider academic community and society.

Outputs

The Research Group aims to develop knowledge-based content, processes and tools with relevance for Global Socially Progressive Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Related outputs include:

• Thought leadership through the organisation of Conference tracks/sections, seminars and workshops bringing together academics and practitioners from the global community in key focus areas related to Global Socially Progressive Entrepreneurship and Innovation        
• Contribution to taught courses through classes and modules (Global Innovation Lab for MSc in Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation; Qualitative Research methods for the CDT Socially Progressive Entrepreneurship and Innovation)
• A Learning Circle process comprising:
  -Reading Groups
  -Semi-guided research virtual writing retreats
  -Annual Research Colloquia and mentoring for PGRs
• Toolkits related to project outputs, incorporating knowledge from specific contexts and aspects of Socially Progressive Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Membership

Research Group member academics

• Dr. Veselina Stoyanova
• Dr. Sreevas Sahasranamam
• Dr. Paul Lasalle
• Dr. Efstathios Tapinos

Research Group member PGRs

• Christine Samy (Female Entrepreneurship in urban settlements of Greater Cairo)
• Sherine Mohamed (Models of Entrepreneurship Education)
• Caroline Whitfield (Place-based entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial agency)
• Afsa Mukasa (Entrepreneurship at the bottom of the pyramid in Uganda)
• Naraporn Thammadee (HRM in Social Enterprises in Thailand)
• Henry Eze (Youth Entrepreneurship programmes in Nigeria)
• Ahmed Fahmy (DBA) (Innovation processes and models)
• Sara Yaqoob (DBA) (Strategy for social entrepreneurship impact)
• Meriem Kadia (DBA) (Women in cybersecurity)

Affiliated academics and PGRs- partner institutions

Comillas Pontifical University

• Amparo Merino
• Monica Vasquez de Solar (PGR)
• Maria Jose Manjon (PGR)

Waterloo University Canada

• Jacki Csonka Peeren (PGR)

Externally affiliated academics

Professor David Kirby

The Group is open to incorporating affiliated/external members with focus on academia as well as practice/industry/enterprise (non-academic), who have expertise in its core areas.

For more information, please  email: katerina.nicolopoulou@strath.ac.uk

Ongoing research projects include:

• Navigating COVID-19 related transitions and transformations of economically marginalised women entrepreneurs within urban poor communities of the Greater Cairo Region in Egypt (GCR).

• Family Enterprise Innovation in India: The Role of Women for Entrepreneurial Leadership with Impact in the Pune-Mumbai Industrial Hub (SDG 8, SDG 5, SDG4)

Chairing of Conference sections/tracks

Nicolopoulou and Merino are chairing a Developmental papers section for EURAM 2021 within the Track Social and Sustainable Entrepreneurship

Sample publications in different areas related to Global Socially Progressive Entrepreneurship and Innovation

• Virtuous circle: human capital and human resource management in social enterprises

• A gender perspective on entrepreneurial leadership: female leaders in Kazakhstan

• Cosmopolitanism or globalisation: the anthropocene turn

• Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation

• A gender perspective on entrepreneurial leadership: female entrepreneurial leaders in Kazakhstan

• Gender diversity and board performance: women's experiences and perspectives

• Questioning legitimacy of social enterprises through Gramscian and Bourdieusian perspectives: the case of the British social enterprises

• Social entrepreneurship between cross-currents: towards a framework of theoretical restructuring of the field

• An incubation perspective on social innovation: the London Hub - a social incubator