The Distinctiveness of Entrepreneurship in Transition Economies
Professor David J. Smallbone
Professor David Smallbone is Professor Small Business and Entrepreneurship and Associate Director of the Small Business Research Centre (SBRC) at Kingston University in London. He joined the SBRC in July 2004, having previously founded and led the successful development of the Centre for Enterprise and Economic Development Research at Middlesex University. He is also Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, China; a former Vice-President of the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship; Immediate Past President of the European Council for Small Business (ECSB); and a member of the International Advisory Board of the Danish Entrepreneurship Academy.
Aside from academic experience, he has also undertaken a variety of research based consultancy contracts in the SME field for clients that include the European Commission, central government departments and agencies in the UK and foreign governments. In addition, since 2000 he acted as a consultant to the OECD on various assignments related to SME development in transition economies. He has also worked for UNDP and as an invited expert to UNECE and OSCE.
Professor Smallbone has been involved in research relating to SMEs and SME policy since the late 1980s and has been a regular presenter at national and international conferences, since that time. In terms of research-based output, Professor Smallbone has published 3 books and more than 100 articles and book chapters on aspects of SME development and policy.
Building Global Branded Businesses by Emerging Market Firms
Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay
Professor Chattopadhyay is the GlaxoSmithKline Chaired Professor in Corporate Innovation—Professor of Marketing at INSEAD and Founder and Program Director for the program Market Entry Strategies for India. He is a Fellow of the Institute on Asian Consumer Insights and the Ernst & Young Institute for Emerging Market Studies. Last but not least, he is a member of the board at the Association for Consumer Research.
He has spent his professional life working on the topics of branding and innovation, which he finds are inextricably linked. Recently, his interest has turned to examining these two topics in the context of emerging markets. You can read more about that in his recently published book entitled The New Emerging Market Multinationals: Four Strategies for Disrupting Markets and Building Brands.
Measuring Multi-Channel Advertising Effectiveness
Dr Elea McDonnel Feit
Dr Elea McDonnel Feit is the Executive Director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative, a Senior Fellow of Marketing at the Wharton School and an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Drexel University.
Her research focuses on leveraging customer data to make better product design and advertising decisions, particularly when data is incomplete, unmatched or aggregated.
Much of her career has focused on developing new quantitative methods and bringing them into practice, first working in product design at General Motors, then commercializing new methods at the marketing analytics firm, the Modellers, and most recently as the Executive Director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative, where she built the academic-industry partnership program.
Online Consumer Behaviour
Dr Kamran Razmdoost
In the digital environment, understanding the way consumers (or users) interact with online/digital solutions is a key capability in providing strategic benefits for digital/online businesses. This session aims to introduce basic concepts and theories explaining consumer behaviour, and to investigate the main behavioural issues in online contexts.
Dr Kamran Razmdoost is a lecturer in enterprise management at University College London (UCL). His area of expertise is marketing and behavioural issues in project-based and built environment contexts. Kamran has done a PhD in Marketing at Cranfield School of Management. His PhD research aims to investigate the effect of customers’ overconfidence and under-confidence on their experience of using a product or service (or customer value). Kamran completed an MRes in Management Research and MSc in Strategic Marketing, both at Cranfield School of Management. Before joining UCL, Kamran has consulted Flubit (an online retailer) on their data analysis and has lectured management related courses. Before moving to the UK, Kamran worked in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry in Iran for over seven years. He played different roles in the industry such as project risk management leader, contract manager, project coordinator, design engineer and management consultant. He gained an MBA at Sharif University of Technology and completed a BSc in Mechanical Engineering at KNT University of Technology, both based in Tehran.
An Introduction to Platform Business Models Part #2
Professor Geoffrey G. Parker
Geoffrey G. Parker is professor of management science at Tulane University and a research scientist at the MIT Initiative for the Digital Economy. Parker has contributed to industrial organization economics as co-developer of the theory of “two-sided” markets. He studies distributed innovation, business platform strategy, and the integration of distributed and renewable energy resources. The National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and numerous corporations have supported his research. Parker advises senior leaders and is a frequent speaker at academic conferences and industry events. He received his B.S. from Princeton and his M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT.
An Introduction to Platform Business Models Part #1
Professor Marshall W. Van Alstyne
Professor Van Alstyne will introduce us to the world of Platforms, lay down the history and basic foundations of them, and familiarize us with the core concept of Networks Effects behind all platform business models. The talk will be also a true reflection on the speaker's real-life analysis of some of the world-know platforms, interactions with the founders behind them, and understanding of how these platforms managed to disrupt and conquer their respective sectors and create massive wealth for their founders in just a few years since establishment.
Marshall W. Van Alstyne is professor of Information Economics at Boston University and a research scientist at the MIT Initiative for the Digital Economy. He has made fundamental contributions to the theory of “two-sided” networks and IT productivity. In addition, he holds patents in information processing theory and in spam prevention mechanisms. His research has been honored with six best paper awards and National Science Foundation IOC, SGER, iCORPS, SBIR, and Career Awards. Van Alstyne is a C-suite adviser, frequent keynote speaker, and former entrepreneur. He received his B.A. from Yale and his M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT.