Adam Smith Business School

This stream examines the reciprocal relationship between multinational corporations and global forces, and how this interplay shapes the organisation of professional work across borders. We study how firms structure their international operations, adapt to changing geopolitical, regulatory and technological conditions, and influence professional identities globally.

A particular focus is on professional service firms, which coordinate cross-border work and contribute to the creation and diffusion of global standards, practices and governance arrangements. We also investigate how geopolitical tensions and institutional contexts reshape the strategies of both large and smaller MNEs, including micro-MNEs and emerging market firms, affecting their operations, technology deployment, relocation decisions, and non-market strategies.

Finally, we explore how participation in global value chains is unevenly structured, influencing the strategic options and professional practices of internationally operating firms across diverse national and institutional contexts.

Contributors: Mehdi Boussebaa, Junzhe Ji, Rose Narooz, Abrar Ali Saiyed

This research stream examines international business, innovation and management knowledge through postcolonial, decolonial and critical political economy perspectives. It focuses on how dominant narratives of innovation, entrepreneurship and globalisation are constructed, legitimised and circulated, and how they shape organisational and academic life across different national and institutional contexts.

Rather than treating these narratives as neutral or universally applicable, we investigate their roots in colonial histories and contemporary structures of global inequality and dependency. We study how they travel, become embedded in organisational practices, policy frameworks and evaluation regimes, and how they are internalised, negotiated or contested by professionals, organisations and academic communities – particularly in the Global South.

A central concern is the politics of management knowledge. We examine structural dynamics of academic dependency, the Western-centrism embedded in mainstream theory and how these dynamics influence global knowledge production. At the same time, we explore alternative sources of knowledge, including indigenous knowledge systems and the lived experiences of marginalised and minority business communities.

Contributors: Mehdi Boussebaa, Andrea Jimenez Cisneros, Rose Narooz, Abrar Ali Saiyed, Sreevas Sahasranamam

We study the internationalisation of entrepreneurial firms and SMEs. Our research focuses on: 

• Established SMEs and how they address the challenges of doing business abroad, including exporters and micro multinationals. 

• Early-stage and rapidly internationalising firms and how they manage the effects of newness and smallness. 

• Policy and support mechanisms that help SMEs innovate and compete in response to changing global environments. 

Margaret Fletcher, Junzhe Ji, Rose Narooz, Yee Kwan Tang, Iyke Ikegwuonu and Abrar Ali Saiyed 

We examine how emerging technologies – such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, biotech, blockchain and digital public infrastructure – can enable entrepreneurship with meaningful societal impact. We focus on understanding how innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems form around disruptive technologies and identifying strategies to scale technology-driven ventures in diverse contexts. Through collaborative projects, we generate insights that inform policy, practice, and theory on building inclusive, resilient and responsive innovation systems. Representative outputs from this work include studies on AI in entrepreneurship, blockchain in the music industry, co-creating innovation ecosystems under conditions of uncertainty, and digital public infrastructure for informal entrepreneurship. 

Dominic Chalmers, Sreevas Sahasranamam, Gemma Milne, Felix Honecker, Iyke Ikegwuonu, Junzhe Ji, Bernd Wurth