Sustainability
Digitalising sustainable consumption
Overconsumption by consumers is a key challenge to sustainability and climate emergency agendas. Professor Deirdre Shaw and Dr Katherine Duffy’s research focuses on shifting clothing towards more sustainable alternatives. For example, they have collaborated with the Save Your Wardrobe (SYW) app in an ESRC-funded project to examine the role of digitalisation in changing how consumers engage with their clothing, to support more sustainable and mindful behaviours. The collaboration was critical in providing an empirical evidence base for the app, reducing risk, attracting investment, and facilitating expansion. The findings have been disseminated widely with academic, practitioner and policy audiences. This project was a finalist in the Green Gown Awards 2020 and the work is ongoing. Professor Shaw and Dr Duffy also serve on the Glasgow City Council textile strategy action group and are affiliates of WRAP’s Textile 2030 policy group.
Related links
Baltic Street Adventure Playground
With funding from the European Social Fund, Dr Stephanie Anderson and Professor Deirdre Shaw worked directly with a local organisation, Baltic Street Adventure Playground, to support and develop an award-winning community food hub in a disadvantaged area of Glasgow. The hub has been critical to food provision in the area. The research obtained as a result of this partnership will be used to inform future interventions and influence policy decision-making. Professor Andrew Cumbers, Professor Robert McMaster and Dr Helen Traill (EDPE Cluster) also worked on this interdisciplinary project. Their work received the Best Community or Public Engagement Initiative Award at the UofG Knowledge and Public Engagement Awards, as well as the Making a Difference Award at the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards in 2020.
Related links
- Dr Stephanie Anderson
- Professor Deirdre Shaw
- Baltic Street Adventure Playground
- EDPE Cluster
- European Social Fund
- Research paper: Scaling up community action for tackling climate change (2018)
- Research paper: The work of community gardens: reclaiming place for community in the city (2018)
- Research report: Baltic Street Adventure Playground Establishing a Community Food Hub (2020)
- University of Glasgow project profile
Digital
New Game-Changing View of Visual Content on Social Media
New Research has been conducted by Adam Smith Business School's Dr Jaylan Azer and co-authors Matthew Alexander and Lorena Blasco-Arcas.
The first academic research study to look at how consumers use pictures and not text to engage with a brand revealed there are four behaviours people evidence through images.
The research explored 29,000 pictorial posts created by individual users on the official Instagram and Facebook pages of Amazon, Apple, American Airlines and Nike.
Corporate conflict management on social media
Brands experience an increasing number of hateful comments on their social media communities. Whilst there is substantial evidence highlighting the negative social and commercial impact of hateful comments, research shows that most brands do not intervene. Dr Jan Breitsohl and his team have launched an innovative business engagement campaign to provide brands with evidence-based interventions that will positively affect users’ social media experience and set an example of responsible digital corporate practice. Given that content in social media communities of global brands is read by millions of users, the potential for positive social impact is significant. Any brand with a substantial (500k+) social media following and interested in collaborating is encouraged to contact Dr Breitsohl at tacklehate@glasgow.ac.uk.
Related links
- Dr Jan Breitsohl
- Research paper: Consumer responses to conflict-management strategies on non-profit social media fan pages (2020)
- Research paper: Managing trolling in online communities: an organizational perspective (2021)
- Research paper: Social media conflicts during the financial crisis: managerial implications for retail banks (2019)
Digital tourism
Originally created as a response to COVID-19, Dr Alena Kostyk and Dr Jaylan Azer are lending their technical and digital marketing expertise to two ESRC-funded projects on digital tourism. Dr Kostyk is developing virtual reality (VR) experiences with three Scottish museums, sharing her knowledge and working with local filmmakers to help them enter the niche VR market. Dr Azer is working with the Outer Hebrides Tourism Community to help boost the digital engagement and marketing skills of the restaurants on the Isles by producing the ’food with a view’ brand and hashtag which has been widely shared on social media. Together, the two projects have the potential to reach thousands of virtual and physical tourists, therefore enhancing their experiences and developing skills in outlying communities.
Related links
Machine learning for financial technology
Dr Bowei Chen partnered with London-based, FinTech start-up ArrayStream Technologies to develop state-of-the-art machine learning techniques for computational investing (portfolio replication and implied volatility surface prediction). Dr Chen’s work played a key role in the company securing significant funding from its investors to expand its business. The project, funded by the ESRC Business Boost Fund, was a finalist for Best Collaboration in Business at the 2020 UofG Knowledge and Public Engagement Awards.