Professor Alistair Anderson
BA, MSc, PhD.
Professor of Entrepreneurship
and
Director of the Charles P. Skene Centre for Entrepreneurship
Tel: +44 (0)1224 263883
Email: a.r.anderson@rgu.ac.uk
As Director of the Centre, my main role is to develop our research activities. I am also involved as research coordinator for the Business and Management group of Aberdeen Business School. In addition to my own and the Centre’s research, I enjoy supervising a number of PhDs. I also teach on some of our entrepreneurship and research methods courses. In addition to my role at the Centre, I have a number external duties including; membership of several journal Editorial Boards; external examining and doctoral supervision; reviewing and validations.
I have a practical background in entrepreneurship. With my family, I have started and run a number of enterprises, including pubs, quality knitwear manufacturing, construction, property development and was recently involved in a small hotel. However a number of years ago my practical experience raised my intellectual curiosity about entrepreneurship. So for the last 15 years or so I have studied the entrepreneurial process and most of my publications represent my efforts in that direction.
Research Interests
General
Theorising the Entrepreneurship process
Understanding entrepreneurship
Small business operation and development
Developing an appropriate conceptualisation of enterprise and effective pedagogic methodologies
Specific
Social aspects of entrepreneurship
Rural small business
Relating change to enterprise
Strategy and planning in SMEs.
Entrepreneurship in China
Recent Publications
Books and Book Contributions
“The devil is in the e-tale: form and structure in the entrepreneurial narrative”, with Robert Smith, chapter in , 'Narrative and Discursive Approaches in Entrepreneurship' (to be published Summer 2004); Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.
“The effects of firm ownership and culture on Total Quality Management in China”, with Jin Hai Li and Richard Harrison, a chapter in, Chinese Culture, Organizational Behavior and International Business Management, ISBN 1-56720-546-1, Edited by Ilan Alon, Praeger.(2002).
“Enterprise and Learning” editor with Sarah Jack, Aberdeen University ISBN 0-95396-1206. (2001)
“Investigating Perceptions of Environmental Quality: a Phenomenological Approach” with Ruth Nicol, a chapter in Forbord M., Stavrum T., eds., Rural and Regional Development in the Northern Periphery, Research Report 4/00, ISSN 0802-8788, p37-60. (2000).
Journals
“Nurturing and Harvesting of Greek rural network”, with Grigorios Zontanos. International Journal of Entrepreneurship Behaviour and Research, forthcoming, issue 3, May (2004).
“News and nuances of the entrepreneurial myth and metaphor: Linguistic games in entrepreneurial sense-making and sense-giving” with Louise Nicholson, Entrepreneurship, Theory and Practice, (forthcoming in 2004).
“Small tourist firms in rural areas; agility, vulnerability and survival in the face of crisis” ,with Wilson Irvine, International Journal of Entrepreneurship Behaviour and Research, forthcoming, issue 3, May (2004).
“Relationships, Marketing and Small Business: an exploration of the links in theory and practice”,with Grigorios Zontanos, Qualitative Market Research, forthcoming (2004).
“Total Quality Management, Principles and Practices in China” with Jinhai Li and Richard Harrison, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, vol. 20, no 8 (2003).
“The increasing role of small business in the Chinese economy”, with Jin-Hai Li, Richard Harrison and Paul Robson, Journal of Small Business Management, vol.41, no. 3, 310-316 (2003).
“Class Matters”: Human and Social Capital in the Entrepreneurial Process, with Claire Miller, Journal of Socio-Economics, 32, 17-36 (2003).
“A conceptual framework for understanding real agile manufacturing as an evolutionary process” with Jin-Hai Li and Richard Harrison, Business Process Management Journal, 9 (2) 170-189 (2003).
“The Articulation of Entrepreneurial Social Capital: Content and Process”, with Sarah Jack, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, (14) 3, 193-210 (2002).
“Scottish entrepreneurial networks in an international context”, with Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd and Sarah Jack, International Small Business Journal, vol. 20, no. 2, 213-219(2002).
“Configuration and Reconfiguration- Planning for Uncertainty” with Martin Atkins
Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, vol.2, 4/5, pp 406-23 (2002).
Journal Articles (prior to 2002)
Reports
“Change and evolution in community pharmacy,” Bond, C.M., Laing A.W., Grant, A.M., Inch, J., McKee, L. & Anderson, A.R., Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, London. (2003).
Conference Papers (Peer reviewed)
“The development of entrepreneurial networks: a longitudinal study”, with Sarah Drakopoulou-Dodd and Sarah Jack. Babson, Melbourne, February, 2004.
“The vulnerability of peripheral tourism: the rapid disenchantment of peripheral attraction,” with Wilson Irvine. International Conference on Perspectives on Tourism, Umea, Sweden, August 2003.
“Nurturing and Harvesting of a Greek Rural Network” with Grigorios Zontanos. Rural Entrepreneurship Conference, Dumfries, October Rural Entrepreneurship Conference, Dumfries, October 2003.
“Foot and Mouth Disease in rural places” with Wilson Irvine. Rural Entrepreneurship Conference, Dumfries, October 2003.
“The theatricality of the entrepreneurial process”, presented at the European Academy of Management, Milan. May 2003.
“Conforming Non-Conformists, Semiotic manifestations of an entrepreneurial identity”, Babson Conference, Boston, June
2003 “The Added Value of Virtue”, with Carter Crockett, The Entrepreneurship- Marketing Interface, January, Cheltenham
2002 “Entrepreneurial Narratives; the devil is in the etale” with Robert Smith, Movements in Entrepreneurship, Stockholm, May 2003.
“Families in Business, a virtual organisation”, with Sarah Jack and Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd, Babson Conference, Boulder, Colorado, June 2002.
Conference Papers - A. Anderson (prior to 2002)
Papers by invitation
“Becoming, Being and Belonging Entrepreneurial Establishment: Alternative views of the social construction of entrepreneurship” , with G. Wade and R. Smith, Manchester Metropolitan Working paper series, WPO 3/16, ISSN 1478-8195, 2004.
“Teaching the Entrepreneurial Art” in “International Dimensions of Teaching Entrepreneurship,” Daniel S. Evans, ed., Ecole Supérieure de Commerce Et de Management (ESCEM), Lyon (http://www.escead.fr/idte/art.htm) 1999.
“The Loneliness of the Long Distance Learner” with G.Kitching, a paper and workshop at the University of the Highlands and Islands Conference, Inverness, March 1998.
“Graduate Skills and Employability” with Sarah Jack, a paper presented to the Academy of Marketing, Scottish Branch, Stirling University, June 1998.
“ Teaching Entrepreneurship ”, with Sarah Jack, a paper and workshop at the Concluding Conference of the University Entrepreneurship Programme, Strathclyde University, October 1997.