Also in the news
Academic gives talk on legal sector social class pay gap
Dr Michael Vallely, Department of Work, Employment and Organisation, gave a talk on the social class pay gap within law at The Law Society of Scotland’s Social Mobility Forum.
A report from KPMG and the Bridge Group found that individuals from working class origins took 19% (approx. two years) longer to progress to the next grade (KPMG report).
Barriers can include a lack of paid internships and lack of financial support from parents; not having networks that those from middle class backgrounds may have; and not being able to access inside information on internships or jobs from parents or networks. Not having the right 'fit' in terms of presentation or accent can also be a barrier.
However, law firms and the legal sector generally can take action to lessen the class pay gap, from creating space for open conversations about the class pay gap to implementing practical measures.
Dr Vallely, together with Katie Scott (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Manager, CMS) and Maddie Roberts (Senior Reward Analyst, CMS), highlighted the real-time implications of the class pay gap on the legal sector and what employers can do to support their colleagues from working-class backgrounds.
Michael said, “It’s great to see that the Law Society of Scotland has such a genuine interest in, and passion for, addressing class inequalities in the legal sector.”
Georgia Turnbull, Education Policy Executive at the Law Society of Scotland, shared the key findings from the most recent Social Mobility Forum in a Law Society of Scotland blog.
Dr Vallely also had an article on the ‘class ceiling’ published in Comment Central – this was subsequently published on the Strathclyde Business School blog
SBS professor sees community organisation nominated for Inspiring City Awards
Matt Hannon, Director of the Strathclyde Institute for Sustainable Communities (SISC) and Professor of Sustainable Energy Business and Policy at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Innovation, is also chair and trustee of South Seeds, a community organisation based in the South Central area of Glasgow. Working in partnership with residents and organisations within the local community to help improve the look and feel of the area, the group’s mission is to enable Southsiders to lead more sustainable lives.
Matt has been involved in the recent £1m redevelopment of the Changing Rooms on the playing fields by Queen’s Park in the Southside of Glasgow which has now been nominated for an Inspiring City Awards 2026, in the Environmental award category.
Sponsored by the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and The Herald, the awards highlight the very best of Glasgow and the people behind its achievements, with each of the eight categories reflecting a different aspect of the city’s life and its aspirations.
The Environmental Award has particular significance, and here the judges will be looking for evidence of how Glasgow’s environment and its efforts to combat climate change across the city have addressed the Glasgow Pacts, which were agreed by global leaders when the city hosted COP26.
More info here on the awards and nominees.
Invitation to European Forest Institute's new hub for WEO academic
Dr Brian Garvey was invited to the launch of European Forest Institute’s (EFI) International Forest Governance Hub in Edinburgh - the new offices mark an important milestone in EFI's engagement with partners across the UK while strengthening connections between UK expertise and EFI's European and international networks.
The new office will support collaboration on shared challenges including climate resilience, sustainable forest management, forest restoration and forest governance.
The inauguration event brought together around 60 participants from government, academia, civil society organisations and international partners to discuss forest governance challenges and opportunities from UK, European and global perspectives. Conversations focused on the role of stronger governance, better evidence and international cooperation in addressing growing pressures on forests from climate change, biodiversity loss and land-use change.
Hong Kong RAE2026 Panel for SBS Professor
Professor Anne Marie Doherty, Professor of Marketing and Director of REF for Strathclyde Business School, has served on the Business & Economics panel for the Hong Kong Research Assessment Exercise 2026.
Convening in Hong Kong and taking place every six years, the Hong Kong RAE is an international, expert-led, review to assess submissions from Hong Kong’s publicly funded universities. Panels are comprised of internationally recognised scholars, with members of the RAE2026 Business and Economics panel including experts from prestigious institutions such as Yale University, New York University, University of Southern California and the University of Oxford.
Professor Doherty is a full panel member for C17 Business & Management Studies for REF2029. She also served as a full panel member for REF2021, as well as serving as a member of the REF2029 People, Culture and Environment Pilot Panel for C17 Business & Management Studies.
Department of Work, Employment and Organisation PGRs awarded grant
Postgraduate researchers at the Department of Work, Employment and Organisation - Bianca Vasquez Pistorio, Barbara Baracho Wanderley , Misbah Rani, Gabriela Gherghina, along with Cameron Fergus-Allen of Engineering – have been awarded ‘Fostering Inclusive Academic Cultures’ grants.
Anti-tourism research work
Emeritus professor RIchard Butler is participating in a German/Canadian initiative on the origins of anti-tourism sentiment, with four online sessions taking place in October and an in-person conference which will take place in Berlin in April 2027.
"Histories of anti-tourism" will be examining the recent debate around tourism, what is classed as 'overtourism' and what 'anti-tourism' means while looking back at the historical context too
Following the conference, selected contributors will be invited to develop their work for an edited volume.
Marketing academic's paper published in Academy of Marketing Science journal
Professor Matthew Alexander has had a paper published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science with Elina Jaakkola (University of Turku), Suvi Nenonen (Stockholm School of Economics) and Kaj Storkbacka (Hanken Business School).
The article - titled "Actor Engagement Management in Multi-Actor Settings"- looks at how, as firms increasingly depend on engagement from customers, partners, employees, regulators, communities, and other stakeholders, managing engagement has become both more important and more complex.
The article develops a framework for Actor Engagement Management (AEM) that helps explain how firms can strategically manage engagement in multi-actor environments. The authors identify three core AEM activities, propose four distinct engagement management approaches for different multi-actor settings, and highlight the often-overlooked role of disengagement as a strategic management challenge.
Submissions in for Marketing Competition for Schools 2026
Submissions have been coming in for the Department of Marketing's Marketing Competition for Schools 2026.
Organiser Elizabeth McKee said, "We are looking forward to seeing all of this year’s entries for our Marketing Competition for Schools 2026. The theme for this year is the World Cup 2026 with pupils asked to choose a player, team or the competition itself and present creative ideas on how to promote football, fitness, healthy living and so on."
Marketing papers published
Professor Spiros Gounaris has published a series of papers in leading marketing and management journals in 2026, including four articles from his research programme on family–work balance.
The four studies, published in Industrial Marketing Management, the Journal of Business Ethics, European Management Journal and The International Journal of Human Resource Management, examine family–work balance as a relational and managerial issue rather than simply an individual employee responsibility. Across the studies, the research shows how managers and organisational conditions shape employees’ ability to reconcile their family and working lives, with implications for employee engagement, job satisfaction and performance. The work also introduces an ethical perspective, emphasising the shared responsibilities of employees and management in creating sustainable family–work balance.
Beyond this research programme, Professor Gounaris has published “Customer experience–marketing alignment as a dynamic organisational capability: balancing structural continuity and behavioural adaptability”, with Ahmed Almoraish, in the European Journal of Marketing. The article examines how organisations can align customer experience and marketing by combining structural continuity with the behavioural adaptability needed to respond to changing customer requirements.
He is also a co-author of “Managing brand assets internally: turning employees into an integral source of brand equity”, published in the British Journal of Management, with Kalliopi Chatzipanagiotou, George Christodoulides, Androniki Dalakoura and Achilleas Boukis. The study examines employees as an important internal source of brand equity and how organisations can manage internal brand assets to strengthen brand value.
Dr Daud Nayer has secured external funding, for £4,017.00, from the Academy of Marketing for his project: Platform-Compelled Work Engagement: The Dark Side of Algorithmic Management in Gig Work.
New programme builds on Investor Ready programme
Strathclyde Business School delivered a three-day programme in Thailand recently, working with a group of hand-picked high growth Med Tech businesses and helping them to navigate funding options.
Attendees heard expert input from the Strathclyde team - Professor of International Business Engagement Julian Taylor; Dean of Science, Professor Duncan Graham and programme director Phil Considine – while Strathclyde Visiting Professor Peter Proud FRSE and Lisl Macdonald LLM FRSA sharing their experiences during the sessions, providing priceless insights into the world of Venture Capital.
The MedTech Catalyst programme, developed and delivered by Strathclyde and TILSNA, builds on Strathclyde’s Investor Ready programme that has been developed in partnership with the Scottish National Investment Bank.
Management Science team collaborate on project FlexSelect
The IDeA (Informed Decision Analytics) team in the Department of Management Science are collaborating with Northern Powergrid and LCP Delta on project FlexSelect.
Funded for £130k by the Network Innovation Alliance, the six-month project will investigate optimal bid selection from flexibility service providers. Local flexibility services are a key mechanism used by electricity network providers to work towards more sustainable and efficient energy networks - reducing the network demand, managing network congestion, and avoiding costly network upgrades.
Led by Dr Euan Barlow and Dr Thomas Byrne, the IDea team will develop and implement the optimisation framework used to support bid decisions.
Two Economics PhD alumni awarded ADR UK Research Fellowships
Congratulations to two of our PhD alumni from the Department of Economics, who have both been awarded prestigious ADR UK Research Fellowships.
Dr Sam Grant is now a Research Associate in the Department of Economics at Strathclyde Business School. With prisons at capacity, early release schemes have become a key policy lever, and Sam's fellowship will use linked MoJ administrative data to examine whether one such scheme, Home Detention Curfew, affects reoffending.
Dr Ross McKenzie – PhD graduate and now a Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Dundee has also been awarded an ADR UK Fellowship, which builds on his PhD research into how immigration affects the wages of UK-born workers. He'll use new data linking employers and employees to explore whether pay gaps between immigrant and UK-born workers come down to which companies they end up working for.
Well done to both Sam and Ross on this fantastic achievement!