The Open University

Professional biography

After my PhD I held a postdoctoral grant for research on ethnic minority SMEs at the London School of Economics, followed by working shortly for the then Small Business Service on women and entrepreneurship. Subsequently, I held several Senior Lectureships at teaching led universities until I ran my own strategy and research consultancy for seven years, enriched by my experience of a higher apprenticeship in business administration in a SME before going to university. I hold accreditations in social return on investment / Social Value and business advice for for-profit and social enterprises; I have significant experience in evaluating business support programmes.

I returned to academia to make a difference for practice-relevant knowledge creation with research and to mainstream social enterprise into entrepreneurship and wider university education. Senior Lectureships held were at several teaching-led universities, including Birmingham City University.

Professional memberships and roles of esteem:

Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy/Advance HE
Fellow Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
Fellow Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA)
Elected Council member British Academy of Management since 2022
Director Enterprise Educators UK since 2017
Member of ISBE

Research interests

My research focuses on entrepreneurship and entrepreneuring as drivers of local/regional development and social innovation. Using mainly qualitative methods and conceptual approaches, I’ve studied the social and economic aspects of entrepreneurial processes and SMEs in urban and rural contexts. Throughout my research I have combined theories from diverse areas of research including entrepreneurship, organisational studies, and human geography. I am particularly interested in applying a practice theory lens, and investigating how entrepreneurial practices are accomplished.

Currently, I focus on the conceptions of space and place as important elements of entrepreneurially driven regional development to inform policymaking and community development on how to support living well in local places.

I served as associate editor at SN Business and Economics for two years, and have served on the editorial review board of International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research for several years. I also regularly review for the Scandinavian Journal of Management, Cultural Trends, European Journal of Management, amongst others.

My current research activities focus on two main areas:

Creative industries entrepreneurship, and how it is accomplished. Here I am currently working on how entrepreneuring - the enactment of entrepreneurial practices in situ - is shaped by and shapes contexts. I am particularly interested in the role of creative hubs and creative clusters for local economic and social development - in rural and urban contexts, allowing local people and communities to live well in their chosen places and earn a living in sustainable ways. I investigate micro-exchange processes of creative entrepreneuring, with focus on craft entrepreneuring, with consideration of the sociomaterial nature of practices. I am interested in how creative entrepreneuring is accomplished.

Business advice/support research for sustainable business development. Here I currently research how rural businesses (excluding land-based ones, e.g. farming, forestry) can be supported more effectively for creating positive regional development that ensures sustainable societies/communities that can live well in their chosen l location, creating liveable places.

PhD supervision: I have two PhD completions and am open to PhD applications in all of the above research areas.

In addition to my research activities I enjoy serving out researcher communities and engage with the learned society British Academy of Management, leading a conference track and serving on our Council.

Teaching interests

I am a passionate entrepreneurship educator with 20 years of teaching experience and am committed to mainstreaming entrepreneurial learning into university education across disciplines. Fellow passionate educators call me one of the trailblazers for enterprise education. I hold a Master's in Education and Senior Fellowship with AdvanceHE/HEA; I am proud to be a certified management and business educator. I am called one of the trailblazers for enterprise education since 2003.

My sole-authored textbook Start Up. A practice based guide to new venture creation was the first to address the challenges social enterprises face in every chapter (Hill, 2015).

To inform members, as one of the Directors of Enterprise Educators UK (EE-UK), I regularly publish a blog, see one on social enterprise https://www.enterprise.ac.uk/remember_social_ents/. I was one of the first EE-UK Fellows demonstrating my commitment to have my teaching-related experiences accredited and co-developed this great accreditation https://www.enterprise.ac.uk/fellows/eeuk-fellows/.

I have taught all degree levels from Certificate to MBA and senior managers' CPD on new venture creation, SME growth and exit, entrepreneurship, CSR and sustainable business strategies. Over the last three years I have finetuned approaches for integrating teaching on and for the Sustainable Development Goals in degrees and all my modules and joined Catalyst2030.

My current teaching interests focus on new venture creation and SME development, with a focus on sustainable and resopnsible ways of 'doing business', addressed from the pre-start-up phase onwards. I am committed to mainstreaming social enterprise education into all curricula, so that learners may have choices later on when considering to start a new enterprise.

Impact and engagement

I am committed to creating knowledge relevant to policy makers and entrepreneurs on how to create and maintain sustainable ways of 'doing business'. I am a frequently invited speaker on SME development and business support. For example, in 2021, I was invited to discuss 'Education for start-ups' by the Westminster Business Forum in London.

I am committed to support social enterprises to make an even bigger difference. To achieve this personal amibition, I have been a non-executive director with many social enterprises in the UK since 2010 and integrate insights on and for social enterprise into outputs. I have been part of the movement to integrate social value creation into procument with Social Value UK as part of their advisory Council.

External collaborations

National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE)

Having been a co-investigator with this exciting Research England funded research project on rural enterprise, I am now an Associate Fellow. I was co-lead on the rural creative industry research stream. https://nicre.co.uk/about-us/our-people/

Catalyst2030

Full member of Catalyst2030 collaborating on raising the visibility of social enterprises and social economy.

International links

KULT - rural creative industries in Germany research project

I was invited to be part of the steering group for an exciting project on rural creative industries in Germany, https://www.thuenen.de/de/fachinstitute/laendliche-raeume/innovation-und-wertschoepfung-in-laendlichen-raeumen/projekte/kunst-und-kulturschaffende-als-ressource-der-laendlichen-entwicklung 2023-2025.