Professor Catherine Wang
Strategy and Entrepreneurship/Professor

Research area(s)

Her research interests are at the intersection of entrepreneurship, strategy and innovation, in particular, how firms can turn strategic and entrepreneurial resources and capabilities into successful innovation and create economic and social value in commercial and social enterprises, based on interdisciplinary theory, methods and practice. Currently, Catherine is particularly interested in digital, social and sustainable entrepreneurship. Specifically, her expertise falls in these core themes:

 Entrepreneurship and innovation

1. Social entrepreneurship: Social enterprises, community interest companies, and B Corporations; business models, growth and internationalization strategies; triple bottom-line performance and social impact.
2. Digital entrepreneurship: digital capabilities, digital crowdfunding platforms, and new business models in the digital age.
3. Entrepreneurial orientation in small and medium-sized enterprises, large corporations, social enterprises, ethnic minority firms, high-tech firms, and family businesses; digital entrepreneurial orientation; the dark side of entrepreneurial orientation.
4. Entrepreneurial cognition and learning from success and failure in different organizational and industry contexts, especially in the new product development process.
5. International entrepreneurship and innovation: entrepreneurial and innovative capabilities in firms across nations, especially in the UK and China comparative context.

 Strategic management

1. The resource-based view of the firm and dynamic capabilities: conceptual development, empirical validation and practical application.
2. Organisational ambidexterity: exploratory and exploitative capabilities; success and failure traps; organizational control systems on ambidexterity.
3. Middle management in strategy processes, especially in pursuing dynamic capabilities, organizational ambidexterity, and corporate entrepreneurship.
4. Artificial intelligence in strategy: AI in strategic decision-making and implementation, in private and public sectors.

PhD supervision:

I have supervised a number of doctoral students to completion, and acted as external PhD supervisors in collaboration with other universities. Currently, I am interested in taking on new doctoral students in any of the above research areas, and in particular, the following topical areas:

• Digital crowdfunding 
• Digital entrepreneurship
• Artificial intelligence adoption in strategic decision making and entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurial orientation in different organisational contexts such as small firms; family businesses, medium to large organisations, and technology-based firms;
• Socially responsible and sustainable entrepreneurship;
• Corporate entrepreneurship and innovation;
• Entrepreneurial learning, unlearning and feedback;
• Organisational ambidexterity;
• Entrepreneurial opportunities and decision-making;
• Ethnic minority entrepreneurship
• The relationship between dynamic capabilities and entrepreneurship;
• The role of knowledge and absorptive capacity in innovation;
• Entrepreneurship and innovation in emerging market economies;
• International comparative studies of entrepreneurship and innovation.