Research areas, groups and societies

Keele Business School

Our research informs policy, and working alongside our partners we push at the limits of knowledge and understanding to pursue an innovative and entrepreneurial approach to thinking and business solutions.

Our expertise

School Research Director – Dr Kathryn Simpson
PGR Director – Dr Alena Audzeyeva

We nurture a culture of engagement, inclusion and cohesion that allows a progressive view of the world to flourish and research careers to thrive. We draw on Keele University’s tradition of interdisciplinary research rooted in the social sciences and humanities, addressing broad societal interests related to work, organisations and markets within a strong tradition of creative methodologies.

We are structured into three core cross-disciplinary groups to support and drive interdisciplinary collaboration: 

  • Marketing, Management and Organisations (MMO).
  • Economics and
  • Accounting and Finance (AF)

Our research groups are linked with specialist research institutes across Keele University; namely the Institute for Global Health, Institute for Sustainable Futures and Digital Society Institute and research centres including CASIC.

Beyond core business, economics and management studies social inclusion and sustainability are core themes of our research, closely aligned to the UN Sustainable Development goals and mission of the new, interdisciplinary Faculty research institutes: Keele Institute for Social Inclusion, Keele Institute for Sustainable Futures and Keele Institute for Global Health. Researchers in the School address those key global and social challenges by engaging with robust and rigorous research that boundary spans our clusters, and undertake doctoral supervision mirroring these principal themes.

Our research has substantial reach, impact and significance for real world organisations. Our faculty engage with a range of local and global organisations that include: the Competition and Markets Authority; the U.S. Federal Reserve; Birmingham Assay Office; The New Vic Theatre; South Yorkshire Fire Service and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue; Cadent and the Sardinian Regional Government.

Research is funded by a range of bodies that include the Arts and Humanities Research Council; the British Academy; the Office for National Statistics; the Economic and Social Research Council Leverhulme; Santander; UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Sir Halley Stewart Trust.

We publish scholarship in internationally leading academic journals in business and management and related disciplines including:

Academic journals

  • Journal of Business
  • Research Review of Economics and Statistics
  • Economic Letters
  • Journal of Business Ethics
  • Human Relations
  • Tourism Management
  • Organization Studies
  • Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
  • European Journal of Marketing
  • Journal of Empirical Finance

CASIC - Keele University

One of our research centres, CASIC - Community Animation and Social Innovation Centre.