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Timothy Edwards

Professor Timothy Edwards

Pro-Dean for Research, Impact and Innovation
Professor of Organisation and Innovation Analysis

Cardiff Business School

Email
EdwardsTJ@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone
+44 29208 76385
Campuses
Aberconway Building, Room D09b, Colum Road, Cathays, Cardiff, CF10 3EU
Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Overview

Tim Edwards joined Cardiff Business School in 1999 as a research assistant before receiving a Personal Chair in 2016. He was Head of the Management, Employment and Organisation Group between 2019-2021 and then was appointed the Business School’s Pro-Dean for Research, Impact, and Innovation in 2021. He has subsequently been made a Co-Director of Cardiff University's Digital Transformation Innovation Institute (2022).

His research expertise is in organisational theory with an interest in critical realism, which has been applied to empirical studies examining institutional change, organising, innovation and entrepreneurship. He regularly publishes in world-leading journals including, Human Relations, Organisation StudiesJournal of Business VenturingOrganisation, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Critical Realism and Management Learning.

Tim is committed to the advance of social sciences; he has been an Associate Editor for two major journals including Organisation (2014-2021) and International Journal of Management Reviews (2013-2019) and is on the Editorial Board for Organisation Studies, Scandinavian Journal of Management and The Journal for Responsible Technology. He is the lead academic for Cardiff University’s involvement with the Aspect network, which is a growing body of organisations working to support innovation, entrepreneurship and research commercialisation in the social sciences. 

Tim has also made a number of contributions to Cardiff University’s academic outreach. He has since 2017, worked with the student society, Enactus, the Welsh Refugee Council and the Homeless World Cup Legacy Team to deliver short courses on social entrepreneurship with learners from the most deprived members of the Cardiff community. He is also a Public Value Fellow for the Business School and has been involved in work with high school students in developing education opportunities focusing on entrepreneurship and climate change. This has led to new partnerships with not-for-profit organisations and projects with the National Software Academy and the School of Earth and Environment Sciences at Cardiff University. He is also working with Cardiff City Council and a number of Cardiff-based third sector organisations in supporting an Employer-Refugee employment forum.

During the Covid-19 crisis he worked as a panel member with the Third Sector Resilience Fund for Wales inititative, which distributed grant support to third sector organisations. He is a member of Cardiff University’s EPSRC Impact Accelerator Account Panel, the UK's ESRCs Peer Review Panel and has supported the Welsh Government’s expert panel, supporting women entrepreneurs in Wales (2019-2022). Tim has also just been invited to join the judging panel for the Kings Award for Enterprise in the category of 'promoting opportunity through social mobility' (2023).

Publication

2023

2022

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2018

2017

2016

2015

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1998

Articles

Book sections

Conferences

Monographs

Websites

Research

Tim is an organisation theorist with an interest in explaining institutional change processes, innovation and entrepreneurship. His most recent research work is a multi-disciplinary research study of citizen science in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. As PI he has led a project team that has been awarded up to £85,000 in funds from bodies such as the ESRC's Global Challenges Research Fund, EPSRC and includes scholars from social science, computer science and ecology. Research partners include academics from Fundação Getulio Vargas, UNICAMP and the Federal University of San Carlo, Brazil. The project involves school children and local farmers in developing a responsible innovation approach to citizen science. It involves the community in co-creating the socio-technical infrastructure that will help support sustainable livelihoods. This builds on previous work with colleagues in the computer science department (Rhodes and Rana) testing IT solutions in the monitoring of water repair projects in Eritrea.

Tim's work in Brazil has recently benefitted from a Visiting Research Fellowship Award which will support a planned visit to Sao Paulo at the beginning of 2023.

Awards since 2017
  • Cardiff Business School Seedcorn funding (2020-21) - Emancipating the youth in vulnerable rural communities: Science for citizenship in the forest community of the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. PI.
  • ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (2021): Supporting citizen science: A critical, social science led approach to impact. Co-I.
  • ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (2021): Supporting women entrepreneurs in Wales through the Covid-19 crisis. Co-I.
  • ESRC Festival of the Social Sciences (2021): Widening Participation in Sustainability Through Repair. Co-I.
  • HEFCW GCRF (2018): Equitable and Inclusive Education for Sustainable Communities: Citizen Science. PI.
  • DIRI, Data Innovation URI (2018) Data-Driven Citizen Science: Capacity building and education innovation in the forest community of Guapiruvu. PI.
  • EPSRC, GCRF Institutional Sponsorship (2017): To establish a communications infrastructure based on cloud technology that enables a ‘citizen science’ approach for sustainable biodiversity management in the tropical forest community in Brazil. Co-I.

Teaching

Tim's main undergraduate teaching commitment has been on the final optional module - Entrepreneurship and Small Business Start-ups (2008-2021). He has also taught Organisational Change on the MBA and Organisational Behaviour on the undergraduate Business Management Programme. Given his role as Pro-Dean for Research, Impact and Innovation Tim no longer has a lead teaching role and instead has been contributing to the delivery of modules including the first year undergraduate module Economy and Society and the Arts Humanities and Social Science flagship Masters programme for Research Methods. This is given to all social science postgraduate students intending to undertake a social science PhD at Cardiff University.

In addition to these commitments he has, since 2017, developed an outreach module delivered in conjunction with the support of students of the student social enterprise, Enactus. This is a nine-week module called 'Realising your Potential in Business' and is delivered to adult learners from the refugee community in Cardiff. 

Further afield, Tim has, since 2016, been an invited international faculty member on Kobe University's SESMI Programme: "Qualitative Research in Strategic Management". Tim will be delivering another class in October 2023.

Tim is also an external examiner for the executive MBA at Oxford University’s Said Business School (since 2021).

Biography

Tim has a PhD in Innovation Management awarded from Aston University (2002), a MSc Management by Research, awarded from Aston University (1995), and a BA (Hons) in International Relations from Sussex University (1991). He has lived in a number of places including West London as a child, Brighton and Birmingham as a student and Bristol and Cardiff as an academic at Cardiff University. He is married and has two grown-up sons - the elder is studying Natural Sciences at UCL and the younger is about to make his University choices to study Psychology.

He has had two research sabbatical visits in his career - the first to the University of Alberta in 2007 and the second to UC Davis in 2016. Tim has also worked closely with colleagues from Grenoble Ecole de Management and continues to develop strong research links with colleagues in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Honours and awards

  • Cardiff Business School, Developing Student Employability Award (2013)
  • Cardiff University, International Travel Scholarship Award (2007). Visiting Professor position at the University of Alberta.

Best Paper Awards

  • Academy of Management Conference, Anaheim, (2016): Relationally reflexive women: Household strategies of female entrepreneurs as social change (Entrepreneurship Division)
  • Academy of Management Conference, Boston, (2012): Affect in Collaborative Entrepreneurial Projects: Insights from Innovators in the Super yacht Industry. (Entrepreneurship and Creativity Division)

Outstanding Paper Award

  • (2008) - Emerald Literati Network: A critical account of knowledge management: agentic orientation and SME innovation, International journal of Entrepreneurial behaviour and Research.of Entrepreneurial behaviour and Research, Vol 13, No2, 2007

Professional memberships

  • Fellow, Royal Society of Arts
  • Fellow, Higher Education Academy

Committees and reviewing

  • Associate Editor: Organisation (2014-2021)
  • Associate/Consulting Editor: International Journal of Management Reviews
  • Editorial Board: Organisation Studies; Journal of Responsible Technology, Scandinavian Journal of Management
  • Grant reviewer - ESRC
  • Journal reviewer including: Academy of Manangement Review, Human Relations, Organisation Studies; Journal of Management Studies; International Journal of Management Reviews, Journal of responsible Technology and Organisation

Supervisions

Tim is currently the primary supervisor for four PhD students that includes:

  • a gender analysis of investor syndicates in support of women entrepreneurs
  • the reflexive management learning of senior staff in the NHS
  • the translation of neuroscience into management practice
  • Artificial Intelligence's impact on freedom in the workplace

He is always keen to discuss PhD opportunities with prospective students in a range of areas including innovation, entrepreneurship and organisation theory.