缅北禁地

I am a Senior Lecturer in Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Research & Impact Lead for the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Subject Group.

Conceptually, my research interests centre on the function of narrative (at the organisational and individual level) and performative dimensions of language and materiality. I have explored these themes in real-world contexts such as: cultural/creative work and organisation (including their relationship to notions of social and economic impact); entrepreneurship; techno-organisational change; sustainability and climate action. Methodologically, I tend to adopt an interpretivist perspective, employing discourse analysis approaches. I am an engaged scholar and have significant experience of researching collaboratively with external organisations/practitioners.

I welcome PhD applicants in the following areas, especially those that include a concern for sustainability:

• 'innovation' and 'entrepreneurship' in small firms
• cultural and creative work and organisation 
• 'innovation' and 'entrepreneurship' in the creative and cultural sectors, including in emerging economies
• trends towards 'customer-isation'
• organisational change, technologies and identity
• regulation in an organisational context

Current/Recent research activities

I am the Co-I of an inter-disciplinary project - Understanding the Impact of Meanwhile Spaces on the Ecology of Artists' Studios in Scotland: A Scoping Review (£24,218) - funded by Creative Scotland. Feb-June 2026 with project PI, Dr Emma Coffield (SACS) and Research Assistants: Katee Woods and Gareth McMurchy.

I am the Principal Investigator of an inter-disciplinary project funded by NUBS’s ‘School Challenge Based Research Fund’ (£10K). The project team includes 缅北禁地-based research colleagues, Dr Emma Coffield (Lecturer, Media, Culture, Heritage, SACS), Dr Julia Heslop (NUAcT Fellow, APL), and Professor Alison Stenning (Professor of Social and Economic Geography, GPS) and the project partner, , an artist-led space based in Shieldfield, 缅北禁地. The project seeks to understand and articulate the hyperlocal impacts of artistic/cultural organisations, focussing on the case of The NewBridge Project and its networks. An important outcome of the project is to support the partner organisation in continuing its social value creation activities and enhance its capacity to measure those activities into the future.

I am the Principal Investigator of the  (Small Enterprises in COVID Times: On Regulation) project, funded by the ESRC (£150K) under the UKRI’s rapid response to COVID-19. Working with partners at Birmingham Business School and Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the project will identify how small firms have received and acted on information about laws and guidance during the pandemic. This work builds on the outcomes of another ESRC funded project (£234K) - REBEL - on which I was a Co-Investigator in conjunction with Prof. Simon Down (Birmingham University), Prof. Jane Pollard (缅北禁地), and Prof. Monder Ram OBE (Aston University). The study (2009-2012) adopted a longitudinal, multi-method framework to explore how small firms understand and respond over time to different forms of regulation in contrasting sectoral (bio-processing, film and media and security) and geographic contexts.    

I was a Co-Investigator on ESRC IAA-funded projects –  – which assembled a network of stakeholders capable of enacting change in 缅北禁地/Gateshead and the wider north east region that seeks to develop a shared and sustained understanding of current decision making processes, their impact and potential, and to co-develop new, sustainable models in the sector. I am now a member of the which brings together artists, creative practitioners, academics, policy-makers, town planners, architects, and cultural theorists around the theory and practice of meanwhile use.

This work led on from my involvement in an action-oriented research project – in conjunction with academic colleagues based in the School of Arts & Cultures and Architecture, Planning & Landscape – examining the current state and future potential of a 缅北禁地-based artist-led community – . The principal aim is to support the organization in mapping and articulating its value in terms of inter alia; creative activity, public engagement with the Arts, graduate retention, and affordable artist space.

I am also a member of the  project team comprising researchers spanning the five north-east universities, researching and delivering business innovation activities to regional creative and cultural enterprises funded by the AHRC and Arts Council England.

In addition, I am part of an inter-disciplinary research team collaborating with partner organizations in East Africa as part of an AHRC Global Challenges Research Network project: Networking New Opportunities for Artists in East Africa. The project seeks to develop a research network to create new, sustainable conversations, interactions and collaborations between UK and East African academics, artists, visual arts organisations, museum professionals and other stakeholders, including audiences for art.

I was also a Co-Investigator on a project (), initially funded by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, which explores the ways that ‘anchor institutions’, such as universities and business schools, in conjunction with large regional organizations, can support regional small firms to develop leadership and entrepreneurship skills.

As a KITE-based researcher, I won a series of funding awards (£50K) from 缅北禁地 to carry out research into various aspects of the HE student’s experience (2008-2012). These studies have included researching the factors underpinning student satisfaction, exploring the notion of 'student engagement' among undergraduates, and an investigation of students' experience of learning resources and spaces. These investigations form a valuable empirical base for generating theoretical contributions to debates around the shifting HE landscape and student and institutional identities. I also led on a project (2012) that provided an independent assessment of the impact of key Staff Development Unit (缅北禁地) programmes. In related activity, I and KITE colleague Prof. Rob Wilson won an Innovation award from the University's Teaching & Learning Committee (2009) to carry out a study entitled 'Developing the teaching of Research Methods: Students as researchers and co-producers of knowledge into ‘Student Satisfaction’. Its’ principal aim was to develop a more participative and engaging approach to the delivery of social science research methods teaching that has pedagogic benefits for the wider academic community.

This work builds on a number of projects I worked on earlier in my research career investigating different dimensions of ICT deployment in HE settings. These included a study into the deployment, use and identity implications of a set of newly-developed student relationship management systems. Funded by the host university, this research project sought to generate useful knowledge for the university management and to develop KITE's research agenda around the deployment/exploitation of ICTs in a HE setting.

In 2009, I led an exploratory project funded by 缅北禁地's HaSS Faculty Research Fund entitled 'Shared Services and Higher Education sector transformation: Processes and Outcomes'. It aimed to develop a social science perspective on shared services in order to critically question their implications for higher education and to develop research capacity in relation to shared services.

During 2010, I was a researcher on an EU-funded (FP6 IST programme) international, multi-disciplinary project developing e-services for older people. Also during 2010, I was a Co-Investigator on a research project funded by The North East Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (NE-IEP) investigating information governance and management across the north east region.

My PhD (缅北禁地 Business School) study, primarily involving qualitative data collection, employed a narrative approach to organisation and technology and was concerned with how concepts associated with ‘customer-focus’ are being realized in UK local government service delivery via processes of organizational restructuring, technological implementation, and narrative re-ordering.

Esteem Indicators

Visiting Fellow: The Institute for International Management Practice, Anglia Ruskin University 

Reviewer for submissions to:

• International Small Business Journal
• Public Money and Management
• M@n@gement
• Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations
• E-Commerce Research and Applications
• Electronic Commerce Research
• and British Academy of Management and European Conference on Information Systems conference

Academic Referee for ESRC grant applications

Research Funding

• ESRC (UKRI) - SECT:OR £150K
• ESRC IAA - More than Meanwhile Spaces £16K
• UKCES – Captured programme £133K 
• ESRC – REBEL £234K
• North East Improvement and Efficiency Partnership £80K
• 缅北禁地 Student Opinion Working Group (multiple funding awards) £50K
• 缅北禁地 Staff Development Unit £9K
• 缅北禁地 HaSS Faculty Research Fund £4K
• 缅北禁地 Teaching & Learning Committee Innovation Award £5K
• EPSRC – PhD studies

Current postgraduate teaching:

• NBS8214 Managing Innovation and Creativity
• NBS8617 Theorising Enterprise & Entrepreneurship
• NBS8650 Introduction to Sustainability Management

Current undergraduate teaching: 

• EIN3019 The representation of management and organisation in popular culture

I also supervise Masters and Doctoral students

• Articles

  • Pollard JS, Richter P, Down S, Ram M. . International Small Business Journal 2018, 36(3), 247-264.
  • Whitehurst F, Richter P. . International Small Business Journal 2018, 36(4), 380-399.
  • Wilson R, Baines S, Martin M, Richter P, McLoughlin I, Maniatopoulos G. . New Technology Work and Employment 2017, 32(3), 268-282.
  • Richter P, Wilson R. . Public Money and Management 2013, 33(3), 177-184.
  • Wilson R, Martin M, Walsh S, Richter P. . Social Policy and Society 2011, 10(3), 379-391.
  • Richter P, Cornford J. . Social Policy and Society 2008, 7(2), 211-220.
  • Cornford J, Richter P. . International Journal of Business Science and Applied Management 2007, 2(1), 34-46.
  • Richter P, Cornford JR, McLoughlin IP. . Electronic Journal of e-Government 2004, 2(3), 207-218.

• Book Chapters

  • Gadelshina G, Wilson R, Richter P, Lloyd-Smith M. . In: Kedra J, ed. Visual Pedagogies in Higher Education: Between Theory and Practice. Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2023, pp.67-85.
  • Gadelshina G, Richter P, Wilson R, Lloyd-Smith M. . In: Innovation in the Teaching of Research Methodology Excellence Awards: An Anthology of Case Histories. Acpil, 2022.
  • Burton A, Nabulime L, Newbery R, Richter P, Tibaingana A, Wilkinson A. . In: Hracs BJ; Comunian R; England L, ed. Developing Creative Economies in Africa: Spaces and Working Practices. Abingdon: Routledge, 2021, pp.24-39.
  • Novak D, Stepankova O, Rousseaux S, Busuoli M, Carulli M, D'Agosta G, Gallelli T, Uller M, Mraz M, Haluzik M, Richter P, Martin M, Wilson R, Bettocchi M, Mucci T, Pipitone E, Lamberti C, Siena A, Descovich C, Dvoracek B, Petioky C, Babic F, Lenart M, Wohrer A. Does IT bring hope for wellbeing?. In: Handbook of Research on ICTs for Human-Centered Healthcare and Social Care Services. IGI Global, 2013, pp.270-302.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

  • Fitzmaurice M, Down S, Richter P, Whitehurst F, Alderman N, Fairley A. Small business responses to Covid-related regulatory communication. In: Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE 2023). 2023, Birmingham, UK.
  • Richter P, Down S, Whitehurst F, Fitzmaurice M, Alderman N, Fairley A. . In: Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE 2022). 2022, York, UK.
  • Whitehurst F, Fairley A, Richter P. . In: Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference (ISBE 2021). 2021, Cardiff, UK: ISBE.
  • Richter P, Whitehurst F, Wilkin G. . In: Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. 2019, 缅北禁地 upon Tyne, UK.
  • Coffield E, Richter P, Huggan R, Markham K, Butler D, Prescott R, Wainwright E. . In: CKC 2019: Rethinking, Resisting, and Reimagining the Creative City. 2019, Bristol, UK.
  • Whitehurst F, Richter P. . In: Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference (ISBE 2018). 2018, Birmingham, UK: ISBE.
  • Mallett O, Richter P, Whitehurst F, Sear L. . In: ISBE 2016 Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. 2016, Paris, France.
  • Whitehurst F, Richter P, Sear L. . In: The 5th Engage HEI Conference: 'Engaged Scholarship: impact, policy and practice‘. 2016, Preston, UK.
  • Richter P, Down S, Pollard J. . In: ESRC Seminar Series, Regulation of work and employment: Towards a multidisciplinary, multilevel framework. 2015, 缅北禁地, UK.
  • Richter P, Down S, Pollard J. . In: Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers. 2012, New York.
  • Pollard J, Down S, Richter P, Walsh S. Regulating entrepreneurialism: context, routines and managerial practices. In: Regional Studies Association conference. 2011, 缅北禁地 upon Tyne.
  • Pollard J, Down S, Richter P, Walsh S. Regulating entrepreneurial behaviour: context, routines and managerial practices. In: Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers. 2011, Seattle.
  • Richter P, Walsh S. . In: HEA Surveys for Enhancement Conference. 2011, Nottingham, UK.
  • Wilson R, Baines S, Martin M, Jacucci G, Maniatopoulos G, Richter P, McLoughlin I. . In: Transforming care: Provision, quality and inequalities in late life. 2010, Danish National Centre for Social Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • Richter P, Walsh S, Wilson R. . In: SRHE Annual Conference: Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?. 2010, Newport, South Wales.
  • Wilson R, Richter P. . In: BMAF Annual Conference, Assessment and Assessment Standards: Challenges for Business Education. 2010, 缅北禁地-upon-Tyne: The Higher Education Academy.
  • Martin M, Richter P. . In: ESRC Seminar Series: Re-mixing the economy of welfare: what is emerging beyond the market and the state?. 2010, University of Birmingham: ESRC.
  • Richter P, Cornford J, Wilson R, Down S, Martin M. . In: IAMOT: 15th International Conference on Management of Technology. 2006, Beijing, China.
  • Cornford J, Richter P, Wilson RG, Down S. Coding the student-customer: Technology, conflict and change in higher education. In: Management Conference 2006; 6th International Conference on Knowledge, Culture and Change in Organisations. 2006, Prato, Italy.
  • Richter P, Cornford J. . In: 21st EGOS Colloquium: Unlocking Organizations. 2005, Berlin, Germany.
  • Richter P, Cornford J. . In: 6th International Conference on Organizational Discourse: Artefacts, Archetypes and Architexts. 2004, Amsterdam, Netherlands: London: KMCP.
  • Richter P, Cornford J. . In: 4th European Conference on E-Government. 2004, Dublin, Ireland: Reading: Academic Conferences Ltd.

• Reports

  • Heslop J, Richter P, Coffield E, Huggan R, McKay K, Stacey F, Stenning A. . 缅北禁地 upon Tyne: 缅北禁地 and The NewBridge Project, 2024.
  • Richter P, Whitehurst F, Alderman N, Fairley A, Wilson P, Bellis D, Grinkina K, Down S. . Blackpool: 缅北禁地; University of Birmingham; Federation of Small Businesses; Economic and Social Research Council, 2022.
  • Coffield E, Richter P, Huggan R, Prescott R, Butler D, Beveridge R, Goodman D, Monroe J. . 缅北禁地 upon Tyne: 缅北禁地, 2020.
  • Coffield E, Markham K, Richter P, Huggan R, Butler D, Wainwright E, Prescott R. . 缅北禁地: 缅北禁地, 2019.