Dr. Richard Adams

Man IconAIM Associate Director Business Engagement

Richard is AIM Associate Director Business Engagement, currently coordinating the AIM/ESRC Business Engagement Project. The project is designed to develop a better understanding of UK managers' priorities and encourage greater levels of engagement between management practitioners and the academic community - not least of all in helping to influence the future research agenda - and involves researchers from a number of different institutions, including: Brighton University, Cranfield University, Nottingham University and the University of Surrey.

Prior to the Business Engagement Project, Richard worked on a number of research projects relating to innovation management both at Imperial College London and Cranfield University School of Management:

* Adoption practices amongst slower adopters: the diffusion of World Class Manufacturing techniques amongst slow adopters in UK industry (Supported by AIM)

* Innovation Management Measurement (Supported by Cranfield School of Management and AIM)

* Knowledge and learning in growing businesses (Supported by Department for Trade and Industry)

* Teamworking and knowledge management (Collaborative study between CENTRIM at Brighton University and Cranfield School of Management. Supported by EPSRC research studentship)

In 2004, Richard completed his PhD entitled 'Perceptions of Innovation: Exploring and Developing Innovation Classification', an in-depth study of innovation in the UK National Health Service. For this study, Richard was awarded Cranfield School of Management Director's Prize for Best Thesis and also the 1st Annual Outstanding Doctoral Research Award in the Leadership and Organizational Development category (Emerald/EFMD).

Prior to reading for his PhD, Richard spent much of the 1990s working on a variety of development projects in the transitional economies of the former Warsaw Pact countries. He also has an MA (Hons) from the University of St Andrews and an MBA from the University of Strathclyde.

Richard's current research interests include:

* Diffusion of innovations, particularly the role of people's perceptions in the processes of adoption and diffusion;

* Management practices relating to adoption and the use of evidence, and;

* Evidence-based management

To contact Richard please email him.


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