Professor Robin Bell

dr-robin-bell

Professor of Entrepreneurship

Worcester Business School

Senior Management Team

Contact Details

email: r.bell@worc.ac.uk

Robin is Professor of Entrepreneurship and the DBA Programme Director at the Worcester Business School. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a UK Council for Graduate Education Recognised Research Supervisor. His innovative curriculum development and teaching approaches to the field of entrepreneurship and enterprise development have been recognized by multiple awards, and he has been the recipient of research and teaching funding from a wide range of institutions, including private multinational organizations, professional bodies, and the European Union. This funding has been used to research and develop entrepreneurial education curricula within countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa, increasing capacity for sustainable entrepreneurial development. He has also acted as a Foreign Expert as part of Chinese National Natural Science Foundation projects and has sat on national research and funding evaluation panels in several countries.

Previously, at the Worcester Business School Robin fostered new relationships and grew existing partnerships to develop collaborative programmes, student progression, research, and student mobility agreements with universities in America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East as the Director of International Partnerships. He also developed and managed the Business School’s online degree provision, working with a team of associate faculty to expand the School’s opportunities to students around the world.

Robin was previously a Visiting Associate Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, where he delivered sessions on entrepreneurship and innovation and collaborated with faculty as part of research projects. He has also consulted for the development of numerous entrepreneurship programmes across China, working with numerous institutions to develop their entrepreneurship provision and ecosystems. Through this he was awarded an Entrepreneurship Advisor Fellowship at Lanzhou Jiaotong University.

Having completed PhD degrees in both Business and Education, Robin has a strong research background in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. He is currently involved in research related to both these fields and supports PhD and DBA candidates researching a range of topics related to entrepreneurship, innovation and business and staff development.

Teaching and Doctoral Supervision

Robin teaches on modules related to entrepreneurship and innovation and on Worcester Business School’s DBA and PhD programmes. As part of these programmes Robin seeks to adopt progressive and experiential teaching approaches to support learners to develop applied learning relevant to the individual’s own interests and aspirations. He examines, supports, and works with a variety of doctoral students undertaking a diverse range of projects, employing both quantitative and qualitative research methods. He particularly enjoys supervising projects which embrace innovative and underutilized data collection methods and those that offer practical business and entrepreneurial insight. Doctoral projects which he supervised to a successful completion include:

  • An exploration of situational leadership influence and its impact on Ghanaian small and medium-sized hotels.
  • Customizing the product lifecycle and its management for the optimal handling of digital-physical products within the railway industry.
  • Investigations on the influence of audible stimuli on consumers in e-commerce environments.
  • An exploration of the physician associate student journey and professional identity as a catalyst for driving change and innovation in a future healthcare workforce.
  • Deep pockets: Exploring the investment decisional process of the crowd investor.
  • Service differentiation and dimensions of strategic orientations in German retail horticulture.
  • The impact of entrepreneurship education on developing students’ entrepreneurial attitudes and intention in emerging economies: An assessment of the Nigeria case.
  • Revealing knowledge workers’ tacit knowledge usage in the product development department of an automotive manufacturer.
  • Turnaround plans in Germany: Recommendations for development and implementation.
  • An exploration of the business model concept’s meaning and usage in Switzerland: Towards an application framework.
  • The role of the father-son dyad in supporting the business knowledge transfer process in Vietnamese family businesses.
  • Obstacles to the internationalization process of the "born global" SME in China.

Research

Robin has a wide and varied research background, with particular interest within entrepreneurship and education and bringing them together to research the development of effective entrepreneurship education. He is experienced in both qualitative and quantitative methods and bringing these together to create mixed methods research designs. Robin has collaborated with colleagues from across the globe to develop understanding of how entrepreneurship education can be developed and implemented in a range of contexts and has been involved in leading funded research projects with diverse international teams.

 

Recent Publications Include

 

Bell, R. & Cui, J. (2023) Addressing progressive educational reforms: Fusing acquisition approaches and participation in Chinese entrepreneurship education, The International Journal of Management Education, 21(1), 100748.

 

Sabia, L., Bell, R. & Bozward, D. (2023) Using equity crowdfunding to build a loyal brand community: The case of BrewDog, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 24(3), 202-212.

 

Bell, R. & Bell, H. (2023) Entrepreneurship education in the era of generative artificial intelligence, Entrepreneurship Education, doi: 10.1007/s41959-023-00099-x

 

Sabia, L., Bell, R. & Bozward, D. (2022) Big fish: Leveraging the fear of missing out in equity crowdfunding in the post-COVID-19 era, Business Horizons, 65(1), 59-67.

 

Cui, J. & Bell, R. (2022) Behavioural entrepreneurial mindset: How entrepreneurial education activity impacts entrepreneurial intention and behaviour, The International Journal of Management Education, 20(2), 100639.

 

Bell, R. (2022) Innovating to survive in competitive markets: Business model innovation of Chinese digital businesses, International Journal of Innovation Science. doi: 10.1108/IJIS-09-2022-0189

 

Dakung, R.J., Bell, R., Orobia, L.A. & Yatu, L. (2022) Entrepreneurship education and the moderating role of inclusion in the entrepreneurial action of physically disabled students, The International Journal of Management Education, 20(3), 100715.

 

Bell, R. (2022) Developing entrepreneurial behaviours in the Chinese classroom through value creation pedagogy, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 59(1), 37-48.

 

Abd El Basset, F., Bell, R. & Al Kharusi, B. (2022) Reducing barriers to female entrepreneurship in Oman: Does family matter? Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy. doi: 10.1108/JEC-01-2022-0009

 

Saadat, S., Aliakbari, A., Alizadeh Majd, A. & Bell, R. (2022) The effect of entrepreneurship education on graduate students' entrepreneurial alertness and the mediating role of entrepreneurial mindset, Education + Training, 64(7), 892-909.

 

Schmidt, R., Bell, R. & Warren, V. (2021) Keeping the wheels of the automotive industry turning: The use of tacit knowledge by product development workers in a multinational automotive manufacturer, Journal of Intellectual Capital, 22(6), 1106-1125.

 

Cui, J., Sun, J. & Bell, R. (2021) The impact of entrepreneurship education on the entrepreneurial mindset of college students in China: The mediating role of inspiration and the role of educational attributes, The International Journal of Management Education, 19(1), 100296.

 

Bell, R. & Pham, T.T. (2021) Modelling the knowledge transfer process between founder and successor in Vietnamese family businesses succession, Journal of Family Business Management, 11(4), 479-495.

 

Bell, R. (2021) Underpinning the entrepreneurship educator’s toolkit: Conceptualising the influence of educational philosophies and theory, Entrepreneurship Education, 4(1), 1-18.

 

Bell, R. (2020) Adapting to constructivist approaches to entrepreneurship education in the Chinese classroom, Studies in Higher Education, 45(8), 1694-1710.

 

Bell, R. & Bell, H. (2020) Applying educational theory to develop a framework to support the delivery of experiential entrepreneurship education, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 27(6), 987-1004.

 

Bell, R., Liu, P., Zhan, H., Bozward, D., Fan, J., Watts, H. & Ma, X. (2019) Exploring entrepreneurial roles and identity in the United Kingdom and China, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 20(1), 39-49.

 

Bell, R. & Liu, P. (2019) Educator challenges in the development and delivery of constructivist active and experiential entrepreneurship classrooms in Chinese vocational higher education, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 26(2), 209-227.

 

Bell, R. (2019) Predicting entrepreneurial intention across the university, Education + Training, 61(7/8), 815-831.

 

Liu, P. & Bell, R. (2019) Exploration of the initiation and process of business model innovation of successful Chinese ICT enterprises, Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, 11(4), 515-536.

 

A complete list of publications can be found here.

Recently Funded Projects

  • Developing the Cross-Cultural Skills of Graduates in Response to the Needs of European Enterprise, Erasmus+ (EU)
  • European Business Baccalaureate Diploma, Erasmus+ (EU)
  • UK-China Collaborative Development of Enterprise Pedagogy to Support Graduate Employability and Entrepreneurship, British Council
  • Connect4innovation: UK - Turkey Higher Education Institutional Partnership Fund, British Council
  • Developing Social Entrepreneurship through Case Studies, TÜBİTAK Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye
  • The Impact of Entrepreneurship Education on the Entrepreneurial Mindset of Undergraduates in China, China National Social Science Fund for Education
  • Teaching Research and Development Grant, Academy of Marketing

Professional Bodies

Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)

UK Council for Graduate Education Recognised Research Supervisor

Fellow of the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs (IOEE)

Staff and Educational Development Association Fellow (FSEDA)

Qualifications

PhD Education -University of Huddersfield

PhD Business - University of Gloucestershire

MSc Social Science Research Methods – University of Bristol

MSc International Relations - University of Bristol

MA Higher Education - University of Worcester

BA (Hons) Business and Marketing - University of the West of England

Expertise

Enterprise & Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship Education

International Business & Exposure