PhD Student

PhD research title: Financing Entrepreneurial Innovation within England

PhD description: This research aims to investigate the access to finance problem faced by entrepreneurial firms in England by focusing on the role of intellectual capital in providing legitimacy through its social capital element and innovative capacity through its human and structural element. The aim would be achieved by examining how the social capital element interacts with collaboration in order to reduce opacity problems associated with the entrepreneurial firms thus aiding them access finance. The human and structural capital element would also be examined in relation to entrepreneurial orientation and how these interactions can ensure robust and continuous innovations with various outputs such as patents and prototypes serving as signals of reassurance to the problems of complexity which often deters financiers.

A quantitative method is adopted for this study and data would be collected by sending out online questionnaires to entrepreneurial firms within the NatWest Accelerators program, Barclays Eagle Lab and the Hertfordshire Manufacturing growth programme. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) would be used in analysing the data collected.

Supervision team: Dr Mohamed Saeudy (Director of Studies) and Professor Ram Ramanathan (Second Supervisor)

• Research Centre: Research Centre for Contemporary Accounting, Finance and Economics (ResCAFE)
• Degree aimed: Doctor of Philosophy
• Mode of study: Full Time
• Dates: September 2018 - Present
• Email: winifred.soribe@study.beds.ac.uk