My research interests derive, in the first instance, from my doctoral studies in strategic and operational management within the UK papermaking industry and their wider implications. This has led to an interest in the history of strategic international management; the history of operational management; business leadership and paternalism; the paper industry; Weber’s Work Ethic and Charismatic Leadership, Chinese culture and business, Victorian culture and related cultural aspects of business; qualitative strategic models; sales and marketing management; international marketing; FDI and family business.

After completion of my doctoral studies, my interests widened out to encompass rural business, with special relevance to the meat industry and its operational and strategic management relative to family values. From 2013, I took up a post as Leverhulme Research Fellow investigating the operational and strategic management of the Victorian building construction industry and Victorian architectural practice as exemplified in the work of Sir George Gilbert Scott, architect of Glasgow University and Britain's most celebrated Victorian architect. A range of studies from this project is still in the course of investigation and publication.

My research interests have also turned in the direction of the Scottish textile industry, where I have recently published on Scotland's last silk yarn business, which ceased to trade in 1964. This has fostered an interest in path dependence, the phenomenon which can explain how organizations can persist with harmful strategies that become embedded in their cultures.

My interests in textiles will be developed with reference to companies from Paisley and district as part of the activities of the Paisley Centre for Business and Industrial History.