Dr Syahirah Abdul Rahman

PhD

Lecturer in Business and Management

Oxford Brookes Business School

Syahirah Abdul Rahman

Role

I am a Lecturer in Business and Management at Oxford Brookes Business School. I have a PhD in business and management from the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. My doctoral research focuses on the subject of financialisation, that is, the growth of finance and how it affects the macroeconomy, businesses, and society at large. During my PhD, I had the privilege of working closely with the Malaysian Ministry of Finance where I was able to do data collection. My PhD research enabled me to publish in the prestigious Journal of Economic Geography on the topic of financial citizenship, where I observed how financial investment among citizens was used for nation-building in Malaysia after its colonisation.

During my PhD, I also acted as a research associate for the University of Manchester on a project funded by the Oil and Gas Technology Centre. My research focused on observing inter-firm collaboration and standardisation in the UK Continental Shelf using social science methods.

Teaching and supervision

Courses

Modules taught

  • Business in Society,
  • Organisational Behaviour,
  • Synoptics

Besides Oxford Brookes University, I am also currently teaching on the Global MBA programme with the Alliance Manchester Business School as a visiting lecturer.

Research

A social scientist by background, my research interests have spanned across the fields of economic geographic, political economy, and cultural political economy. Specifically, I am interested in the way government policies and regulatory framework can impact the way industries are organised. 

Currently, my research is funded by the Innovation Caucus, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Innovate UK. My independent project looks at standards, regulation and trust as institutional logics in innovation-led growth and productivity. In this project, I observe the dynamics of SRT in the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund programmes, government programmes set up to address the big societal challenges faced by UK businesses today.

Centres and institutes

Projects as Co-investigator

  • Innovation Caucus 3B Uplift(25/11/2021 - 31/03/2023), funded by: Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), funding amount received by Brookes: £343,073, funded by: Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC)

Publications

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Professional information

Conferences

  • Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics Annual Conference
  • American Association of Geographers Annual Conference
  • European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy Annual Conference