Centre for Business, Society and Global Challenges

About us

The Centre for Business, Society and Global Challenges (BSGC) brings together researchers who are actively engaged with some of the core challenges facing contemporary societies, from refugee entrepreneurship, ageing society, human rights in businesses, sustainable tourism and consumption, markets and inequality, to security, digitalisation, and the changing world of work and organisations.

With its multidisciplinary research profile, the centre has the ambition to offer a critical contribution to the research agenda on global challenges and the industrial strategy.

Research and knowledge exchange activities focus on some of the major societal, economic and organisational challenges of our times through close collaboration with companies, policy makers, NGOs, practitioners and the wider public across the globe. A core motivation underpinning our research is to provide insights into the competing interest of globalisation.

Part of

Oxford Brookes Business School

Related courses

Marketing (MPhil / PhD)
Hospitality, Tourism and Events Management (MPhil / PhD)
Economics, Accounting or Finance (MPhil / PhD)
Business and Management (MPhil / PhD)

Leadership

Professor Peter Lugosi

Deputy Director of the Centre for Business, Society and Global Challenges and Research Lead for the Hospitality, Tourism and Events subject area

View profile

Projects

Completed projects

Completed projects

Project title and description	Investigator(s)	Funder(s)	Dates
Maritime Dimension of Transnational Organised Crime A research project in response to the Partnership for Conflict, Crime and Security Research (PaCCS) call on transnational organised crime.	Professor Juliette Koning	PaCCS	From: December 2016 Until: September 2018
Intelligence Organisation in the Early Modern World Exploring the evolution of systemised intelligence through an economic lens, the project contends that Venice’s intelligence apparatus undergirded her commercial expansion that reached its peak in the mid-Sixteenth century.	Dr Ioanna Iordanou	British Academy	From: September 2016 Until: August 2018
Identifying pathways for refugee integration and employment in the UK and Brazil For migrants and refugees, contact with state, charitable and commercial organisations when settling into ‘host’ societies and entering the labour market significantly shapes their experiences. Since 2016, Dr Peter Lugosi from the Oxford School of Hospitality Management, Dr Clara Della Croce and Dr Sonia Morano-Foadi from the School of Law have been researching how refugees transition into employment. This work has now been extended through a British Academy Newton funded project involving Dr Thiago Allis from the University of Sáo Paulo, Brazil.	Professor Peter Lugosi	British Academy	From: March 2018 Until: August 2021

Research

Responsible Organising and Governance

The Responsible Organising and Governance cluster focuses on how social actors organise for transformative action and the struggles that they might encounter. Identifying the complexity and interlacing of global challenges, the group explores sustainable, ethical, and inclusive organising and responsible leadership and governance.

Some of the topics actively addressed by the Responsible Organising researchers include social inequalities, sustainable communities, responsible production and consumption, and decent work. We invite doctoral applications and other researchers interested new organisational forms, the growth of social economies, responsible supply chains, responsible marketing, markets and ethical consumption, stakeholder engagement and the future of work and organising. Equally, we are interested in contributions exploring the darker side of organising and governance.

Sustainable Development, Accounting and Applied Economics

The Sustainable Development, Accounting and Applied Economics cluster focuses on issues of sustainability, accountability, and responsibility in achieving economic development. We support doctoral applications and topics that address the latest empirical studies, theoretical ideas, and methodological developments based on research conducted at the interface between sustainability and consumption, economics, finance, and accounting studies. Indicative areas include food security, waste management, decision making in crisis, accountability of investors, stewardship, financialization and financial inequalities.

We also encourage interdisciplinary research with a multidimensional approach combining theory and applications. We encourage collaborative partnerships with industry partners to help address core issues surrounding sustainable, accountable and responsible economic development.

world map with coins and bank notes layed out over it

Digital Societies

The Digital Societies cluster focuses on the changing global landscape of digital technologies, and their influence on work and organisations, individuals, consumption, education, skills, labour markets and institutions. The cluster welcomes doctoral applications and other researchers as well as industry collaborators interested in, but not limited to: digital analytics and society, democratising digital technology, digital marketing, digital strategy, the study of Artificial Intelligence, digital ethics, digital geographies, and FinTech.

People, Communities and Places

The People, Communities and Places cluster fosters research on relationships between evolving societal and organisational forces, people and their environments. We welcome researchers, doctoral candidates, activists and consultants working on a range of topics including empowerment, resilience, identity, community engagement, emerging forms of organisational and consumer behaviour, placemaking, health and wellbeing, productivity, mobilities and inequalities, the spatial and temporal aspects of organizing, decolonisation, and social movements, linked to a variety of communities (e.g. migrants, minorities and ageing populations). We strongly encourage partnerships between academic researchers and practitioners from diverse (inter)national contexts and sectors.

Knowledge Exchange

The Centre for Business, Society and Global Challenges has the aim to advance strategic thinking and address core issues of the Industrial Strategy by collaborating with local, national and international clients and partners (businesses, NGO’s, policy makers and thought-leaders).

Our academics have the expertise to explore and address challenging problems, such as: How can firms plan for the future and enhance their practice and performance? What are the drivers of community engagement and customer ‘loyalty’? What are the major waste and energy challenges? How to develop a social enterprise? What are current risk management strategies in the hospitality sector? And how to best facilitate knowledge transfer between higher education and industry?

Economic Impact Studies (EIS)

Oxford Brookes Business School has built a track record in providing bespoke EIS for client organisations who wish to understand the effect their operation(s) have on the local, regional and national economies.

By utilising industry-standard metrics and engaging with clients on project design, the team has designed and delivered projects for clients in diverse industries such as heritage assets, potential facility expansion and new, green-filed projects. This work has helped inform future strategies and priorities for client organisations, who can engage with us over a number of years to establish the quantum of change over an extended period.

Exemplar project:

Blenheim Economic impact study

two people sitting at a desk going through paperwork

Consultancy Projects

Organisations engage with Oxford Brookes Business School to help develop solutions to a wide range of challenges and opportunities. These can take the form of formal, commissioned, self-contained multidisciplinary projects, or an open-ended engagement to identify root causes or to use academically rigorous approaches to develop solutions.

On occasion, this can include engaging postgraduate students as well as academic and research staff, providing clients with a wide range of skills across a range of disciplines, including marketing, finance, human resources, management and leadership and strategy development and implementation.

Bespoke Management Development Programmes

Drawing on the expertise of our staff, the Oxford Brookes Business School has designed and delivered a range of in-house bespoke training programmes for clients. By being embedded within an organisation, the team is able to develop programmes specifically tailored to diagnose issues, develop solutions and improve capacity and capabilities across a range of teams.

This has been most successful where a programme has been delivered across a cross-section of staff through a number of cohorts, enabling managers – and aspiring mangers – to understand their impact on, and contribution to, organisational success.

Exemplar project:

Brita / Key2 Futures / Guideposts

Knowledge Exchange Portfolio

Our academics are actively engaged in realising the Sustainable Development Goals through constantly developing a curriculum of responsible management and entrepreneurship education (PRME) as well as to tune in with industry through University-Industry collaborations.

At the same time we offer expertise for businesses and organisations in such fields as: knowledge and quality management; risk assessment; consumption and well-being; spending behaviour; public policy; organisational change; spirituality; sustainable business and social enterprises; performance management; charity performance; internationalisation; and micro finance.