Dr John Anderson
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Research Interests

As a KE professional I am not typcially involved directly in research, although I have regularly helped research-intensive colleagues and PhD students with their own research by making introductions to my extensive network of entrepreneurs and family business owners and am frequently called upon to provide a practitioner's perspective, drawing on my c30 years of experience in entrepreneurship.

I had become interested in entrepreneurship in the late 1980s when working in Chicago with EY and attended a short Babson College course “Entrepreneurship – Concepts & Practices”. It was life-changing and on my return to Glasgow with EY, was fortunate to further develop my passion for entrepreneurship during a Part-Time MBA at Strathclyde.

My MBA Project “Local Heroes – Scotland’s Entrepreneurial Role Models” (1994) was inspired by the publication of the Scotland’s Business Birth-rate Strategy in 1993 and several of my key findings were featured in a new Insider Magazine publication “Scottish Entrepreneur” in November 1994. I was subsequently commissioned by Scottish Enterprise to further develop my research by interviewing and profiling 20 of my Local Heroes for a new publication “Local Heroes – A Directory of Scotland’s New Entrepreneurs” which was published in 1995 (Scotland’s Year of the Entrepreneur) and again in 1997 and 1999.

The Babson model of entrepreneurship education uses the case method of teaching and during the adoption of the Babson model in Scotland, I was asked by Scottish Enterprise to build on my Local Heroes work and to develop full academic cases for use in each of the Centres for Entrepreneurship in Scotland (Strarthclyde, Stirling, Napier, RGU, Aberdeen and Glasgow Caledonian). In total, I authored 6 cases under the supervision of Dr Frank Martin at Stirling – Case Centre references: 395-115-1, 397-034-1, 397-035-1, 397-036-1, 397-047-1 and 397-048-1.

I co-authored (with Bottomley and Cooper) a chapter in “Enterprise Support Systems – An International Perspective” (ISBN 978-917829-927-3) entitled “Entrepreneurial Role Models in the Scottish Economy, drawing once again on my Local Heroes research.

I was part of the HCE team submitting the REF2021 Impact Case “C17 Business and Management Studies - Enhancing entrepreneurial policy, ecosystems and firm growth”. My strong relationships with the Scottish Government, regional enterprise support organisations and membership organisations, enabled HCE research to be translated into impactful practice, informing the development of a policy framework to accelerate Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem (Scotland CAN DO). My peer learning expertise and personal & professional experience of working with several hundred entrepreneurs and business leaders informed the design of a suite of entrepreneurship leadership programmes including the ScaleUp Institute-endorsed Growth Advantage Programme focused on scaling high potential ventures.

At a UK level, I was a founding board member of the Enterprise Research Centre and have maintained close working relationships with Prof Stephen Roper at Warwick via The Gender Index and with Prof Mark Hart at Aston via Help to Grow.

With the success of GAP and, more recently Help to Grow, I now have very strong relationships with the ScaleUp Institute (I am regularly brought in to give the Scottish perspective on scaleups) and with the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) and its subgroup of Small Business Charter schools (I have been a member of several UK-wide Help to Grow working groups).

I was also a founding advisory board member of The Gender Index and worked with Prof Shaw as Associate Principal to secure a partnership with The Gender Index for the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship for the analysis of the Scottish data on Scotland’s female entrepreneurship, leading to our contribution to the recent Ana Stewart Review.

Professional Activities

Small Business Charter Leaders' Forum and Excellence Awards

Participant

Scottish Family Business Conference 2024

Speaker

ScaleUp Britain - Glasgow 2024

Chair

Darsel Keane

Host

Tackling Systemic Barriers to Scale Women’s Entrepreneurship in Scotland and Abroad

Speaker

Building an Impact Investing Community for Scotland

Participant

More professional activities

Projects

Help to Grow: Management at Strathclyde Business School

Anderson, John (Principal Investigator)

UK Government programme for SMEs delivered by Small Business Charter Business Schools across the UK

iGAP @ Tontine

Anderson, John (Principal Investigator)

Pilot version of the Growth Advantage Programme designed and delivered for Galsgow City Council

Productivity through People

Anderson, John (Principal Investigator)

Cohort based short programme for leaders of growing SMEs looking to enhance their firm's productivity in partnership with Be the Business, BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, GSK, John Lewis Partnership and Leonardo.

Growth Advantage Programme

Anderson, John (Principal Investigator)

ScaleUp Insitute endorsed growth programme for leaders of ambitious companies.