Professor Tim Edwards

Pro-Dean for Research, Impact and Innovation
Professor of Organisation and Innovation Analysis

Cardiff Business School

: edwardstj@cardiff.ac.uk
: +44 (0)29 2087 6385
: Room D09b, Aberconway Building, Colum Road, Cathays, Cardiff, CF10 3EU

: Available for postgraduate supervision

Tim Edwards joined Cardiff Business School in 1999 as a research assistant before receiving a Personal Chair in 2016. He was Head of the Management, Employment and Organisation Group between 2019-2021 and then was appointed the Business School’s Pro-Dean for Research, Impact, and Innovation in 2021. He has subsequently been made a Co-Director of Cardiff University's Digital Transformation Innovation Institute (2022).

His research expertise is in organisational theory with an interest in critical realism, which has been applied to empirical studies examining institutional change, organising, innovation and entrepreneurship. He regularly publishes in world-leading journals including, Human Relations, Organisation Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Organisation, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Critical Realism and Management Learning.

Tim is committed to the advance of social sciences; he has been an Associate Editor for two major journals including Organisation (2014-2021) and International Journal of Management Reviews (2013-2019) and is on the Editorial Board for Organisation Studies, Scandinavian Journal of Management and The Journal for Responsible Technology. He is the lead academic for Cardiff University’s involvement with the Aspect network, which is a growing network of organisations working to support innovation, entrepreneurship and research commercialisation in the social sciences.

Tim has also made a number of contributions to Cardiff University’s academic outreach. He has since 2017, worked with the student society, Enactus, the Welsh Refugee Council and the Homeless World Cup Legacy Team to deliver short courses on social entrepreneurship with learners from the most deprived members of the Cardiff community. He is also a Public Value Fellow for the Business School and has been involved in work with high school students in developing education opportunities focusing on entrepreneurship and climate change. This has led to new partnerships with not-for-profit organisations and projects with the National Software Academy and the School of Earth and Environment Sciences at Cardiff University. He is also working with Cardiff City Council and a number of Cardiff-based third sector organisations in supporting an Employer-Refugee employment forum.

During the Covid-19 crisis he worked as a panel member with the Third Sector Resilience Fund for Wales inititative, which distributed grant support to third sector organisations. He is a member of Cardiff University’s EPSRC Impact Accelerator Account Panel, the UK's ESRCs Peer Review Panel and has supported the Welsh Government’s expert panel, supporting women entrepreneurs in Wales (2019-2022). Tim has also just been invited to join the judging panel for the Queens Award for Enterprise in the category of 'promoting opportunity through social mobility'.

Tim has a PhD in Innovation Management awarded from Aston University (2002), a MSc Management by Research, awarded from Aston University (1995), and a BA (Hons) in International Relations from Sussex University (1991). He has lived in a number of places including West London as a child, Brighton and Birmingham as a student and Bristol and Cardiff as an academic at Cardiff University. He is married and has two grown-up sons about to attend or already attendng university in the UK.

He has had two research sabbatical visits in his career - the first to the University of Alberta in 2007 and the second to UC Davis in 2016. Tim has also worked closely with colleagues from Grenoble Ecole de Management.

Honours and awards

Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS) award to sponsor early career and PhD attendance – 19th International Association of Critical Realism Conference, Cardiff (July 2016)
Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS) award to sponsor early career and PhD attendance – 4th European Theory Development Workshop (June 2015)
Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS) award to sponsor an early career and PhD workshop - Exploring the concept of institutional logics in organization studies: Critique and future developments in the field (April 2013)
Cardiff Business School, Developing Student Employability Award (2013)
Cardiff University, International Travel Scholarship Award (2007). Visiting Professor position at the University of Alberta.

Best Paper Awards

Academy of Management Conference, Anaheim, (2016): Relationally reflexive women: Household strategies of female entrepreneurs as social change (Entrepreneurship Division)
Academy of Management Conference, Boston, (2012): Affect in Collaborative Entrepreneurial Projects: Insights from Innovators in the Super yacht Industry. (Entrepreneurship and Creativity Division)

Outstanding Paper Award

(2008) - Emerald Literati Network: A critical account of knowledge management: agentic orientation and SME innovation, International journal of Entrepreneurial behaviour and Research.of Entrepreneurial behaviour and Research, Vol 13, No2, 2007

Professional memberships

Fellow, Royal society of Arts
Fellow, Higher Education Academy

Committees and reviewing

Associate Editor: Organisation (2014-2021)
Associate/Consulting Editor: International Journal of Management Reviews
Editorial Board: Organisation Studies; Journal of Responsible Technology, Scandinavian Journal of Management
Grant reviewer - ESRC
Journal reviewer including: AMR, Human Relations, Organisation Studies; Journal of Management Studies; IJMR and Organisation

2017

Rhode, M., Rana, O. and Edwards, T. 2017. Data capture and analysis to assess impact of carbon credit schemes. [Online]. arXiv. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.07574
Al-Amoudi, I., Edwards, T., O'Mahoney, H. and O'Mahoney, J. 2017. Introduction: de/humanisation and critical realism. Journal of Critical Realism 16(4), pp. 349-352. (10.1080/14767430.2017.1348713)

2016

Meliou, E. and Edwards, T. J. 2016. Relationally reflexive women: household strategies of female entrepreenurs as social change. Presented at: Academy of Management Conference 2016, Anaheim, California, 5-9 August 2016 Presented at Atinc, G. ed.Academy of Management Proceedings, Vol. 2016. Academy of Management Proceedings Vol. 1. Briarcliff Manor, NY: Academy of Management pp. 1-6., (10.5465/ambpp.2016.197)

2015

Edwards, T. J. 2015. Institutional theory: reflections on ontology. In: Mir, R., Willmott, H. and Greenwood, M. eds. Routledge Handbook of Philosophy in Organization Sciences. Routledge Companions in Business, Management and Accounting London: Routledge, pp. 125-137.
Edwards, T. and Meliou, E. 2015. Explaining leadership in family firms: Reflexivity, social conditioning and institutional complexity. Human Relations 68(8), pp. 1271-1289. (10.1177/0018726714554468)
Jennings, J. E., Edwards, T., Jennings, P. D. and Delbridge, R. 2015. Emotional arousal and entrepreneurial outcomes: Combining qualitative methods to elaborate theory. Journal of Business Venturing 30(1), pp. 113-130. (10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.06.005)

2014

Brandl, J., Daudigeos, T., Edwards, T. J. and Pernkopf-Konhsner, K. 2014. Why French pragmatism matters to organizational institutionalism. Journal of Management Inquiry 23(3), pp. 314-318. (10.1177/1056492613517463)

2013

Delbridge, R. and Edwards, T. J. 2013. Inhabiting institutions: Critical realist refinements to understanding institutional complexity and change. Organization Studies 34(7), pp. 927-947. (10.1177/0170840613483805)

2012

Kakavelakis, K. and Edwards, T. J. 2012. Situated learning theory and agentic orientation: a relational sociology approach. Management Learning 43(5), pp. 475-494. (10.1177/1350507611427233)
Jennings, J., Edwards, T., Jennings, D. and Delbridge, R. 2012. Affect in collaborative entrepreneurial projects: insights from innovators in the superyacht industry. Presented at: Academy of Management Conference, Boston, MA, USA, 3-7 August 2012Academy of Management Proceedings. pp. 1-59.

2010

Edwards, T. J. 2010. Knowledge work and the employment relationship in the 'new workplace'. In: Blyton, P. R., Heery, E. J. and Turnbull, P. J. eds. Reassessing the Employment Relationship. Management, Work and Organisations Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 401-423.

2008

Delbridge, R. and Edwards, T. J. 2008. Challenging conventions: roles and processes during non-isomorphic institutional change. Human Relations 61(3), pp. 299-325. (10.1177/0018726708088996)
Edwards, T. J. and Jones, O. 2008. Failed institution building: understanding the interplay between agency, social skill and context. Scandinavian Journal of Management 24(1), pp. 44-54. (10.1016/j.scaman.2007.12.001)

2007

Edwards, T. J., Delbridge, R. and Munday, M. C. R. 2007. A critical assessment of the evaluation of EU Interventions for Innovation in the SME sector in Wales. Urban Studies 44(12), pp. 2429-2448. (10.1080/00420980701540960)
Edwards, T. J. and Delbridge, R. 2007. Reflections on developments in institutional theory: Toward a relational approach. Scandinavian Journal of Management 23(2), pp. 191-205. (10.1016/j.scaman.2007.02.003)
Edwards, T. J. 2007. A critical account of knowledge management: agentic orientation and SME innovation. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research 13(2), pp. 64-81. (10.1108/13552550710736910)
Edwards, T. J. 2007. Organizational politics and the "process of knowing": Understanding crisis events during project-based innovation projects. European Journal of Innovation Management 10(3), pp. 391-406. (10.1108/14601060710776770)

2006

Delbridge, R. and Edwards, T. J. 2006. The relational pragmatics of institutional entrepreneurship and field re-composition. Presented at: EGOS 2006 - European Group for Organizational Studies, Bergen, Norway, 6-8 July 2006.
Delbridge, R. and Edwards, T. J. 2006. Understanding field reproduction: the interconnection between agency, social position and stuctural context. Presented at: Workshop on the Present and Future Status of Institutional Theory, Alberta, Canada, 2-3 June 2006.

2005

Edwards, T. J., Delbridge, R. and Munday, M. C. R. 2005. Understanding innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises: a process manifest. Technovation 25(10), pp. 1119-1127. (10.1016/j.technovation.2004.04.005)

2004

Edwards, T. J., Battisti, G. and Neely, A. 2004. Value creation and the UK economy: a review of strategic options. International Journal of Management Reviews 5(3-4), pp. 191-213. (10.1111/j.1460-8545.2004.00103.x)
Edwards, T. J., Battisti, G., McClendon Jr, W. P., Denyer, D. and Neely, A. 2004. How can firms in the UK be encouraged to create more value? A discussion and review paper. Discussion Paper. Advanced Institute of Management Research. Available at: http://www.aimresearch.org/uploads/File/Publications/Academic%20Publications%202/How_can_firms_be_encourages_to_create_more_value.pdf

2003

Delbridge, R. and Edwards, T. J. 2003. Actors and roles in processes of de- and re-Institutionalization. Presented at: 19th EGOS (European Group for Organizational Studies) Colloquium, Copenhagen, Denmark, 3-5 July 2003.

2002

Thomas, R., Davies, A., Edwards, T. J., Ezzamel, M., Ogbonna, E. O., Budhwar, P. and Crane, A. 2002. Organizing/theorizing: developments in organization theory and practice. Presented at: Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, Cardiff, UK, 12-13 September 2002.
Budhwar, P. et al. 2002. Organizing/theorizing: Developments in organization theory and practice. Management Research News 25(8/9/10), pp. 1-193. (10.1108/01409170210783368)
Edwards, T. J., Delbridge, R. and Munday, M. C. M. 2002. Learning companies: Innovative potential of Welsh manufacturing SMEs. Working paper. Cardiff: Cardiff Business School.
Edwards, T. J., Battisti, G., McClendon Jr, W. P., Denyer, D. and Neely, A. 2002. Pathways to value: How UK firms can create more value using innovation strategically. Project Report. [Online]. Advanced Institute of Management Research. Available at: http://www.aimresearch.org/uploads/File/pdf/Executive%20Briefing/AIM%20Pathways%20exec%20briefing%20FINAL%20FEB%202005.pdf

2001

Edwards, T. J., Delbridge, R. and Munday, M. C. R. 2001. Linking innovative potential to SME performance: an assessment of enterprises in industrial South Wales. Presented at: 41st European Regional Science Association conference, Zagreb, Croatia, 29 August - 1 September 2001.
Edwards, T. J., Delbridge, R. and Munday, M. C. R. 2001. Learning companies: future challenges for small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises. Presented at: Critical Management Studies Conference, Manchester, UK, 11-13 July 2001.
Edwards, T. J. 2001. Techno-economic networks: technological transfer via the teaching company scheme. In: Jones, O., Conway, S. and Steward, F. eds. Social Interaction and Organisational Change: Aston Perspectives on Innovation Networks. Series on Technology Management Vol. 6. London: Imperial College Press, pp. 217-250.
Edwards, T. J., Delbridge, R. and Munday, M. C. 2001. Innovation in small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises: issues and future directions. Presented at: Managing Knowledge: Conversations and Critiques, Leicester, UK, 10 -11 April 2001.
Edwards, T. J. and Delbridge, R. 2001. Assessing the innovative potential of small and medium sized enterprises: a working model of innovation in manufacturing. Presented at: 2nd Managing Knowledge Conference, Leicester, UK, 10-11 April 2001.
Edwards, T. J. 2001. Innovation in Wales: assessing the potential of Welsh small and medium sized manufacturers.. Presented at: WERU Conference 2001, Cardiff, UK, May 2001Welsh Economic Review, Vol. 13(2). Cardiff, UK: Welsh Economy Research Unit (WERU) pp. 33-36.

2000

Edwards, T. J. 2000. Innovation and Organizational Change: Developments Towards an Interactive Process Perspective. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 12(4), pp. 445-464. (10.1080/713698496)
Jones, O., Edwards, T. J. and Beckinsale, M. 2000. Technology management in a mature firm: Structuration theory and the innovation process. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 12(2), pp. 161-177. (10.1080/713698466)

1998

Edwards, T. J. and Miller, H. 1998. Change in mass higher education: university, state and economy. In: Jary, D. and Parker, M. eds. The new higher education: issues and directions for the post-Dearing university. Staffordshire University Press

Tim's main undergraduate teaching commitment has been on the final optional module - Entrepreneurship and Small Business Start-ups. However, due to his role as Pro-Dean for Research, Impact and Innovation he does not have a lead teaching role but rather has been contributing to the delivery of modules including the undergraduate module Economy and Society and the Arts Humanities and Social Science flagship Masters programme for Research Methods. This is given to all social science postgraduate students intending to undertake a social science PhD at Cardiff University.

In addition to these commitments he has also developed an outreach module delivered in conjunction with the support of students of the student social enterprise, Enactus. This is a nine-week module called 'Realising your Potential in Business' and is delivered to adult learners from the refugee community in Cardiff.

Further afield, Tim has, since 2016, been an invited international faculty member on Kobe University's SESMI Programme: "Qualitative Research in Strategic Management". Tim will be delivering another class in October 2023.

Finally, Tim has been an external examiner for the executive MBA at Oxford University’s Said Business School since 2021.

Tim is an organisation theorist with an interest in explaining institutional change processes, innovation and entrepreneurship. His most recent research work is a multi-disciplinary research study of citizen science in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. As PI he has led a project team that has been awarded up to £85,000 in funds from bodies such as the ESRC's Global Challenges Research Fund, EPSRC and includes scholars from social science, computer science and ecology. Research partners include academics from Fundação Getulio Vargas, UNICAMP and the Federal University of San Carlo, Brazil. The project involves school children and local farmers in developing a responsible innovation approach to citizen science. It involves the community in co-creating the socio-technical infrastructure that will help support sustainable livelihoods. This builds on previous work with colleagues in the computer science department (Rhodes and Rana) testing IT solutions in the monitoring of water repair projects in Eritrea.

Tim's work in Brazil has recently benefitted from a Visiting Research Fellowship Award which will support a planned visit to Sao Paulo at the beginning of 2023.

Awards since 2017

Cardiff Business School Seedcorn funding (2020-21) - Emancipating the youth in vulnerable rural communities: Science for citizenship in the forest community of the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. PI.
ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (2021): Supporting citizen science: A critical, social science led approach to impact. Co-I.
ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (2021): Supporting women entrepreneurs in Wales through the Covid-19 crisis. Co-I.
ESRC Festival of the Social Sciences (2021): Widening Participation in Sustainability Through Repair. Co-I.
HEFCW GCRF (2018): Equitable and Inclusive Education for Sustainable Communities: Citizen Science. PI.
DIRI, Data Innovation URI (2018) Data-Driven Citizen Science: Capacity building and education innovation in the forest community of Guapiruvu. PI.
EPSRC, GCRF Institutional Sponsorship (2017): To establish a communications infrastructure based on cloud technology that enables a ‘citizen science’ approach for sustainable biodiversity management in the tropical forest community in Brazil. Co-I.

Tim is currently the primary supervisor for four PhD students that includes:

a gender analysis of investor syndicates in support of women entrepreneurs
the reflexive management learning of senior staff in the NHS
the translation of neuroscience into management practice
Artificial Intelligence's impact on freedom in the workplace

He is always keen to discuss PhD opportunities with prospective students in a range of areas including innovation, entrepreneurship and organisation theory.

Past projects

Tim has supervised PhD students for over ten years with all completing successfully.

Kostas Kakavelakis (passed 2008) Organizational change and the process of knowing: The role of communities of practice within the context of a merger in the UK brewing sector.
Abdul Kadir Rosaline (passed 2009): Toward an understanding of workplace learning.
Peter Dorrington (passed 2011): An investigation of the UK Micro- and Nano-technology Government intervention.
Takahiro Endo (passed 2012): Resistance to institutional change: The case of the Japanese publishing field.
Rhiannon Lloyd (passed 2014): An institutional approach to understanding the green paradox of nuclear power.
Abdul Alharbi (passed 2015), Technology Transfer in Non-Western contexts: A Case Study Approach.
Hitoshi Iwashita (passed 2016) Managing institutional complexity in Japanese overseas subsidiaries.
Anna Galazka (passed 2019), Managing stigma: a relational analysis of wound healing in the UK.
Emma Jones (passed 2021), Made in Wales: a study of the realities of work in a super independent television production company.