Business School, University of Aberdeen

We are delighted to announce that Doug Duguid, CEO of Aurora Energy Services and Indigo 7 Ventures, will deliver this year’s Watt Hepburn Lecture. Join us on Wednesday 17th June for an insightful keynote on what it really takes to build and grow successful service businesses in the energy sector.

Register your attendance here: http://abdn.io/2fJ

Last week we welcomed a fantastic group of participants to our three-day in person event on the future of work 🌍

With AI moving from buzzword to real-world impact, the event focused on building the core skills individuals and teams need to thrive — from talent trends and working relationships to critical thinking and managing agentic AI. It was great to see such strong engagement throughout.

A huge thank you to our faculty and expert speakers:
John Storm, Dr Heather May Morgan, Adetayo Adeyemi, Murray Collie, Alex Mackrell, Ali Bayat, Yaji Sripada, Mark Tabrett, Pete Preston, Anand Narayan, and Iva Atanassova.
Thanks also to Jane Melhuish and Toni Gibson for their support behind the scenes and facilitation during the event.

We’re grateful to our sponsors Honeywell and Aberdeen Football Club for their continued partnership.

Finally, thank you to everyone who joined us - especially those who travelled from overseas - your insight and contributions made the week!

We’re excited to feature Prof. Gerhard Kling in our latest Research Insights Series! His paper “Elite MBAs in the Making of Top Business Careers” advances research on management education, inequality, and executive careers by highlighting both temporary inclusion during crises and the reassertion of symbolic boundaries thereafter.

Read the paper here: http://abdn.io/2fh

We are pleased to disseminate the call to the 2nd “Gender Equality, Diversity and Sustainability in Higher Education” conference to be held on Monday, 24th August 2026 at the University of Aberdeen. The aim of this conference is to equip us with the knowledge on projects related to gender equality and diversity in Higher Education (HE) produced by academic authors and researchers, as well as non-academic practitioners. We welcome contributions towards shifting our understanding and advancing method, theory and application across and within disciplines.

Submissions are in the format of a short report. We welcome short reports with different levels of development, from an initial/proposal stage to the final stage.

Submission timeline
• No later than 20th July 2026.
• Submissions must be made online at: [email protected]
• Notification of acceptance by 27th July 2026.

Read more about the submission process here:

Gender Equality, Diversity and Sustainability in Higher Education Conference 2026 | Business School | The University of Aberdeen We are pleased to disseminate the call to the 2nd “Gender Equality, Diversity and Sustainability in Higher Education” conference to be held on Monday, 24th August 2026 at the University of Aberdeen. The aim of this conference is to equip us with the knowledge on projects related to gender equali...

We’re excited to feature Prof. Zaheer Khan in our latest Research Insights Series! His paper “Unpacking strategic agility in SMEs from transitional periphery economies: exploring its manifestations and mechanisms” aims to investigate how SMEs develop and enact strategic agility (SA) in such environments, with a focus on Kazakhstan.

Read the paper here: http://abdn.io/2ep

One in five working-age adults in the UK lives with a long-term health condition, yet many workplaces still lack a clear strategy to support them.

In Prof. Alexandros Zangelidis's opinion piece for the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce Business Bulletin, he discusses why supporting employees with long-term conditions is not only the right thing to do, but also makes strong business sense.

Drawing on his research at the Business School, University of Aberdeen, he highlights how conditions such as thyroid disorders can affect productivity, wellbeing and career progression, and how simple, proactive workplace adjustments can make a significant difference.

The article also introduces two free resources designed to help employers and employees create healthier, more inclusive and productive workplaces:
🔹 The Workplace Thyroid Toolkit
🔹 The Long-term Conditions in the Workplace Guide

As long-term health conditions become increasingly common across the workforce, organisations that respond proactively will be better positioned to retain talent, reduce costs and build resilience.

You can read his article in the latest Business Bulletin here: http://abdn.io/2e6

We are delighted to announce that Doug Duguid, CEO of Aurora Energy Services and Indigo 7 Ventures, will deliver this year’s Watt Hepburn Lecture. Join us on Wednesday 17th June for an insightful keynote on what it really takes to build and grow successful service businesses in the energy sector.

Register your attendance here: http://abdn.io/2dA

We’re excited to feature Dr Nan Liu in our latest Research Insights Series! Her paper “Flexible Workspaces and Risk Pricing in Office Assets: Evidence from the London Market” examines how flexible workspace tenancy affects office pricing and capitalization rates in London using sequential mixed methods.

Read the paper here: http://abdn.io/2dj

NEW Blog Post

Rana Plaza 13 Years On: The Unfinished Fight Against Forced Labour and Modern Slavery

Is a new government the catalyst for change in Bangladesh's readymade garment sector?

Authors: Muhammad Azizul Islam, Professor in Sustainability Accounting and Transparency, University of Aberdeen & Jay Kerr, Campaigner, No Sweat, London:

Read their blog post in full here:

Rana Plaza 13 Years On: The Unfinished Fight Against Forced Labour and Modern Slavery Authors: Muhammad Azizul Islam, Professor in sustainability accounting and transparency, University of Aberdeen & Jay Kerr, Campaigner, No Sweat, London.Thirteen years ago, the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, which housed factories for major global fashion brands, killed over...

We’re excited to feature Prof Zaheer Khan and Prof Pervaiz Akhtar in our latest Research Insights Series! Their paper “Prejudice and Emotional Sensemaking in Post-acquisition Integration: A Case Study of Chinese Acquisitions in the UK” advances the understanding of micro-level emotional sensemaking in the PAI, emphasizing the dynamic, interactive nature of emotional sensemaking between acquirer and acquiree managers, and its impact on the integration process and outcomes.

Read the paper here: http://abdn.io/2cm