Felicia Fai

My current research interests lie in understanding how 'openness' (varying from organisational partnerships, through networks to business ecosystems) enables innovation to drive economic growth. I consider this issue at various levels (organisation, industry, region and nation).

My interest originates in my expertise in the development of corporate technological competence and the importance of having both a set of core competences and a diverse technological base for corporate longevity in a range of manufacturing industries. The diversity of their technological competences enables firms to recognise the potential of other firms as future partners for innovative purposes and to work with them; the subset of core competences, enable a firm to develop specialist expertise in an area which make them attractive as partners to others.

Over time the concept of increasing 'openness' has extended my interests from partnerships in a dyadic setting to one with numerous relationships of varying strengths, resulting in my interest in networks and business ecosystems. The latter may extend across numerous boundaries at the organisational, industrial, regional and national levels.

I would welcome approaches from potential PhD students and researchers with interests in this area.

I am interested in supervising PhD students with an interest in adopting a competence-based perspective on technological innovation, R&D and networks.

1. The influence of location factors on open innovation practice and management in multinational corporations.
2. The affect of governance structure on open innovation management in multinational corporations.
3. The born open firm - the development of a concept.