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Dr. David Spicer

Professor of Small Business Development and Organisation Studies

Area
School of Management
Faculty of Mgmt, Law & Social Sciences
E-mail
D.P.Spicer@bradford.ac.uk
Phone
+441274232158
Dr. David Spicer
11 publications

Biography

David is Professor of Small Business Development and Organisational Studies and Director of Business and Community Engagement in the School of Management and leads on the development of the School’s programme and portfolio in respect of support for small business and entrepreneurship. As part of this David is leading Bradford’s contribution to the Help to Grow: Management programme, a nation-wide programme of government-funded support for growth in SMEs being led by school’s holding the Small Business Charter. David has over 20 years of experience in higher education and returned to Bradford (where he began his academic career) at the start of the 2019/20 academic year, having previously led the Business School at the University of Salford.

David’s research interests include strategic learning, change and leadership, with a particular interest small forms and entrepreneurship. His current focus is on leadership and strategic adaption in small firms in response to change. He is a member academic steering group of the Yorkshire and Humber Policy and Engagement Research Network (Y-PERN). This is a group of Yorkshire University academics interested in economic development and growth, in partnership with he has successfully received £120,000 of funding from the Research England Development Fund to support research and policy work as part of this partnership and £10,000 from the ESRC for work on creative entrepreneurship as part of YPIP (the Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership).  His work in this regard has led to him being invited as speaker for industry focused conferences and events, including as keynote for the Federation of Small Businesses Regional Conference in May 2024. His wider work on entrepreneurship focuses on the policy implications of entrepreneurial support provided by universities in particular and he has undertaken research and consultancy and delivered executive education in both SMEs and with large corporate firms.

He currently teaches on both the MSc programmes within the School of Management. Twitter: @DavidPSpicer 


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Research

David's research interests lie in the study of learning and change in organisations, specifically, strategic adaptation, organisational learning, change agency and leadership, relationships between individual and organisational learning, relationships between learning, motivation and effectiveness, the role played by the individual learner and the impact and assessment of cognitive/learning style. He has undertaken work with SMEs, public sector organisations (local government) and major commercial organisations.

He is currently focused on strategic adaption and growth in small firms, and how such firms respond to crisis.

Teaching

David teaches modules across human resources and organisational behaviour. However, his particular interest and specialism is in organisational learning and change.  His approach to learning is both action-oriented and experiential, incorporating cases, simulations and exercises into classes.

Publications