Dr Thomas Wainwright

BA, MSc, PhD
Researcher
Small Business Research Centre

KH-62 Kenry House
Kingston University
Kingston Hill
Kingston Upon Thames
Surrey
KT2 7LB

Phone:

020 8417 9000 Ext: 65162

E-mail:

T.Wainwright@kingston.ac.uk

Biography

Dr Thomas Wainwright is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Small Business Research Centre (SBRC) at Kingston University. Tom completed his first degree at the University of Leicester, and holds an MSc from the University of Nottingham. He completed his ESRC funded PhD in 2009 (University of Nottingham) where he investigated the UK mortgage market, wholesale banking, asset management and the unfolding of the credit crunch within the financial services sector.

Tom then worked at the University of Nottingham as a Research Assistant on projects that examined wholesale-retail bank linkages and wealth management. He also worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow on the future of technology-orientated cities in Europe, the US and Asia.

More recently, Tom has been involved in research for Barclays Bank, which investigated small business practices and strategies in the economic recovery, in addition to firm views on exporting. He is also involved in research with colleagues based at the University of Turku (Finland) that focuses on firm formation and self-employment amongst ‘older’ entrepreneurs. Tom is also about to begin a research project which examines the consumption of tax planning advice by SMEs, funded by the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

Tom’s research has been featured widely in the media and has been presented to both policy-makers and practitioners. He has also peer-reviewed papers for international journals, including: Journal of Economic Geography, Journal of Small Business Management, Environment and Planning A, Regional Studies, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and the International Small Business Journal.

Tom and his co-authors were awarded the best paper prize in the 'Business Creation, Resource Acquisition, Business Closure' track at the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference in 2011.

Expertise

Qualitative research methodologies; interviewing; narrative analysis; discourse analysis; social theory

Research Interest(s)

Tom has a broad interest in political economy and the interactions between business, politics and society. Previous work has focussed on the development on new financial markets, especially the social construction of risk, and the formation of ‘elite’ financial networks in the British mortgage sector and international capital markets.

Currently, Tom is interested in how small businesses interact and are shaped by their wider environments and powerful stakeholders. This focuses on particular relationships between small businesses, the financial services sector and professional advisors – both public and private.

In addition, he is keen to understand how knowledge transfer occurs between business networks and communities, and how trust is essential in the running of small businesses. He is particularly interested in the day-to-day practices and strategies that are implemented by businesses, during in the economic recovery, and to face the challenges posed by cybercrime.

Memberships

British Academy of Management
European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship
International Council for Small Business
Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship

Recent Publications