Professor Bruce Tether

Professor of Innovation Management and Strategy, Manchester Business School and CRIC

Biography

I am Professor of Innovation Management and Strategy, with a dual appointment at CRIC and the Manchester Business School (MBS). I am also a Ghoshal Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM). I have been at CRIC, initially as a Research Fellow, since it was established in January 1997. In 2003 I took up a part-time appointment as a Senior Lecturer in Innovation and Technology Management at UMIST’s School of Management, which is now part of MBS. Prior to joining CRIC I was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises at Warwick University’s Business School, and prior to that a doctoral student at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex. I began my research career in 1990 as a Research Associate at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, which is also where I gained my bachelors degree – in Geography.

Research Interests

My research interests are both conceptual and empirical, and mainly concern innovation economics, management and strategy, particularly with reference to services and 'systems of innovation' (or, in CRIC speak, 'distributed innovation processes'), and the measurement of innovative activity. I am particularly interested in less- and non-technological forms of innovation, such as organisational innovation, and the nature of complementarities between technological and organisational innovation, as well as other factors, such as skills. I undertake research using large datasets such as the UK versions of the European Community Innovation Survey (CIS), but also engage in detailed studies of particular sectors – especially air traffic control and management, and the design consultancy sector. Prior to coming to Manchester, most of my research concerned the role of small firms in innovation.

Research Projects

Further details of my research projects and related publications can be found by clicking the links below:

Research on Services

Research on Systems of Innovation

Research on the Measurement of Innovative Activity

Research on Small Firms and Innovation

Selected Publications

J. Utterback, B.-A. Vedin, S. Ekman, S. Sanderson, B. S. Tether and R. Verganti (2007) Design Inspired Innovation, World Scientific Press [Forthcoming in the spring of 2007]

B. S. Tether (2005) ‘Do Services Innovate (Differently)?: Insights from the European Innobarometer Survey.” Industry and Innovation, 12.2, 153-184.

B. S. Tether and J. S. Metcalfe (2004) ‘Systems of Innovation in Services’, in F. Malerba (ed.) Sectoral Systems of Innovation and Production in Europe, Cambridge University Press.

R. W. Coombs, M. Harvey and B. S. Tether (2003) ‘Analysing Distributed Processes of Provision and Innovation’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 12.5, 1051-1081.

B. S. Tether and J. S. Metcalfe (2003) ‘Horndal at Heathrow?: Capacity Expansion through Co-operation and System Evolution’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 12.3, 437-476.

B. S. Tether (2002), ‘Who Co-operates for Innovation, and Why? Research Policy, 31.6, 947 – 967.

Working Papers

B. S. Tether (2006), ‘Design and Innovation: Coming out from the Shadow of R&D: An analysis of the UK Innovation Survey of 2005’, A Report for the DTI, September, 2006.

B. S. Tether and A. Tajar (2006), ‘The Organisational-Cooperation Mode of Innovation: Its Statistical Identification and Prominence amongst European Service Firms, August, 2006.

A. Salter and B. S. Tether (2006) ‘Innovation in Services: Through the Looking Glass of Innovation Studies’, A background review paper prepared for the inaugural meeting of the Grand Challenges in Services (GCS) forum, held at Said Business School, Oxford, May 2006.

B. S. Tether and A. Tajar (2006), ‘Are Services Starved of Research? – An Exploration of UK Firms’ Innovation Linkages with Specialist Knowledge Providers’, April, 2006.

PhD Supervision

Interest areas for PhD supervision:

• Innovation in Services
• Systems of Innovation (or Distributed Innovation Processes)
• The Measurement of Innovation, especially organisational innovaiton
• Innovation and employment

Additional Information

Brief CV (56Kb pdf format)

Contact Details