The Institute has developed teaching units for degrees in management studies. In particular, a retailing elective for Oxford’s highly-acclaimed 1-year MBA programme was developed in 2007 which is co-taught by an academic member of the Institute alongside a senior retail practitioner (Chairman of a UK blue chip retailer). Several senior UK retail CEOs, including Ian Cheshire of Kingfisher and Ben Gordon of Mothercare, work with class participants. This course achieved one of the highest teaching assessments on the MBA in its first year and attracts a high proportion of the total class. As well as learning more about retailing, class participants have significantly improved their career prospects in the sector.
The Institute also facilitates and supervises MBA and EMBA student projects within retail and related firms, as well as assisting in co-ordinating careers discussions and panels for graduate students.
Members of the Institute have extensive experience in supervising or co-supervising doctoral students working on topics related to retailing and grounded in an academic discipline within social sciences and business management. The Business School has received CASE recognition and the Institute recently received Economic and Social Research Council funding to support the placement at network member universities of up to 15 doctoral students within organizations, working on projects of mutual interest with business.
Recent graduate research includes:
- Electronic word-of-mouth
- Luxury goods retailing
- The Spotify business model
- Retail brands in Turkey
- New retail pricing models
- Twtter, brand sentiment and shareholder value
- The hedonic fashion shopping experience in a multichannel environment
- Recommendation agents & consumer decision-making