Professor George Saridakis

George Saridakis joined Kent Business School (KBS) in December 2017 as a Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. When he was appointed, he acted as a Director of the Centre for Employment, Competitiveness and Growth (CECG). Currently he is Head of the Marketing, Entrepreneurship and International Business (MEIB) Department.
After completing his MSc in Economics at Surrey University he embarked on a PhD Programme and graduated with a PhD in Economics from Essex University in 2006. During the final year of his PhD, he took up a research post (Research Fellow in Applied Economics) at the University of Warwick.
In 2007, he joined Loughborough University as a Lecturer in Business Economics. After three years, he was promoted to Senior Lecturer, and subsequently to Reader. He was also the Director of the PhD programme (Business) from 2011-2012.
He left Loughborough University in 2012 to take up a research professorship at the Small Business Research Centre in Kingston University at age 33, where he stayed for five years.
During his time at Kingston, he undertook various managerial responsibilities, including the directorship of the PhD programme (Business) and the Centre for Research in Employment, Skills and Society (CRESS). Also, he held a short appointment as Director of the Global Entrepreneurship Development Centre (GEDC) before his move to KBS.
George is also an Honorary Professor at the University of the West Indies, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago since 2013. In 2021, he was appointed as a Visiting Professor at Aston University (School of Business and Social Sciences).
Previously he held temporary visiting posts at the University of Dhaka (Department of Organization Strategy and Leadership), the University of Brunei Darussalam (School of Business and Economics), the University of North Carolina (Belk College of Business), Brock University (Goodman School of Business) and the Jean Moulin University (IAE Lyon School of Management).
He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). He recently joined the Board of Trustees at the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE). Also, he was elected as a Fellow of the prestigious Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) in Spring 2024.

George in his free time likes to read philosophy and recently studied and was awarded a PGCert and subsequently an MA in Philosophy. He practices Shotokan Karate and holds a First-Degree Black Belt. He also enjoys playing/learning instruments, especially Cretan lyra and guitar.  

George’s main area of research is on small firms, international business/trade and entrepreneurship. He has also carried out research on social media, illicit behaviour and supply chain linked to business performance and economic growth. His research typically uses cross-sectional, time-series and panel data approaches.
George’s research has been presented at various international conferences. He has won four best conference paper’ awards and the Scottish Enterprise award. Recently, his joint work on gender promotions won the EEG Research Prize (Scientific area of Economics, University of Minho) and appeared in the BJM International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month 2021 Collection. Also, his funded work on Great Britain Microbusinesses received the Team Impact Award, Staff Excellence Prizes, at KBS.
He has performed the duties of chair and/or discussant at various research events. Currently, he is the Chair of the 'Business Creation, Early-Stage Development and Business Closure' track at the ISBE.
He has published more than 85 journal articles. Most of his articles have appeared in top-rated journals listed as world-leading or internationally excellent/recognised, according to the Association of Business School (ABS) journal ranking list. He is also the author of several edited books, book chapters and official reports. He was included in the top 2% of scientific researchers in the world list prepared by Stanford University for 2023.
George is a member of various editorial boards, including the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research, Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship and Spoudai: Journal of Economics and Business.
Over the years he has edited several special issues on timely topics published in prestigious journals in his field (e.g., International Small Business Journal, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research, Economic, Industrial Democracy). In 2021, George was appointed Senior Editor of the Information Technology and People journal.
He is currently Research Associate at the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC). He has also been an Honorary Fellow at SALISES, Affiliate Researcher at Applied Microeconomics Research Unit (Portugal) and member of various research centres and groups at national and internal level.  

At Kent, George teaches Entrepreneurship, which introduces students to a wide range of approaches to entrepreneurship and explains its role in innovation and economic growth. He has been awarded five Kent Union Awards for going above and beyond expectations in entrepreneurship teaching.
Previously he taught at Kingston Business School, Loughborough Business School and Warwick Business School. At these institutions, he mainly taught panel data, time-series analysis and research methodology for postgraduate students and lectured undergraduate and postgraduate modules in Business Economics.
He has also lectured in the area of innovation and entrepreneurship in times of crisis at the University of North Carolina in the USA, where his teaching contribution to students’ experience was commented on in the senior survey. He taught similar topics at the IAE Lyon School of Management (International Week), Jean Moulin University, in France.
During the early stages of his career, he tutored modules in economics and econometrics at the universities of Leicester, Essex and Warwick.
He completed his teaching qualification (New Lecturers’ Route) at Loughborough University and was awarded Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2010.
George has also participated as an external assessor for prestigious accreditation bodies (e.g., Association of MBAs, Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency) and has been invited to participate in Global Academic Rankings (e.g., Times Higher Education’s 2024 Global Academic Reputation Survey). 

George has acted as an external examiner for doctoral vivas at various universities including University of London, Brighton University, Cranfield University, Surrey University, Loughborough University, University of the West Indies and University Putra Malaysia, as well as independent chair, internal examiner and external advisor.
He has successfully supervised seven PhD students to completion. His students have published in well-established journals (e.g., Journal of Business Venturing, International Small Business Journal) during and/or soon after their PhD completion. His research students received many research and teaching distinctions and currently hold prestigious position in national and international institutions.
He welcomes applications from candidates with a background in economics or management and with a strong interest in applied work in the area of small firms and entrepreneurship.   

Past supervisees

• Bochra Idris: Essays on SMEs' internationalisation: an empirical analysis using large-scale survey data.
• Bernard Owens Imarhiagbe: SMEs and access to finance: an investigation of different sources of funding. 
• Yanqing Lai: Employee relations in SMEs: an empirical approach using the Workplace Employment Relation Survey (WERS 2011). 
• Nicholas Litsardopoulos: Entrepreneurship as an employment career path and the role of entrepreneurial well-being.
• Hemamali Tennakoon Mudiyanselage: The impact of information security and its related constructs on purchase intention of social commerce users. 
• Sara Odat: The effect of the sharing economy at innovating SMEs business model in developing economies.
• BM Razzak: The working life of employees in the context of UK SMEs of Bangladeshi origin.

George has been invited as a keynote speaker for various research events, including talks at the European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies (ECRM), the 13th Convention International Community of Banyakigezi, and more recently at the Entrepreneurship Analogue to Digital Conference which took place at the University of Padua. He has also given several guest lectures and invited seminars worldwide (e.g., International Hellenic University, University of Piraeus, University of Macedonia, Darmstadt University of Technology, University Brunei Darussalam, The University of the West Indies, University of Lisbon, University of Minho, University of Turku, University of Guanajuato). He has also organised various conference/workshop events (e.g., The Economic Future of Britain after Brexit, Belk-Kingston-Mercator Doctoral Workshop, Researching and Engaging with SMEs- Economy and Internationalisation Dynamics).
Part of his research activities and work has been funded by major funders such as the European Union’s (EU) Leonardo da Vinci programme, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR), the ERC/the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), the ERC/the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (DBEIS), the British Academy, Barclays Bank, the University of Sharjah (Office of Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies), the Legal Services Board (LSB) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), among others. Recently he carried the Venture Forward study on Great Britain Microbusinesses, which received attention from various media (e.g., Forbes).
During his academic career he has acted as an external assessor for promotions at various national (e.g., University of London, Leeds University, Reading University, Cranfield University, Westminster University, University of Brighton) and international universities (e.g., The University of the West Indies, University of Patras, Athens University, University of Piraeus). He has also been involved in assessing the quality of academic programmes in various institutions (e.g., Aberystwyth University, Liverpool University, University of Ioannina) and represented Kent at the Southeast Network for Social Sciences (SeNSS) PhD studentship competition.
He has reviewed papers for major conferences (e.g., British Academy of Management, European Academy of Management), grant application proposals for the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and book proposals for various publishers.
In 2023, he became a FRSA and in the same year he joined the board of ISBE Trustees. George is also a co-chair for the Late Career Development Consortium at the Academy of Management (AoM).
George was honoured to receive the runner-up award for inspiring leadership in 2023 at Kent University - this award is very prestigious since he was a runner-up award winner out of more than several nominations at the university level.