Dr Miguel M. Torres

Miguel M. Torres has over two decades of experience in teaching, applied research, and industry and policy expertise, focusing on international business, cross-border insolvency, and corporate restructuring. Miguel is an INSOL International fellow and a World Bank Group consultant supporting the Business Enabling Environment Report (BEE) project. He also collaborates as an Expert with the Better Methods Collaboration Group at Campbell Collaboration and as Proposals Evaluator in the Horizon EIC-2022-Pathfinder for the European Commission. 

Previously, Miguel was an Associate Senior Research Fellow (2017-2020)  and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow of the European Commission (2015-2017), both at the Centre for International Business at the University of Leeds. His academic work recognition includes a Recognition for Outstanding Contributions to the Academy of International Business (2017), a Marie S. Curie Research Fellowship (2015), a Nomination for the Buckley & Casson PhD Dissertation Award (2014), and a Danny Van Den Bulcke Doctoral Prize (2011).

Miguel's research interests include the behaviours and impacts "on and of" multinational enterprises, the policies governing international business, the structure and performance of industries, market failures and consequences of MNEs' market power, externalities, public goods, and the role of asymmetric information in economic transactions. By examining these topics, Miguel aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of how markets operate and how policies can be designed to promote more efficient outcomes.

Miguel’s teaching interests include strategic management, international business, and industrial organisation. Miguel teaches "Managing the Multinational Enterprise" and "Cross-Cultural Management". Managing a multinational enterprise involves understanding and addressing the unique challenges and considerations that arise when a company operates across multiple countries and cultures. It requires knowledge of international business policy and understanding the structure and performance of industries in different countries. Market failures and the consequences of MNEs' market power are necessary to understand the potential adverse effects that MNEs can have on markets, whether through monopolistic practices, externalities, or other market failures.  The role of asymmetric information is particularly relevant in cross-cultural management, as different cultures may have varying levels of information sharing and communication styles. Understanding how asymmetric information can affect business relationships and negotiations across cultures is essential for MNEs. He has been responsible for and lectured "The Emerging Markets” at the International Business MSc at Leeds University Business School (2019-2020). Before that position, he lectured in Auditing, International Macroeconomics and Finance Accounting at the Portuguese Catholic University (2015-2016) and International Business, International Economics and Introductory Economics at the University of Aveiro - Portugal (2008-2015). 

Miguel is interested in collaborating with supervising PhD and postdoctoral students and is keen to explore topics within international business policy and industrial organisation. Some work in progress includes searching for answers to the following questions:

How do Gender Equality, Women's Empowerment, Education and Leadership matter for MNEs?

How do Marginalised Communities and Migrations matter for MNEs?

Does the institutionalisation of Innovation matter for MNEs?

What is the impact of Late Payments and on SMEs & MNEs?

How to measure the speed of debt restructuring in MNEs?

What are the effects of Labour Productivity on MNEs' Bankruptcy?

How do MNEs disconnect operations, and what is their market impact?

Why do (larger) MNEs matter in small and open economies?

How do domestic zombie firms reduce the profits for healthy firms, and why does this matter for markets and MNEs?

How do we measure the MNE's market value and its market power, particularly in small and open economies? 

What is Ronald Coase's perspective on subsidies to internationalisation?

Addictions and Contradictions of Public Support towards Internationalisation? Do policymakers know what they are doing?

Why are business failures different in MNEs, and why is this relevant to (or not) supporting internationalisation?

What impact of subsidies on MNEs' productivity?

Why is asymmetric information crucial in cross-cultural management?