Dr Chay Brooks

MA (Cantab), MPhil, PhD (Cantab), SFHEA

Management School

Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship

A head and shoulders photograph of Chay Brooks.

c.brooks@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 3454

Sheffield University Management School

Full contact details

Dr Chay Brooks
Management School
Sheffield University Management School
Conduit Road
Sheffield
S10 1FL

Profile: Chay joined Sheffield University Management School in 2015 as a Lecturer in International Entrepreneurship. Chay's research interests are in entrepreneurial philanthropy, the role of international organisations in supporting enterprise and entrepreneurship, and the spatialities of entrepreneurship more broadly. Since joining SUMS, Chay has worked on numerous funded research projects including grants from the ESRC, British Academy and Innovate UK. Chay was director of the Centre for Regional Economic and Enterprise Development (CREED). Chay is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has led teaching across enterprise and entrepreneurship subjects at all levels both in the UK and overseas. Chay supervises PhD students exploring topics around entrepreneurship and innovation. He has also worked as an international expert for UK and international organizations.

Qualifications

PhD - University of Cambridge
MPhil - University of Cambridge
MA - University of Cambridge

Research interests: Chay's research is focused around three core streams: (i) the geographies of entrepreneurship and regional development, in particular the geopolitical and economic effects of entrepreneurship in transnational environments; (ii) the intersections of entrepreneurship and philanthropy, namely the work of international foundations of philanthropy in shaping economic and social development; (iii) the historical emergence of entrepreneurship. Across these three streams, Chay's research adopts an interdisciplinary approach that seeks to explain the role of institutional structures in creating and shaping entrepreneurial landscapes and relationships. Chay's work covers both theoretical and applied approaches that generates research-led impact through engagement with private and public sector stakeholders.

Publications

Journal articles

Cordasco C, Gherhes C, Brooks C & Vorley T (2021) An institutional taxonomy of adoption of innovation in the classic professions. Technovation, 107. View this article in WRRO
Gherhes C, Vorley T & Brooks C (2020) Making sense of industrial decline: how legacies of the past influence the development of entrepreneurship cultures in formerly industrialized places. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development.
Gherhes C, Vorley T & Brooks C (2020) The “additional costs” of being peripheral: developing a contextual understanding of micro-business growth constraints. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development.
Brooks C, Gherhes C & Vorley T (2020) Artificial intelligence in the legal sector: pressures and challenges of transformation. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society. View this article in WRRO
Gherhes C, Brooks C & Vorley T (2019) Localism is an illusion (of power): the multi-scalar challenge of UK enterprise policy-making. Regional Studies. View this article in WRRO
Brooks C, Vorley T & Gherhes C-A (2019) Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Poland: Panacea, Paper tiger or Pandora’s Box. Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy. View this article in WRRO
Nally D & Brooks C (2018) From the Teen to the Green Revolution: American philanthropy and youth club work in Northern Europe. Journal of Historical Geography, 61, 27-43. View this article in WRRO
Brooks C, Gherhes C, Vorley T & Williams N (2018) The nature of publicly funded innovation and implications for regional growth: Reflections from the Sheffield City Region. Competitiveness Review, 28(1), 6-21. View this article in WRRO
Williams N, Brooks C & Vorley T (2016) Hidden clusters: the articulation of agglomeration in City Regions. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 34(8), 1776-1792. View this article in WRRO
Brooks C, Vorley T & Williams N (2016) The role of civic leadership in fostering economic resilience in City Regions. Policy Studies, 37(1), 1-16. View this article in WRRO
Brooks C (2015) The apostle of internationalism: Stephen Duggan and the geopolitics of international education. Political Geography, 49, 64-73. View this article in WRRO
Brooks C (2015) ‘The ignorance of the uneducated’: Ford Foundation philanthropy, the IIE, and the geographies of educational exchange. Journal of Historical Geography, 48, 36-46.
Owalla B, Gherhes C, Vorley T & Brooks C () Mapping SME Productivity Research: A Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence and Future Research Agenda. Small Business Economics.
Gherhes C, Vorley T, Vallance P & Brooks C () The role of system-building agency in regional path creation: insights from the emergence of artificial intelligence in Montreal. Regional Studies, 1-16.

Chapters

Brooks C () Governance, civic leadership and resilience (pp. 125-141). Edward Elgar Publishing

Conference proceedings papers

Owalla B, Gherhes C, Vorley T & Brooks C (2019) Factors affecting SME productivity : a systematic review and research agenda. Academy of Management Proceedings, Vol. 2019(1). Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 9 August 2019 - 13 August 2019. View this article in WRRO

Research group

Centre for Regional Economic and Enterprise Development (CREED)

Entrepreneurship, Strategy and International Business Group

Teaching interests

Chay teaches undergraduate, postgraduate and professional learners. He has taught in the fields of entrepreneurship, small business, innovation, geography, and economics. His teaching philosophy is based on the development of critical and reflective learners, who take a detailed and rigorous approach to their learning. His teaching stresses a strong understanding of the theoretical and 'real world' issues within entrepreneurship and the importance of taking a critical and moral lens to critical economic and societal issues.

Chay is a current PhD supervisor and is engaged in PGR research training. Chay has worked as an external examiner, PhD examiner, and academic liaison to the University's International Faculty. At the University of Cambridge he was a Director of Studies and admissions interviewer at several colleges. Chay holds a Certificate in Learning and Teaching from the University of Sheffield and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Teaching activities

Current modules

MGT229 Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
MGT6234 New Venture Creation Challenge

PhD Supervision: Chay is interested in supervising PhD researchers interested in areas related to entrepreneurship, geopolitics and international business, philanthropy and regional economic development.