Professor Mehmet Demirbag

Strengthening relationships with local businesses and helping them expand internationally are among the aims of the new Deputy Dean at Essex Business School.

Professor Mehmet Demirbag is an internationally recognised expert on international business and in his previous role he worked with Scottish Enterprise to support companies to unlock new markets across the globe.

Based both at Southend and Colchester campuses, Professor Demirbag will focus on working with small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to realise their potential. Other areas of expertise include talent management and business efficiency.

He said: “I will be building relationships with SMEs in Essex to help them work with international markets. Essex Business School can design and identify strengths and weaknesses for domestic businesses and assist in formulating strategies.”

Professor Demirbag’s research and teaching focusses on international business and international strategic management. Prior to joining Essex Business School, he worked in Strathclyde Business School and was previously Chair in International Business at the University of Sheffield Management School.

He has extensive experience in policy development and has completed research projects for a range of funding bodies including the European Commission. Professor Demirbag has published over 65 scholarly journal articles, more than a dozen book chapters, guest edited eight high ranking journal special issues, and co-edited two books.  He is also currently working on a book with Professor Geoffrey Wood, Dean of Essex Business School, on transitional countries, such as Albania and Armenia.

While he was at Strathclyde Business School Professor Demirbag developed training material for Scottish Enterprise which aims to accelerate internationalisation of Scottish companies.

He has already published his first two papers for Essex Business School on talent management and efficiency in professional service firms . The focus of his talent management paper is to try to establish causality between motivations and talent management, looking beyond financial incentives.