Dr Marion Frenz

Overview

Biography

Marion is the Subject Head: Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship with in the Birkbeck Business School. She is the Chair of Birkbeck's Ethics Committee and a Deputy Director of the Centre for Innovation Management Research.

Marion designed the BSc Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship programme for which she is programme director and admissions tutor.

She was Head of the former Department of Management from September 2019 to September 2021, having previously been Deputy Department Head. Marion chaired the Admissions Team and the Assessment Offences Committee for the Department of Management.

During 2007 she was seconded to the then UK Department for Innovation University and Skills, Science and Innovation Analysis Unit, and her stay funded through an Economic and Social Research Council grant. 

Qualifications

• PhD in Management, Birkbeck, University of London, 2006
• Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Lifelong Learning, Birkbeck, University of London, 2008

Research

Research interests

• Training and innovation in micro-businesses
• Certification and quality standards
• Generative AI
• Absorptive capacity framework and measurement

Research overview

Marion studies factors that influence the innovation activities of businesses.

This includes a current project with Grace Peng, Odile Janne and Ray Lambert on the impact of different types of training on innovation in micro-businesses and SMEs.

It includes current research with Grazia Ietto-Gillies on an empirical framework measuring absorptive capacity.  

Marion is also interested in the role of quality standards, including food safety standards, in the performance of food processing businesses.

With Saverio Romeo she is exploring the use of GenAI in businesses.

Together with Daniele Archibugi and Andrea Filippetti, Marion examined the characteristics of firms that continued to invest in innovation during the 2008 financial crisis.

Marion was involved in a major international micro-data project launched in 2006 under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). As part of this project she and Ray Lambert identified typologies of innovation modes, including non-technological modes, and studied their impact on business performance. This work is based on firm level data from the Community Innovation Surveys.

Research Centres and Institutes

• Deputy Director, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:

2

Marion is the coordinator of the Research Project in Management. She supervises undergraduate, postgraduate and research students. She has a particular interest in supervising in the broad area of innovation and digital technologies, including generative AI use at work. 

Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

• MARK THURGOOD

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2019

  Title of thesis:

  A Service Ecosystem Perspective on the Broader Contribution of Front-line Employees to the Service Innovation Process

  Awarded:

  2024

• PETER ROSS

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2013

  Title of thesis:

  Using Theories of Diffusion of Innovation and Engagement to Explore the Factors to Influence Doctors' Acceptance of Clinical Audit and Explain their Association with Performance: A Mixed Methods Case Study of Doctors' Engagement and Performance on the National NHS England PET-CT Programme

  Awarded:

  2019

Teaching

Convening and teaching: 

• Management of Innovation
• Research Methods in Management (Undergraduate)
• Research Project in Management

Convening: 

• Business Information Systems
• Managing Digital Transformation
• Management of Emerging Technologies

 

Publications