Professor Matthew Allen

My profile

Biography

I am a Professor of International Business within the Marketing, International Business and Tourism Department. I also lead the International Business Knowledge Platform. 

Prior to joining Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, I have been a professor and a head of department at Bangor University and Essex Business School, and a senior lecturer at Alliance Manchester Business School. 

My research focuses on the strategies of multinational companies and how they generate competitive advantages in different locations around the world, focusing on organizations’ corporate governance as well as how they manage their employees. I have published in leading comparative and international business journals, such as the Journal of International Business Studies, the British Journal of Management, Sociology, Socio-Economic Review, and The International Journal of Human Resource Management. I am on the editorial board of the International Journal of Human Resource Management. My research has been funded by DANIDA, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and UKRI.

I am currently working on a DANIDA-funded project to expedite the move to a circular economy in Bangladesh’s garment industry.

I am keen to supervise doctoral students who wish to examine any of the following topics:

  • multinational enterprises’ strategies,
  • MNEs’ innovation capabilities,
  • MNEs’ human resource management (HRM) practices, and 
  • state capitalism

Teaching

Supervision

I have supervised several PhD and DBA students through to completion.

I am keen to supervise doctoral students who wish to examine the links between multinational companies’ strategies, their innovation capabilities, and their human resource management (HRM) practices.

Research outputs

Allen, MMC Demirbag, M, Allen, ML, Bhankaraully, S and Wood, G (2024), Multinational enterprises’ R&D commitments in Chinese provinces: A configurational approach, Journal of International Management, 101158.

Saqib, SI, and Allen, MMC (2024),  Institutional logics in play at work: How applying an institutional logics approach to employees’ intentions to quit contextualizes HRM, International Journal of Human Resource Management 35 (17), 2839–2862.

Tabassum, M, Raziq, MM, Allen, MMC, Sarwar, N, and Golra, OA (2024) Exploring emergent leadership in agile teams: Network dynamics, roles, and skills at the individual level, Business Process Management Journal 30 (5), 1615-1637.

Allen, MMC (2024) New directions for corporate governance: A comparative capitalisms perspective, Annals of Corporate Governance 8 (3), 158-249.

Saqib, SI,  Allen, MMC Lucio, MM, and Allen, ML (2024), Sustaining solidarity through social media? Employee social media groups as an emerging platform for collectivism in Pakistan, Work, Employment and Society 38 (3), 636–656.

FAA Becker-Ritterspach, KSG Lange, MMC Allen (2022), ‘Dominant modes of economic coordination and varieties of firm internationalization support’, International Business Review 31

MMC Allen, G Wood, M Demirbag (2022), Developing Theoretically Informed Typologies in International Business: Why We Need Them, and How to Do It, Journal of International Business Studies

MMC Allen, GT Wood, M Keller (2022), State Capitalism: Means and Dimensions, in M. Wright, G. T. Wood, A. Cuervo-Cazurra, P. Sun, I. Okhmatovskiy and A. Grosman (eds), The Oxford Handbook on state Capitalism and the Firm, Oxford: OUP.

SI Saqib, MMC Allen, G Wood (2022), ‘Lordly management and its discontents: ‘Human Resource Management’ in Pakistan’, Work, Employment and Society 36 (3), 465-484.