Rennes SB PhD Students

Topic of thesis
Sustainable Finance and Investment For SMEs

“I’m a master holder in Finance, I have accumulated 6 years of experience in the finance and Investment field, as financial analyst. I have an impressive track record of creating financial models, managing budgets and performing financial and investment analysis for numerous companies.”

Main themes of my research/ Research questions
What are the needed strategies to access sustainable finance and investment for SMEs?

I use/I am interested in
I use qualitative methods; I am looking forward to gaining deep knowledge of and developing my research skills.

Topic of thesis
The Impact of Digital Transformations / Artificial Intelligence on Employees’ Burnout

Yara Atallah is a second year PhD researcher in the AI research center at Rennes School of Business under the supervision of Dr. Sarah HUDSON. Her research interests are the effect of technology and Artificial Intelligence on employee’s wellbeing and burnout. She presented her work at international conferences such as Euram. In addition, she teaches in the Management & Organisation and Strategy &
Innovation departments as an adjunct professor; and has over 5 years’ experience in strategy, planning and management fields in the banking sector.

My Profile
I am Lalitha Shankari, a PhD student at the Rennes School of Business. I completed my MSc in International Accounting Management Control and Auditing with a distinction, also at Rennes School of Business. My supervisor is Dr Akanksha JALAN, Associate Professor in the department of Finance and Accounting. My research focuses on gender diversity and corporate outcomes such as reporting behavior, tax payments and CSR policy.

Research Questions

• Where do Indian companies stand today, in terms of gender diversity? Despite mandatory gender quotas on Indian boards, is it merely a ‘check-the-box’ or have we witnessed any real change? This is a pertinent question to ask in the light of the highly patriarchal Indian business landscape, dominated by family businesses.
• Does the presence of women on boards and in companies in general affect corporate outcomes through better quality financial reporting, more generous CSR policies, lower carbon emissions and higher corporate tax payments?
• Can Indian women on corporate boards be used as a catalyst to improve audit quality?

Methodology
For research questions (2) and (3) above, I intend to use panel regression methodology based on secondary financial and governance data collected for listed Indian firms.
Skills that I look forward in developing in my PhD journey: A deeper understanding of gender literature and proficiency in the use of both quantitative and qualitative tools for research.

Year 3
Topic of thesis: Narrative Augmented Financial Forecasting
Google scholar profile

Profile:
Yuting is a PhD candidate in Banking & Finance, jointly supervised by Dr. Roman Matkovskyy at Rennes School of Business and Prof. Valerio Poti at University College Dublin (Ireland). His works, with a concentration on Behavioral Finance, have been presented in both local and international seminars and conferences, including the Central Bank of Ireland FinTech Workshop (2020), the 11th RCEA Money-Macro-Finance Conference (2021) and the 3rd Financial Economics Meeting (2022). In addition to his academic pursuits, Yuting is also a dedicated teaching assistant and tutor for multiple modules in Economics and Finance.

Main themes of my research: Behavioral Finance; Narrative Economics; NLP for Finance; Empirical Asset Pricing, Financial Forecasting

Research Questions:

• Can narratives help predict equity market bubbles?
• Do narrative shifts drive economic structural changes?

I use/I am interested in utilising new technologies to extract crucial information from alternative data sources for the econometric identification of economic relationships.

I am a Ph.D. student in Supply Chain Management and Information Technology at Rennes school of business and a Ph.D. student in Infra Informatics at the Linköping University (LiU) of Sweden. I completed my MS in Industrial Management (Industrial Production) from the Allamah Tabataba’i University of Iran. My Ph.D. project is Mass evacuation planning in urban areas under the supervision of Professor Reza Farahani Zanjirani (Rennes SB/Chaire Rennes Métropole) and Professor Tobias Andersson Granberg (LiU).

Work Experience
I have about 9 years of professional experience working in the IT industry. I worked as a Planning manager or Chief Planning Officer in Banking IT service provider companies.

Research interests
My research interests are mainly related to Sustainable Supply chain management, Disaster management, Mass evacuation, Humanitarian logistics, Circular economy, and Closed-loop supply chain.

Articles in Peer Reviewed Journal

• Jafarian, A., Rabiee, M., Tavana, M. A novel multi-objective co-evolutionary approach for supply chain gap analysis with consideration of uncertainties. International Journal of Production Economics (IJPE). 2020. 228(1). pp: 107852.
• Jafarian, A., Asgari, N., Mohri, S., Fatemi, E. and Zanjirani Farahani, R. The inventory-routing problem subject to vehicle failure. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review. 2019. 126(1). pp:254-294.
• Govindan, K., Jafarian, A., and Nourbakhsh, V. Designing a sustainable supply chain network integrated with vehicle routing: a comparison of hybrid swarm intelligence metaheuristics. Computers and Operation Research (C&OR). 2019, 110(1), pp: 220-235.
• Govindan, K., Jafarian, A., and Nourbakhsh, V. Bi-objective integrating sustainable order allocation and sustainable supply chain network strategic design with stochastic demand using a novel robust hybrid multi-objective metaheuristic, Computers and Operation Research (C&OR).2015. 62(1).112-130.
• Devika, K., Jafarian, A. and Nourbakhsh, V. Designing a sustainable closed-loop supply chain network based on triple bottom line approach: A comparison of metaheuristics hybridization techniques. European Journal of Operation Research (EJOR). 2014, 235(3), 594-615.
• Govindan, K., Jafarian, A., Khodaverdi, R., and Devika, K. Two-echelon multiple-vehicle location–routing problem with time windows for optimization of sustainable supply chain network of perishable food. International Journal of Production Economics (IJPE). Special issue of “Sustainable Food Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Operations, and Technology”. 2014, 152(1), 9-28.

Topic of thesis
Ambidexterity from a Multi-level Perspective: Empirical Studies in the Agricultural Industry

• Please consult scholar profile

Topic of thesis

Ethics and Legitimacy Perceptions of AI in Organisations

Karen has been an Adjunct Professor at Rennes School of Business since 2020, teaching Accounting, Finance, and Strategy to PGE and Masters students. A finance professional with a wide variety of international experience in finance, law, and regulation, Karen worked as a health care practitioner in Australia subsequent to obtaining her BSc.
After obtaining a First Class graduate Law degree in London, Karen qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PwC and spent 9 years working in London as a Financial Services auditor, and as a Regulator with the Financial Conduct Authority (UK Finance Regulator).

Karen’s areas of interest include the Ethics of AI, particularly in the context of financial services organisations. Her supervisor is Dr Dirk Schneckenberg

Research Questions

• How do organisations use ethics in the implementation of AI technology? and:
• Which aspects of (un)ethical organisational AI implementation influence stakeholder perceptions of legitimacy?

First year PhD student
Topic of thesis
Artificial intelligence Regional innovation ecosystem
LinkedIn

I started my PhD journey in January 2022, coming from industry with over Six years of professional work experience.
I have deep capabilities in communication, negotiation, and leadership skills. Worked in different managerial positions with multiple companies across four different countries in Africa,

Middle east, and Europe. The companies range from Software “Enterprise search engines”, to Healthcare “NHS” and FMCG. My experience was mainly in Finance, Sales, Customer Success, and Branch / Projects management.

I hold a BBA in Finance (2014) and MBA (2020) from Liverpool
John Moores University, England. I am currently researching AI regional innovation ecosystem under the supervision of Dr André Nemeh.

Main themes of my research/ Research questions
Themes: Digital technologies mainly Artificial intelligence; Digital Innovation Ecosystems and Platforms; Coopetition Strategy for SME’s, ecosystems “Business, Innovation, entrepreneurial”

Questions: How to build a healthy AI regional innovation ecosystem; How companies position themselves in AI regional innovation ecosystem.

Theory used: I am interested in: Resource based view, Resource dependency theory, and dynamic capabilities.
(Knowledge/methods/ skills I have and want to develop): For my research, I am looking to use both qualitative and quantitative methods. I would like to better develop my skills in these two methods. In addition, I would like to develop my teaching skills.

Topic of thesis
Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Performance

LinkedIn

I am a Ph.D. student from the Marketing Department and the research center G3D of Rennes Business School. (Enrolled from October 2021) My supervisor is Dr Mahabubur RAHMAN in Rennes SB.

My research interests include corporate marketing efficiency, corporate social responsibility structure, green innovation, as well as corporate social responsibility structure’s impact on firm financial performance. The primary method of my research is to use secondary financial data at the firm level to conduct empirical studies.

Main themes of my research/ Research questions:

• How does relative marketing capabilities improve specialised corporate social responsibility? Impact of the market condition.
• How Does CSR consistency affect the Firm’s growth? The impact of country’s culture and economy of freedom.

Theory used: Resource Based View, Stakeholder Theory, and Institutional Theory

I use/I am interested in: I want to develop my python skills and I hope python can help me to do data analysis, or get data that I need in my research (e.g. Nature language processing to catch data and use them in CSR and marketing research). I’m also interested in the statistical and panel data analysis

Topic of thesis

• AI and Algorithmic Management

I am Lakshmi Narasimha Raju PhD student affiliated with Artificial Intelligent-Driven Business research area of Rennes SB (Enrolled from February 2022). My supervisors are Professor Yi LIU and Professor Sarah HUDSON.
My research interests are ethics of AI, Algorithmic Management, Technology Mediated Control, Electronic Performance Measurement and their implications for organisations.

Main themes of my research/ Research questions
1. Ethics of Algorithmics monitoring
2. Employee reactions to Algorithmic Surveillance and Control

Theory used
Moral Foundations Theory, Privacy Calculus Theory, sociomateriality

I use/I am interested in: I am interested to develop my skills in qualitative research methods, experimental research design, and improve my skills in ML and text mining. (Knowledge/methods/ skills I have and want to develop)