John Balabanis

Profile

Throughout my undergraduate and Masters degrees I studied political science with an emphasis on nationalism, political ideology and international relations. During my Masters programme, this was primarily taught in the context of Eastern Europe. I finished my M.A. at University College London. Later, I decided to amalgamate my passionate interest for politics with business and enrolled as a PhD candidate in Leeds University Business School in 2017.

Research interests

In recent years, geopolitical instability, political uncertainty (born from electoral behaviour and parliamentary developments) have increased globally since 2013.  In unison with these increased business risks, particularly to multi-national companies, business involvement in politics has historically transformed from distancing and ‘buffering’ itself against government legislation, to proactively participating in it and establishing governmental ties. My project develops a conceptual framework that combines research from marketing strategy and corporate political action streams. The framework determines both the type and direction of interaction between marketing and corporate political actions in organisations and how they jointly shape a multinational enterprise's performance. The two types of strategies are hypothesised to operate synergistically in improving strategy implementation and enhancing the businesses performance. The joint effect of these two actions may help to hedge against the negative effects of environmental uncertainty, dynamism, resource scarcity, institutional instability and adverse influence of other stakeholders/actors in local and global terrain. The model goes one step back and examines what are the resources and capabilities (political and marketing) necessary to design and implement effective and mutually beneficial marketing and political strategies.

Qualifications

• M.A. Politics, Security and Integration, UCL