Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd

Sarah's research focuses on the impact of socio-cultural factors on the nature, quality and quantity of entrepreneurship, including socio-economic marginality, social ties, religion, politics, and the family. She has a special interest in alternative, or inclusive, small business start-up and growth, and current field work explores punk rock, craft beer, and social enterprise. Sarah has also studied social capital and networking, growth strategies, family business, entrepreneurship education, and cross-cultural conceptualizations of the entrepreneur. An additional research stream includes the relationships between theology, religion and entrepreneurship. Sarah's research has been published in leading entrepreneurship and management journals, including the Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Management Decision, the Scandinavian Journal of Management, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, the International Small Business Journal, the Family Business Review, and the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She is a Board Member of ETP, ERD, and IJEI.

Sarah teaches and trains in the areas of entrepreneurship and society, corporate venturing, new venture creation and growth, family business, organizational behaviour, and international business management. She also teaches qualitative methods to graduate students.

Professor Dodd’s previous posts include Professor of Enterprise and Small Business at Middlesex University, and academic positions with ALBA Graduate School of Business (Athens, Greece), the American College of Greece, Robert Gordon University (Aberdeen), and the University of Aberdeen. She holds a visiting positions at the University of Lancaster.

Professor. Dodd has considerable experience of marketing, training, and business development, including several years spent managing Aberdeen University's executive development programmes for areas ranging from engineering to philosophy, and from forestry to management. Professor Dodd also founded and directed AHEAD, the Alba Hub for Enterprise and Development, Greece’s first University centre for entrepreneurship, which bridges the gap between the worlds of higher education and enterprise.

Sarah is committed to creating new, relevant knowledge about the entrepreneurial process, and sharing this in a highly practical fashion with students, entrepreneurs and policy makers. She believes that we learn best through guided experiences, and through coached interactions with our peers, and this is reflected in her interactive teaching style. Sarah founded and directed AHEAD, Greece’s first University centre for entrepreneurship, bridging the gap between the worlds of higher education and enterprise. She served as a long-time member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Greek Entrepreneurs Association.

Sarah has more than 25 years of experience in the teaching and training of new venture creation and growth, and family business. She also teaches in the area of embedding and encouraging entrepreneurship within larger organizations, including corporate venturing, entrepreneurial management and leadership. Sarah has also taught qualitative methodologies, most especially metaphor methods, to a range of PhD students around Europe. Her teaching portfolio includes organizational behaviour, and international business management.

Sarah has 25 years of hands-on work training, developing and supporting entrepreneurs in a range of international settings. Prior to her academic career, Sarah developed considerable practical experience working in marketing, training, and business development. This included several years spent managing all of Aberdeen University's executive development programmes for areas ranging from engineering to philosophy, and from forestry to management. In this role, and in others since, she has worked with a broad variety of private and public sector organisations, including high tech start-ups, community businesses, large corporations and local governments.

Sarah has a special interest in working with small, independent ventures that focus on a social, or creative mission. Her current research and engagement projects are in the world of craft beer, of punk rock, and of social entrepreneurship.