Role
Dr Maria Margarida De Avillez is the module leader of ‘Enterprise in Practice’ (BA level) and ‘Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurial Ingenuity’ (MSc level), and teaches in many other modules. She also supervises undergraduate and postgraduate student dissertation projects.
Dr De Avillez is a member of ‘Innovation, Digitisation & Entrepreneurship Operations’ and ‘Responsible and Sustainable Business Lab’ research groups.
She is currently focusing on publishing from her thesis, and is the principal investigator of a research project entitled “Mapping the Eco-system of Social Enterprising in Nottingham”, which was funded by NBS Seedcorn Research Funding.
Career overview
Dr De Avillez completed her PhD in 2017 at the University of Nottingham. Her doctoral research was funded by the ESRC and investigated the unfolding of social entrepreneurship in a developing economy. Prior to working at NTU, she worked in business consultancy, taught at Nottingham University Business School, and was a founding partner of a diagnostic and referral centre in Lisbon - Portugal.
Research areas
Dr De Avillez's research interests include
- social and community entrepreneurship
- social enterprise
- international development in African economies
- sustainability
- business ethics
- micro-finance and informal entrepreneurship
She has been studying these topics through the lens of new-institutional theory (e.g. institutional logics perspective, legitimacy theory) and entrepreneurial bricolage; making use of qualitative research methods, particularly ethnography.
External activity
- Member of the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS), British Academy of Management (BAM), Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE), and the Africa Research Group (ARG).
- Invited to present “Women in Mozambique: How Sources of Finance Interplay with Social Entrepreneurial Practices” at the ESRC SME Finance Seminar Series: (2015).
- Academic conferences and journals’ reviewer, e.g. BAM, ARG, Glocalism (Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation), Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship.
- Awarded Best Developmental Paper Award in the Entrepreneurship track – BAM (2015).
- Nominated Best Paper in the Social, Environmental and Ethical Enterprise track - eligible for Best Conference Paper – ISBE (2017)
Sponsors and collaborators
- Nottingham Trent University Seedcorn funding - Research Project (2017)
- Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC- DTC) - PhD Grant (2013-2015)
- University of Nottingham - Doctoral Research Scholarship (2012)
Publications
- De Avillez, M. (2017) "The Legitimacy of Grassroots Necessity-Driven Practices as Forms of Social Entrepreneurship in the Context of a Developing Economy", in Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, Belfast, November 8-9, Belfast, UK
- Nominated for Best Paper in the Social, Environmental and Ethical Enterprise track - eligible for Best Conference Paper
- De Avillez, M. (2015) “Social Entrepreneurship in Developing Economies: The Case of Mozambique”, in British Academy of Management Annual Conference, 8-10 September, Portsmouth, UK
- Best Developmental Paper Award in the Entrepreneurship track
- De Avillez, M (2015) “Contextualising Social Entrepreneurship in Developing Economies: The Micro-foundations of Transcultural Embeddedness”, in European Group for Organization Studies 31st Colloquium , 2-4 July, Athens, Greece
- De Avillez, M (2014) “Exploring Etic and Emic Social Entrepreneurship in the Context of a sub-Saharan country”, Africa Research Group Seminar, 29 April, University of Nottingham, UK