Mr Russell Williams

Biography

I joined the University in 2005. Prior to this I held lectureships at a number of UK and overseas Universities. My teaching interests stretch across a number of areas, but at various times I have led and contributed to modules in Marketing, Digital Marketing, Business Strategy, Leadership and Project Management. I have also held a number of management and directorship roles both with the Business School and for the University. These roles include Programme Directorships for our MBA and MBA (Energy Management), MSc Digital Marketing Leadership (online), and Director of Graduate Programmes (Business School). All of these roles have seen considerable development work both within the School, across the University and also with external stakeholders and partners. Most recently, I have just returned from serving as the University Dean for the Qatar Campus.

I have published widely across a range of journals including: Marketing Intelligence and Planning; Management Decision; Managerial Auditing Journal; Organization Development; Journal of Electronic Commerce Research; International Journal of Technology & Human Interaction; Review of International Business and Strategy etc. I have also had the privilege of supervising students to PhD completion in the areas of entrepreneurship, online trust and crowdfunding. My current research projects include Crowdfunding, Social Media and (somewhat tangentially), renewable energies.

Outside of the University of Aberdeen, I am delighted to be serving as a part of an Advisory Board for NRI (an Indian-based business established by an Aberdeen MBA graduate that focusses on developing young people with autism). I have been involved in two Internet start-ups and a micro-brewery. I have also served as a business mentor for start-ups and business identified with high growth potential.    

External Memberships

Senior Fellow, HEA (Advance HE)

Fellow, Chartered Management Institute

MEI Member, Energy Institute

Research Overview

I returned to the Business School in 2022 from a University secondment where I have been working on the establishment and development of the University's campus in Qatar . The last two years of this secondment I spent serving as Dean for the Qatar Campus in Qatar.

I am now establishing new research projects. Two of these are in the area of Crowdfunding and Social Media Marketing. 

In terms of Crowdfunding I am looking at both the critical success factors of crowdfunding campaign and the development of Islamic Crowdfunding.

In terms of Social Media Marketing I am looking at Influencer perceptions of critical success factors for establishing relationships with followers and advertisers.

I also have an on-going interest in luxury (marketing), recently publishing:

Williams, R. (2023) Wellbeing, Experiences and Superyachts, Special Issue of Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes. Vol. ahead-of-print. No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/WHATT-03-2023-0053

 Batchelor, L. and Williams, R. (2022) Understanding the Luxury Charter Yacht Value Proposition: Co-Creating Customer Experiences, in Gladkikh, Seraphin, Gladkikh and Vo Than (Eds), Luxury Yachting Perspectives on Tourism, Practice and Context, Palgrave MacMillan.

Together with my collegue Dr Tatiana Gladkikh I am also co-editing a future text on the co-creation of luxury (superyacht) experiences (Palgrave: MacMillan). The planned publication date for thsi is 2024.

Past Research

Most Recent Publications:

Williams, R. (forthcoming 2024) Co-creating Luxury Customer Experiences: Exploring the Superyacht Market, in Galdkikh and Williams (Eds), Co-creation of Experiences in the Luxury Yacht Charter Market, Palgrave McMillan.

Williams, R. (2023) Wellbeing, Experiences and Superyachts, Special Issue of Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes.  

Batchelor, L. and Williams, R. (2022) Understanding the Luxury Charter Yacht Value Proposition: Co-Creating Customer Experiences, in Gladkikh, Seraphin, Gladkikh and Vo Than (Eds), Luxury Yachting Perspectives on Tourism, Practice and Context, Palgrave MacMillan.

W.M. Nazirie and Williams, R. (2021) Linguistic style and gender match in funding intention towards crowdfunding project, Review of International Business and Strategy, 31(3), pp.438-461.