Corporate Vision January 2017

32 CORPORATE VISION / January 2017 , The University of Edinburgh Business School is ranked amongst the top 1% of Business Schools worldwide, holding ‘triple crown’ accreditation granted by the three main bodies who assure quality of education in this area, AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA. The Business School has developed expertise across a number of areas including: Accounting and Society, Financial Decision Making, Credit Research, Resilience, Strategic Leadership, Service Management and Sustainable Business. With more than 100 academics from 28 nationalities and an alumni community of 14,000 in more than 120 countries, the school is recognised as a connected community for thought leadership on the international business stage. Tina, who has been with the Business School since 1993, talks us through her field of research and how she has discerned her current research topics following years of study and hard work. “Since the start of my academic career, my research interests have been in the area of Excellence inEducation for the University of Edinburgh TinaHarrison is Professor of Financial ServicesMarketing and Consumption at theUniversity of Edinburgh Business School, where she is actively involved in conducting academic research in the area of financial servicesmarketing and consumer decision-making, as well as teaching on those topics and frequently engaging in consultancy for financial institutions.We spoke to her to learnmore about thework she undertakes and how she supports the school to ensure all of its students leavewith the skills and qualifications to succeed. financial services marketing and consumption, examining how consumers make financial decisions and the impact of marketing action on consumer decision-making. The initial focus of my research was on market segmentation of the personal financial services sector (identifying the needs and behaviours of different groups of customers and the factors affecting their behaviour), followed by studies to understand customer loyalty, customer retention (studies in cross-selling) and the factors contributing towards the development of relationships with financial service providers. “More recently, my research has focused on consumer understanding of financial services, financial capability and risk, as heightened by the financial crisis. My research into financial capability has focused on individual consumers, specifically in relation to pension saving and the role of technology in enabling financial decision- making. Financial decisions affect all our lives. However, due to the inherent risk and uncertainty of financial decisions, consumers are often poorly informed and susceptible to making poor decisions that have significant personal as well as societal consequences. Individuals increasingly are expected to assume responsibility for financial decisions. There are both moral and economic imperatives to improve financial capability. My research, thus, contributes to the ongoing debate between theory, policy and practice on how to build and sustain financial capability and empower financial consumers. “My current research focuses very much on consumer understanding of finance, financial capability, and financial socialization. Throughout 2016, together with colleagues in the Business School, I have been conducting research into young adults’ financial capability, based on an analysis of data from the Money Advice Service’s UK Financial Capability Survey.” Women contribute a great deal to the University and its work, and therefore it places a great deal of emphasis on supporting them, as Tina explains. “Women make up approximately half our staff in general. Attracting the best female talent is not one of our main challenges as we do very well at this. Our key challenge is ensuring a more even spread of women at the higher grades and particularly at Professor level. We have been doing a great deal to focus on this, including engaging in the Athena SWAN Charter. The Charter was developed in 2005 and open to any university or research institute committed to the advancement and promotion of the careers of women in science, engineering and technology, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) in higher education and research. The scheme was extended in 2015 to recognise work undertaken in arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law. “The University achieved its first Athena Swan Bronze Award in 2006 (successfully renewed in 2009 and 2012) and achieved Silver in 2015. These awards recognise demonstrable progress on gender equality and plans for continued development. We are now going for Gold!” BW160051