Laura Galloway

Professor Laura Galloway PhD is a professor of Business and Enterprise at the Edinburgh Business School and is joint Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Entrepreneurship & Innovation. She has a background of research in entrepreneurship, leadership and small business and has published widely in these areas. Laura currently teaches Entrepreneurship and Leadership in the MBA and in Executive programmes, currently delivering courses for SME, corporate and public organisations. 

Professor Galloway founded and led the Edinburgh Business School Incubator, supporting early stage businesses from the University and the wider community in a wide range of sectors including tech, social enterprise and consumer and business services. In the period 2018-2023 over 70 business were supported, within which over 120 jobs were created, four patents were awarded, and which cumulatively attracted over £1Million in private investment and £2Million in grants and prizes. 

Professor Galloway sits on the cross-party group on women's enterprise at the Scottish Parliament and has an ongoing interest in supporting women in business and self-employment, and in academic careers.

She is also a member of UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab as enterprise and self-employment expert.

Prof Laura Galloway has a research background in entrepreneurship, small firms and self-employment, and leadership.

Much of Laura’s research focuses on peripherality both regionally and demographically including examination of minority entrepreneurship and the role of enterprise in reducing social and economic barriers. She has led studies of enterprise as a context of poverty in developuing nations and in the developed nation context of the UK. These studies include exploration of intersecting issues, including entrepreneurship amongst those in poor health or disabled and other atypical workers.

Other areas Professor Galloway specialises in include circular economy in the SME sector, entrepreneurship education, rural entrepreneurship and motivations for starting and continuing to be in business. International studies on these topics include collaborations with scholars throughout the world, including UAE, New Zealand, Finland, Cyprus and of course the UK, especially Scotland.

Additionally, Laura pursues research on leadership, particularly in the context of value generation in organisations. She is the author of the textbook Leadership: Perspectives from Practice, published by Sage.

Professor Galloway is joint Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Entrepreneurship & Innovation, a regular contributing editor to Industry and Higher Education and sits on the editorial board of several other journals. She has twice served as an elected board member (2010-2013 and 2017-2020) for the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, the UK's leading group that focuses on entrepreneurship and small firms policy and research and she is regularly invited to speak about her academic work at conferences, seminars and other events.

PhD student capacity

Laura supervises high calibre PhD candidates in the areas of leadership, enterprise education, employability, and business amongst marginalised or peripheral groups.