Dr Outi Blackburn

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Deputy Director of ARU Business Clinic, Senior Lecturer in Management and Marketing, PhD (Business), DSc (Econ & BA), PGCert LTHE

Centre for Research into the Organization of Work and Consumption (CROWC) Centre for Intelligent Supply Chains

Faculty:
Faculty of Business and Law
School:
Management
Location:
Cambridge
Research Supervision:
Yes

I am the Deputy Director of ARU Business Clinic and a Senior Lecturer in Management and Marketing at ARU, with extensive industry experience and a background in higher education teaching and research. Since 2020, I have been actively involved in university-level teaching, delivering undergraduate and postgraduate modules in marketing, management and business strategy, as well as supervising PhD students. My research focuses on the role of digital platforms in enabling the Circular Economy transition.

Email: [email protected]

Background

Outi holds a Doctor of Science (Economics and Business Administration) from LUT University, Finland and a Doctor of Philosophy (Business) from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia. Her doctoral research explored how digital platforms provide environmental and economic benefits by adopting circular business models. She currently specialises in Circular Economy relevant platforms as socio-technical systems, examining their role in economic value creation and ethical business practices.

She has several years of industry experience in various managerial and marketing roles, which she applies to her teaching, as well as the new ARU initiative, Business Clinic. Her teaching spans multiple business disciplines, currently focusing on marketing, management, entrepreneurship, business strategy and sustainability. She also holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Leading and Teaching (Higher Education) and is an AdvanceHE certified external examiner.

Spoken Languages
  • Finnish (native)
  • Swedish (fair)
Research interests
  • Digital platforms and XR technologies
  • Circular Economy/Net Zero 2050
  • Sociotechnical systems
  • Resource-based view and sustained competitive advantage
Areas of research supervision
  • Undergraduate/Postgraduate Major Projects
  • PGR (PhD) students broadly in the fields of business and management
Teaching
  • Integrated Marketing Communications
  • Principles of Marketing Management
  • Undergraduate Major Project (Marketing)
  • Postgraduate Major Project (Entrepreneurial Action)
Qualifications
  • Certified Management and Business Educator (CMBE)
  • Doctor of Science (Economics and Business Administration), LUT University, Finland
  • Doctor of Philosophy (Business), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia
  • PGCert LTHE
Memberships, editorial boards
  • Academy of Management (member)
  • European Academy of Management (member)
  • British Academy of Management (BAM) (member)
  • BAM Management Consultancy Network committee (elected member)
Selected recent publications

Blackburn, O., Ritala, P., & Keränen, J., 2023. Digital Platforms for the Circular Economy: Exploring Meta-Organizational Orchestration Mechanisms. Organization & Environment, 36(2), 253–281. https://doi.org/10.1177/10860266221130717

Recent presentations and conferences

Blackburn, O., Ritala, P., Bocken, N., & Keränen J., 2023. Circular Economy Platforms: A Systematic Review. At the 2023 Miami Beach International Academic Conference on Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting