Profile
Gerhard his work has been published in internationally leading journals including Business & Society, Comparative Political Studies, Organization Studies, and Global Strategy Journal. He has obtained several research fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation and large grants from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and other funding bodies.
Academic background
Gerhard graduated from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) in 2001 with a BA (Licence) in Political Science. He obtained a Masters (Diplôme d’études approfondies, DEA) in Political Science from the Universities of Lausanne and Geneva (Switzerland) in 2003 and a Masters in Social Science Data Analysis at the University of Essex in 2015. He completed his PhD in Political Science at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) in January 2008.
Since 2007, Gerhard has been a post-doctoral research fellow and then a research associate at the Centre for Business Research (CBR), University of Cambridge. He also worked as a research fellow at SOAS, the University of London and the University of Bath. Gerhard was a Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer, and Reader at King’s between 2009 and 2017, before joining Loughborough University London on secondment and then taking on the role of Director of the Institute for International Management and Entrepreneurship at Loughborough London in 2019.
Research
Current research and collaborations
Gerhard’s research adopts an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to investigate the institutional and political determinants of economic activity. More specifically, Gerhard researches the impact of the state, law, and informal institutions on firm-level corporate practices and strategies with a specific focus on corporate governance and corporate political activity.
Gerhard currently leads a multi-national NORFACE-funded project investigating the Populist Backlash, Democratic Backsliding, and the Crisis of the Rule of Law in the European Union.
Supervision
Current PhD / research supervisions
- Melek Küçükuzun (since 2021): Populism and the Turkish media system
- Sho Akinnawo (since 2022): The London Canal Boat Entrepreneurial Community
Completed PhD / research supervisions
- Alan Brejnholt (2018-2022): Navigating Plurality: The State and Corporate Social Responsibilities
- Micaela Mihov (2013-17): Private-Public partnerships and Varieties of Capitalism
- Philipp Kern (2012-2015): The institutional and corporate change in times of crisis in Europe and North America
- Dorottya Sallai (Egerszegi) (2011-2013): The determinants of Eastern European companies’ lobbying activities at EU level