Surrey Live Commerce project
Start date
March 2021End date
September 2021Overview
SHTM academics at University of Surrey are joining forces with Arcom IT and Surrey County Council in developing the UK’s first, local live-commerce platform that brings together Surrey’s stakeholder groups from local businesses to public service providers to residents and visitors. The innovative online platform works to bridge online and traditional offline commerce and services and to increase usage and footfall of Surrey’s town centres.
Funding amount
£10,000
Funder
SME Innovation Voucher
Team
Principal investigator
Dr Bora Kim
Deputy Head of SHTM (Education), Director of Studies; Associate Professor
Biography
Dr Bora Kim is an Associate Professor in Hospitality Management at the University of Surrey. Her research examines managerially relevant questions in tourism and hospitality from the perspectives of strategic management, financial management, corporate governance, and sustainability. In particular, she studies how executive characteristics, board structures, ESG, and CSR shape managerial decision-making, firm performance, and responsible business practices.
Bora’s broader research interests include equality, diversity, and inclusion, social sustainability, and the role of strategic leadership in fostering positive organisational and societal change. Her work seeks to bridge theory and practice by addressing issues that are academically meaningful and managerially relevant to hospitality and tourism organisations.
She is a Fulbright Scholar and earned her PhD and MSc in Hospitality Management from The Pennsylvania State University. She also holds a BBA in Hotel Management, summa cum laude, from Kyung Hee University. Her international education and cross-continental experience inform her global perspective on tourism and hospitality research, teaching, and industry engagement.
Co-investigators
Dr Lorna Wang
Associate Professor in Marketing and Revenue Management/Co-Director, Centre for Research on Ageing and Generations
Biography
Lorna joined University of Surrey in September 2017. She holds a PhD from Oxford Brookes University. She serves on the editorial boards of a number of leading hospitality and tourism management, revenue management journals. She also holds Visiting Professorship at University of Angers (France) and regularly gives talks in various Universities in Europe and in China.
Prior to her academic career, Lorna held a number of managerial positions such as Marketing Director and Rooms Division Director in China and in the UK. She won the ‘Lord Forte Award’ from the Institute of Hospitality in London in the year 2000. In China, she worked with ‘Guo-An Hotel Corporation’ based in Beijing, where she led her team to win ‘the Best Service Award’ from Beijing Tourism Administration Bureau after hosting ‘the 11th Asian Games’ in 1990. It was one of the first mega-events hosted by China and she was awarded as ‘Service Pacesetter’ in recognition of her personal contribution.
Research themes
Find out more about our research at Surrey: