Senior Lecturer in Operations Management
I am a passionate, innovative, resilient solution-focused practitioner with an exceptional blend of creativity, empathy, and value-driven experience in academia, industry, and commerce.
In my current role, I lead the University's International Business School’s MBA suite of courses. The MBA is the largest course of study in the Faculty of Business, Law and Tourism with hundreds of international students.
Prior to joining the University, I was the CEO and Principal Consultant at Coopers International Associates, UK. With clientele including several UK red-brick universities, the EU Life-Long Learning, and CLIMATE-KIC, I have been the face at the table in the evaluation of the EU/EC member States Educational Systems Project on Life-long Learning and Post-Compulsory Education.
With my seasoned leadership, I have enhanced my expertise in successfully leading practices that span the strategic needs of forward-thinking organisations in areas including operations management, strategic project design, process re-engineering, and internationalisation. As a Transnational Education (TNE) Centre Leader in one of the University of Sunderland’s largest partnerships, my experience in working across cultures extends from the UK globally to Europe and the European Communities countries, USA, China, Southeast and Central Asia, East, West and Central Africa.
I combine my resilient attitude, energetic leadership qualities, experience, and tenacity to lead and manage complex projects successfully. I ceaselessly continue to work towards the development, design, and implementation of business solutions, with improved tools and techniques to promote active and deeper learning for stakeholders’ competitive advantages.
Teaching and supervision
- Programme Leader: MBA suite
- Centre Leader: Transnational Education (TNE) Partnership Asia
Module leader:
- Global Supply Chain Management
- Project Management
- Operation Quality Management – TNE Dual Awards
- Project Management Frameworks – TNE Dual Awards
- Innovation, Research and Development, and Growth
Research interests for potential research students
My research interests are in The Efficacy of Performance Measurement and Managerial Capacity, looking at the impact of management capabilities on decision-making and operational performance. With a special interest in the dimensions of interrelationships of knowledge through, levels of education, experiences and/or collaborative networking as factors of managerial capacity building and interoperability.
Some of my findings from longitudinal and empirical research pieces to date feed into the need for deeper exploration and connectivity of academic research practices for the benefit of industry, skills, knowledge development, and academic applications.
Headline research, dynamic and live projects to date include:
- Performance Measurement and Management
- Change Management
- Supply Chain Management
- Complex Project Management
- Operations Management
- Logistics
- Interoperability of Complex Supply Chains
- Supply Chains Integration
- Total Quality Management
Research
- The Relationship Between Social-Capital and Supply Chain Integration: A Case Study of Thailand
- Employee Motivation: A Bulgarian Case Study
- Integrating the Relationship Between Workplace Bullying and Employee Job Performance in IT Service Industry in China: A Case of Pactera Technology Ltd
- Why Performance Management should Overtake Performance Measurement in the Hospitality Industry: A Case of Austin Marriott Group, UK
Publications
Conference or Workshop Item
Cooper, Sharp, Watson, Derek and Worrall, Rob (2016) Managing Supply Chain Networks: A Framework for Achieving Superior Performance through Leadership Capabilities Development in Supply Chain Node. In: PMA International Conference 2016 - Performance Measurement and Management: New Theories for New Practices, 26 - 29 Jun 2016, Edinburgh, Scotland. UK.
Cooper, Sharp (2006) SUPPLY CHAIN COMPLEXITY: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE RAPID DECLINE OF THE UK’s TEXTILE AND CLOTHING MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY. In: 13th Annual EutOMA Conference: "Moving Up the Value Chain", 18-21 Jun 2006, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.
Cooper, Sharp (2005) Performance Measurement in UK textile & clothing manufacturing SMEs: Regaining the initiative. In: Stimulating Manufacturing Excellence in Small and Medium Enterprises, SMESME 2005, 2005, Glasgow, Scotland.
- Knowledge-Based Engineering
- Knowledge and Technology Transfer Partnerships
- Performance Measurement and Management
- Change Management
- Supply Chain Management
- Project Management
- Operations Management
- Logistics
- Interoperability of Complex Supply Chains
- Supply Chain Integration
- Total Quality Management