Associate Professor Jonathan Gander is an established academic with over 20 years of experience in research, teaching and management in UK universities, including Westminster University, London, University of East Anglia, University of the Arts, London and Kingston School of Art. He has also held visiting professorships at universities in Moscow, Seville, Stockholm and Shanghai.
His academic management experience includes being Director of Employability at the University of East Anglia’s Business School, Director of Executive Education at the Fashion Business School at London College of Fashion and, most recently, the inaugural Head of Department of Creative and Cultural Industries at Kingston School of Art. As part of this role, he wrote and launched several successful BA and MA programmes that blend creative practice with management skills and strategic thinking. Believing firmly in the benefits of supporting student entrepreneurship, he also established a student-led creative agency at Kingston School of Art that delivers commercially organised services to local businesses.
Having worked in business development for a fashion SME in London prior to becoming an academic, Assoc Prof Gander retains an interest in executive education and academic consultancy. In this capacity, Jonathan has delivered strategy workshops for management teams in New York, Moscow, London and Vienna, helping managers from fashion, design and entertainment develop their strategic thinking.
Assoc Prof Gander’s specialism is strategy and innovation in the creative industries. He has published work on competitive advantage in the popular music industry, alliance management in design consultancies, digital business model innovation and entrepreneurship in the fashion industry. The second edition of his textbook, Strategic Management in the Creative and Cultural Industries, will be published by Routledge in 2026 as part of the Mastering Management in the Creative and Cultural Industries series.
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Books and book chapters
- Rieple, A., Gander, J., Haberberg, A., and Pisano, P., ‘Accessing the creative ecosystem: evidence from UK fashion design micro enterprises’, Chapter 6, pp 117–-138 in Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and the Diffusion of Startups. (Eds, Carayannis, Dagnino, Alvares and Faraci, Science, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship Series, (Edward Elgar) (2018)
- Gander, J., Strategic Analysis: A Creative and Cultural Industries Perspective. Mastering Management in the Creative and Cultural Industries Sseries, (Routledge: London) (2017)Gander, J., ‘Perplexity and Strategy: moving towards an enrolment advantage paradigm’ in Lowe, S. (Ed) Managing in Changing Times: a guide for the perplexed manager, pp. 261–278, (London, UK. Sage) (2010)
Journal papers (peer-reviewed)
- Van den Broek, A., and Gander, J. (2024). ‘When strategy is a dirty word: the role of visuals in sensegiving strategy to a skeptical audience’. Long Range Planning, 57(1)
- Rudrajeet, P., and Gander, J. (2018). ‘Modelling environmental value: an examination of sustainable business models within the fashion industry’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 184 (20): 251-263. Zhang, J., Lichtenstein, Y. and Gander, J., ‘Designing Scalable Business Models’, Advances in Strategic Management, 33:241–277 (2015)
- Rieple, A., Gander, J., Haberberg, A. and Pisano, P., ‘UK fashion designers working in micro-sized enterprises: attitudes to locational resources, their peers, and the market’, Industry and Innovation, 22(1): 1–18 (2015)
- Gander, J., ‘Performing popular song production: A study of recording studio practices’, Management Decision, 53(4): 843–856 (2015)
- Gander, J., The service profit model: what happens to service when price becomes the most important factor? Colchester, U.K. Institute of Customer Service Literature Reviews (2010).
- Haberberg, A., Gander, J., Rieple, A., Helm, C., & Martin, J., ‘Institutionalising idealism; the adoption of CSR practices’, Journal of Global Responsibility, 1(2) (2010)
- Rieple, A. and Gander, J., ‘Product development within a clustered environment; the case of apparel design firms’, Creative Industries Journal, 2(3) (2009)
- Gander, J., ‘Rock in the Kasbah: the worldwide recorded music industry case study’ in Strategic Management: Theory and Application, Haberberg & Rieple, (Oxford: OUP) (2008)
- Gander, J., Haberberg, A., & Rieple, A., ‘A paradox of alliance management: resource contamination in the recorded music industry’, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28, pp. 607–624 (2007)
- Rieple, A., Haberberg, A. and Gander, J., ‘Hybrid organizations as a strategy for supporting new product development’, Design Management Review, 16(1) pp. 48–55. Reprinted in Lockwood and Walton (eds.) Corporate Creativity: developing an innovative organisation. pp. 199–210 (New York: Allworth Press) (2005)
- Gander, J. and Rieple, A., ‘How relevant is transaction cost economics to inter-firm relationships in the music industry?’, Journal of Cultural Economics, 28(1), pp. 57–79. Reprinted in Towse (ed.) Recent Developments in Cultural Economics. (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar) pp. 546–568 (International library of critical writings in economics) (2004)
- Gander, J. and Rieple, A., ‘Inter-organisational relationships in the worldwide popular recorded music industry’, Creativity and Innovation Management, 11(4), pp. 248–254 (2002)
- Strategy in the creative and cultural industries
- Business model innovation
- Digital business models and scalability
- Sustainable business models
- Virtual reality and education
- Knowledge Transfer Partnership — UK Department of Trade and Industry funded project to design a new business process for a UK-based shoe retailer (£75,000) (2004)
