Maxim Potepkin

Maxim is a Graduate Teaching Assistant and Postgraduate Researcher in the Management Doctoral program at Kent Business School, fully funded by the University of Kent. His interdisciplinary research focuses on Management and Marketing, specifically on business model innovation, sustainable value co-creation, and customer engagement in sustainable innovation. Maxim conducts research on tensions’ navigation in consumer co-creation of economic and social value in sustainable innovations. His research emphasizes innovations related to functional food and digital health, contributing to societal impact aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals #2, #3, and #17. Additionally, he contributes to the Collaborative Solutions for Social Problems Lab by taking the lead and coordinating Advances in Qualitative Research: Knowledge & Praxis (AQR) seminar series. 

Maxim’s professional experience includes more than 15 years in the field of marketing in the nutrition market, combining academic work and practical sustainable marketing. As a marketing leader in private companies, he implemented large-scale sustainable projects in healthy nutrition, food safety and organic agriculture.  

Qualifications:

• Doctoral degree in Marketing (Candidate of Science) - St. Petersburg State University of Economics, 2015
• MSc in Marketing Management (with Honours) - St. Petersburg State University of Economics, 2010
• BA in Commerce (with Honours)  - St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance, 2009 

Scholarships:       

• GTA Scholarship, University of Kent, 2023
• Erasmus Mundus/Consortium Aurora – Towards Modern and Innovative Higher Education, University of Turku, doctoral programme 2014-2016.

Maxim's research interests are at the intersection of management and marketing, encompassing areas such as business models, sustainable innovations, and value co-creation with consumers. 

Maxim is conducting research on:

Sustainable Business Model Innovation: A process view of failure and implementation challenges

This research comprises three studies focused on the implementation of Sustainable Business Model Innovations (SBMI) to explain their frequent failures and navigation of fundamental tensions in health-centred SBMI. SBMI as a complex sustainable innovation concept integrates businesses into addressing societal grand challenges by equally prioritising financial interests and socio-economic value. Despite much progress of SBMI scholarship, SBMI implementation remains a puzzle, resulting in high failure rates. The contradictory nature of sustainable value leads to multiple tensions in co-creation of both economic and social value for companies and diverse stakeholders, impacting success or failure of SBMI. We address these issues through a process perspective and systemic thinking. Firstly, we reveal failure mechanisms and process patterns using a qualitative meta-analysis. Secondly, we conduct two empirical case studies to understand tension navigation mechanisms for successful SBMI implementation in prevention-led and intervention-led innovations. Thus, this study contrasts failure processes and tension navigation to determine effective strategies for businesses aiming to produce social value while engaging consumers and stakeholder networks. This research contributes to the literature on business model innovation failure and aids managers in understanding and navigating tensions of co-creation of economic and social value with consumers for successful SBMI implementation.

Supervisors:

• Dr M. May Seitanidi
• Professor Ben Lowe