Professor Laurent Muzellec

Professor Muzellec is a professor in marketing and digital business. He is now the Dean of Trinity Business School. The Dean of Trinity Business School is responsible for leading a team of over 100 academic and professional staff in delivering a suite of highly-ranked undergraduate, postgraduate and executive programmes. The main responsibility of the Dean is to shape the Trinity Business School's strategy, as captured in our mission of "Transforming Business for Good". This involves placing sustainability at the heart of our teaching, research, and operations, creating processes that match our purpose, and fostering a culture of empowerment for the implementation of our strategy. It also calls for staying ahead by understanding and innovating in fields like AI and Business Analytics, ensuring relevancy and proactivity in a rapidly evolving business landscape. Laurent joined Trinity in 2015 and since then has made a significant contribution to the development of the school, setting up the Centre for Digital Business and Analytics, and establishing the Masters in Digital Marketing Strategy. From 2019 to 2023, Laurent directed Trinity Centre for Digital Business and Analytics (CDBA), which supports the creation and dissemination of knowledge in all areas of business (e.g. Strategy, Data Analytics, Governance, Marketing and Human Resources) revolutionised by digital technologies and data analytics. This is done by conducting specific research projects, secure funding, organize seminars and help in the publication or the diffusion of books. While in the this role Laurent co-authored the book "Digital Business Models: The New Value Creation and Capture Mechanisms of the 21st Century". As part of its knowledge dissemination mission, the Centre, with the support of the authors have made the digital version of the book available in open access. It can be freely downloaded via the page of the editor De Gruyter here: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110762556/html Many prestigious international publications, including Industrial Marketing Management, Marketing Theory, the Journal of Advertising Research, the European Journal of Marketing, and, the Harvard Business Review Digital have featured Laurent Muzellec's research. His research in the areas of digital business models, social media, and brand management has made a significant impact on the academic community characterised by a high citation index. For example, The EJM paper "Corporate rebranding: destroying, transferring or creating brand equity?" is considered as a seminal paper and by far the most cited paper on this topic. Laurent has taken part in many international cross-disciplinary projects such as ADAPT 2. He is currently the Trinity Principal Investigator for the European consortium project Leading Advanced Digital Skills (LeADS). LeADS, in the context of the Digital Europe Programme is delivering insights into the changing Advanced Digital Skills (ADS) demands within a dynamic technological development context and current digital transformation to equip the education and training communities by providing roadmaps and guidelines. Previously, Laurent was the Director for Postgraduate Teaching and Learning and also established the MSc in Digital Marketing Strategy. Prior to joining Trinity, Muzellec worked at UCD Smurfit, ESSCA School of Management and DCU Business School. He previously worked in the private sector and his international work experience accumulated over years includes working at the French Embassy Trade Office in New York and product manager of an Internet Mapping application in Paris. His qualification includes a BA from Sciences-Po Bordeaux (F), a BA Information and Management from Napier University (UK), a MBA from Texas A&M International University and a PhD from UCD.

  Branding   Business Communication   Business Models   Early adopters, Social media, Social networks, Twitter, Google+, Personality traits, Information, Rumor, Influence   SOCIAL NETWORKS

My research philosophy is that business research should be grounded in real life strategic and managerial issues. This approach is instrumental in allowing me to gain access to relevant, quality data and to devise highly appropriate and impactful research questions. Previous research was in the area of branding (corporate re-branding and fictional brands). My current research focuses on digital business (e.g. digital business models and the management of value propositions in two-sided markets) and digital marketing issues (e.g. the impact of Brand message characteristics on e-WOM on social networks sites). My research agenda is aligned with my teaching interests and industry engagement activities. In the course of my academic career, I have focused on issues that were highly relevant to practitioners. I first started to work on corporate rebranding. Despite the fact that many organisations were undertaking rebranding exercises around that time, very little theoretical or managerial arguments had been developed to explain the rationale, risks, benefits and potential consequences of such practices. The EJM paper "Corporate rebranding: destroying, transferring or creating brand equity?" is considered as a seminal paper. It is by far the most cited paper on this topic (397 citations). I have taken a similar approach on the topic of reverse product placement (fictional brands). Digital business models are another stream of research that interests me. The paper "Two-sided Internet Platforms: A Business Model Lifecycle Perspective'" published in Industrial Marketing Management describes the structure of digital marketing strategies in a B2B/B2C context for digital platforms (Muzellec, Ronteau and Lambkin, 2015). It is well-cited (67). Several other papers on the topic are in preparation with a multi-disciplinary focus. My current interest focuses on the "Drivers of Value Creation in Digital Two-Sided Platforms" which is grounded in the field of marketing, strategy and entrepreneurship. A book on Digital Business Model is currently in preparation.