Max Chipulu
max chipulu

Prof Max Chipulu PhD, MSc, BEng, SFHEA

Professor

Biography

Max Chipulu joined Napier as research professor of operations and analytics in The Business School in September 2021. Previously, he was associate professor of business analytics and head of teaching of the department of decision, analytics and risk at the University of Southampton, and thematic cluster pathway coordinator for the ESRC South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership. He had earlier served as a senior lecturer in operational research at the University of Hertfordshire.

Max had worked in industry before academia: First as a mechanical engineer in the mining industry and then, briefly, as an account manager in corporate banking.

Max earned an ESRC-funded PhD in Management Sciences and Statistics, an MSc in Management Sciences and a BEng in Mechanical Engineering, all from the University of Southampton, United Kingdom.

Max studies the management of operations, particularly projects, in complex and/or uncertain environments through the lens of data analytics, particularly predictive modelling, text and content analytics. He also researches how culture influences organisations, ethicality and sustainability; the pedagogy of quantitative courses within business schools, whereby, his most recent interest, is the effective application of learning analytics in the teaching and learning of business subjects.

He has published articles in peer reviewed international journals including, among others, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Journal of Business Ethics, International Journal of Forecasting, Production Planning & Control, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, International Review of Financial Analysis, Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, the International Journal of Project Management, and Project Management Journal. He also regularly presents at international conferences, and has contributed to research books and reports.

Max contributes regularly and consistently to the peer review process. He is a member of the British Academy of Management Peer Review College and co-chair of the Operations Logistics and Supply Chain Management SIG at British Academy of Management conference; and has guest-edited special issues in several journals. He is a regular ad hoc reviewer for a range of international journals and conferences, including CABS 3/4*, e.g., International Journal of Operations and Production Management, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and Production Planning and Control.

Max regards teaching, learning and the student experience extremely importantly. Recognised as a senior fellow of Advance HE, Max was a two-time nominee of the Vice Chancellor鈥檚 Award in the Teaching Innovation category at Southampton (2017 and 2021), and a winner of the Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE, 2018).

News

Esteem

Conference Organising Activity

  • OR64 Conference, 'OR for a Better World Together', Stream Organiser
  • OR63 Conference organising

 

Editorial Activity

  • Co-chair Operations, Logistics and Supply Chain Management SIG at British Academy of Management
  • Lead Guest Editor - Special Issue on Operations Analytics, Regulation, and Economic Attitudes toward Sustainability in the Sustainability Journal
  • Editorial Review Board Member, Project Management Journal
  • Guest editor of special issue: Bridging the fields of Careers and Project Management, Project Management Journal
  • Editorial Review Board Member, Acta Commercii

 

External Examining/Validations

  • Programme Comparability Examiner, Hochschule Bremen - University of Applied Sciences, Germany
  • Module External Examiner, University of Hertfordshire

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Senior Fellow, Advance HEA
  • Winner: Advance HE鈥檚 Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE)
  • Winner: 鈥淭op 1% best reviewer鈥, Publons
  • Winner: 鈥淏est Developmental Paper Award in Operations, Logistics and Supply Chain Management鈥, BAMS annual conference.
  • Winner: 鈥淏est paper in conference鈥, ISER ICEBR-2015 International Conference on Economics and Business Research.

 

Grant Reviewer

  • Research Councils United Kingdom Reviewer
  • Brazil Research Council (CNPQ) Reviewer
  • Project Management Institute (PMI) sponsored research scheme

 

Invited Speaker

  • The Future of AI in the UK - Will ethnic minority communities be at the forefront of this revolution, or risk being left behind?
  • Invited Speaker: "What is Business Analytics?" Covenant University, Nigeria

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • Member, British Academy of Management.
  • Member, European Academy of Management (EURAM),
  • Member, Operational Research 麻豆社区 (ORS).

 

Non-executive Directorship

  • Member Scottish Funding Council Advisory Group on Supporting Scotland鈥檚 Postgraduate Researchers.
  • Director and Trustee, Age Concern Southampton

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • PhD External Examiner

 

Reviewing

  • Member of the British Academy of Management Peer Review College
  • Ad hoc reviewer: international journals in operations management/projects and analytics

 

Visiting Positions

  • Visiting Professor, University of Southampton
  • Visiting Researcher, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
  • Visiting Senior Research Fellow, University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
  • Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa.

 

Date


103 results

Practising Systemic Sustainability for the Circular Economy Concept

Presentation / Conference Contribution
Weaver, M., Pokorna, K., Osowska, R., Chipulu, M., Fonseca, A., & Tan, H. (2025, June)
Practising Systemic Sustainability for the Circular Economy Concept. Presented at 34th European Conference on Operational Research 2025, Leeds, UK
Systems thinking is essential for addressing sustainability challenges & promoting sustainable development. While management approaches like Doughnut Economics & the Circular ...

Position paper: Public policy implications in publicly funded infrastructure projects

Journal Article
Al Naqbi, K. K. M., Ojiako, U., Al-mhdawi, M., Chipulu, M., Dweiri, F., Bashir, H., & AlRaeesi, E. J. H. (online)
Position paper: Public policy implications in publicly funded infrastructure projects. Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, https://doi.org/10.1108/sasbe-06-2024-0225
Purpose This essay contributes to the ongoing exposition of a project management-focused understanding of 鈥減ublic policy鈥 implementation. Distinct from previous studies that t...

Assessing risk dimensions in dry port projects: prioritization, interdependence and heterogeneity

Journal Article
Rodrigues, T. D. A., Ojiako, U., Mota, C. M. D. M., Marshall, A., Chipulu, M., & Dweiri, F. (2024)
Assessing risk dimensions in dry port projects: prioritization, interdependence and heterogeneity. Maritime Business Review, 9(4), 311-330. https://doi.org/10.1108/MABR-09-2023-0064
Purpose We identify and further aggregate the most commonly engaged risk factors in dry port projects into dimensions. Noting the importance of developing a multi-perspective...

Risk factor prioritization in infrastructure handover to operations

Journal Article
Rodrigues, T. D. A., Ojiako, U., Marshall, A., Mota, C. M. D. M., Dweiri, F. T., Chipulu, M., 鈥lRaeesi, E. J. H. (2023)
Risk factor prioritization in infrastructure handover to operations. International Journal of Project Management, 42(1), Article 102558. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2023.102558
Worldwide, there are numerous reports of major infrastructure projects failing at handover to the operations phase following completion of the project development and delivery...

Variations in critical success factors of PPP-procured construction projects over lifecycle phases

Journal Article
Ojiako, U., Chipulu, M., Almeile, A. M., Ika, L., Bashir, H., Marshall, A., & AlRaeesi, E. J. H. (2025)
Variations in critical success factors of PPP-procured construction projects over lifecycle phases. Production Planning and Control, 36(5), 671-698. https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2023.2294310
We explore the variations in importance of critical success factors (CSFs) over project lifecycle stages of construction public鈥損rivate partnership (PPP) projects. A two-stage...

Developing a new scale for measuring sustainability-oriented innovation

Journal Article
Baxter, D., & Chipulu, M. (2023)
Developing a new scale for measuring sustainability-oriented innovation. Journal of Cleaner Production, 429, Article 139590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.139590
Sustainability-oriented innovation is a developing area in the academic literature, and existing measurement models are either lacking in scope or they have not been validated...

Competitiveness throughout the seaport-hinterland: a container shipping analysis

Journal Article
de Almeida Rodrigues, T., Maria de Miranda Mota, C., Ojiako, U., Chipulu, M., Dweiri, F., & Marshall, A. (2024)
Competitiveness throughout the seaport-hinterland: a container shipping analysis. Maritime Policy and Management, 51(6), 1170-1189. https://doi.org/10.1080/03088839.2023.2248125
With customers looking for the highest level of services and reduction of cost on international trade of goods, shippers have recently begun to focus on the inland leg of cont...

A flexible cost model for seaport-hinterland decisions in container shipping

Journal Article
Rodrigues, T. D. A., Mota, C., Ojiako, U., Chipulu, M., Marshall, A., & Dweiri, F. (2023)
A flexible cost model for seaport-hinterland decisions in container shipping. Research in Transportation Business & Management, 49, Article 101016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2023.101016
A seaport鈥揾interland system offers a wide range of service options for shippers and consignees to export or import containerized cargo. The present study, set within the conte...

Prudence as an ethical foundation for risk management

Journal Article
Marshall, A., Ojiako, U., Abdoush, T., Vasilakos, N., & Chipulu, M. (2024)
Prudence as an ethical foundation for risk management. 麻豆社区 and Business Review, 19(1), 113-131. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBR-09-2022-0244
Purpose This paper aims to draw on historical conceptions of true and false prudence within the broader context of virtue ethics ideas, to create a prudence framework for deve...

Salient Complexities of Engaging External Consultants in Information Systems Projects

Journal Article
Chipulu, M., Ojiako, U., & Thomas, A. (2024)
Salient Complexities of Engaging External Consultants in Information Systems Projects. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 71, 5212-5229. https://doi.org/10.1109/tem.2022.3220151
Project sponsors have sought to develop the necessary competence to address various challenges they face during project development, implementation and exploitation by employi...

Current Post Grad projects

Non-Napier PhD or MSc by Research supervisions

  • Embedding ethical uncertainty in algorithmic decision-making
  • Value Cocreation in Service Design