We’re delighted to continue our working relationship with Dr Vicky Mountford-Brown of Northumbria University’s Newcastle Business School, following an inspiring meeting on 28 October exploring entrepreneurial thinking, workplace culture and the relationship between academic research and commercial practice.

Our conversation centred on a shared opportunity: bringing those worlds closer together. Academic research can challenge assumptions and strengthen how organisations approach change. Commercial experience brings practical questions, real workplace challenges and opportunities to test what makes a difference.

Together, they can create a valuable cycle: research informing practice, experience shaping new questions, and evidence helping us refine what happens next.

Understanding what helps people contribute

Vicky’s research spans identity, inclusion and entrepreneurship education, with interests including neurodivergence. Her publications explore entrepreneurial development, imposter feelings, and how people experience professional identity and recognition.

For Vibe, those questions connect directly with our work on leadership, relationships and cultural transformation. How do we help people see opportunities, take ownership and turn ideas into action? What gets in their way? And how can organisations create the conditions for more people to contribute their entrepreneurial talent?

Creating the conditions for intrapreneurship

Intrapreneurs bring entrepreneurial initiative into an existing organisation. They spot opportunities, challenge established approaches and find better ways to serve customers, support colleagues and create commercial value.

Asking people to be more innovative is only the beginning. They also need clear purpose, appropriate autonomy, supportive leadership and a practical route for developing and testing ideas.

Our discussion explored how academic insight and Vibe’s diagnostic and consultancy work could inform an evidence-based research programme. Bringing together employee feedback, interviews, observation and business outcomes would allow us to triangulate findings—examining a challenge from several perspectives and testing whether changes make a meaningful difference.

Turning understanding into action

Through our diagnostics, coaching, consultancy and cultural transformation programmes, Vibe helps organisations understand their people, assess barriers and develop the leadership behaviours and working conditions that support progress.

We look forward to exploring these ideas further with Vicky and sharing more as the work develops.

Want to develop a more entrepreneurial and commercially minded culture? Speak to Vibe about understanding your starting point, unlocking initiative and helping your people turn ideas into action.

About Dr Vicky Mountford-Brown

Dr Vicky Mountford-Brown is an Assistant Professor at Northumbria University’s Newcastle Business School. Her research explores identity, inclusion and entrepreneurship education, with interests extending to neurodivergence and the experiences that shape how people learn, participate and develop.

Entrepreneurial development: Modelling Contextualised Entrepreneurial Development (2024), co-authored with Robert Newbery and Simon Brown, considers entrepreneurial development within the university research environment and researchers as agents of change.

Confidence and imposter feelings: Situating imposter syndrome in the experience of becoming and being an entrepreneurship educator (2025), co-authored with Andrea Lane, examines professional experience in entrepreneurship education.

Identity and recognition: Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Educators in a Landscape of Practice: Alignment, Hybridity, and Professional Recognition (2026) explores educators’ academic, practical and strategic roles.

Class and belonging: Zombies, Ghosts and Lucky Survivors: Class Identities and Imposterism in Higher Education (2022) examines inequalities, institutional expectations and imposter feelings.

These studies focus on educational settings. They prompt questions we are keen to explore together in the workplace: who feels able to put an idea forward, whose contribution is recognised, and how can entrepreneurial potential develop?

Research and publications: https://researchportal.northumbria.ac.uk/en/persons/vicky-mountford-brown/