Andrew Pope is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Business Information Systems at Cork University Business School, University College Cork, and co-Director of the MSc Design and Development of Digital Business (DDDB). He is the recipient of both the UCC President's Award for Teaching Excellence and the Irish Academy of Management Outstanding Business Educator Award.

Andrew began his career in the BIS Innovation Centre and the Financial Services Innovation Centre where he worked on projects including "The Trading Desk of the Future", the pKADS Knowledge Management system for the United Nations Population Fund, and the eKADS system for the Government of Ireland. Later, he was the software development work package co-lead for the €3.5 million FP7 S-HELP project, which developed an enterprise decision support system for cross-border disaster management.

Andrew has been teaching Design Thinking and Service Design at third level for over 15 years. In addition to his PhD, he holds professional UX certification from Google and Design Thinking certifications from Stanford and IBM. This combination of academic research and applied design expertise shaped the development of the DDDB programme, which produces practical, versatile graduates who work at the intersection of business, technology, and human needs. Graduates move into roles across industries including UX design, product ownership, technology consulting, software development, and business analysis.

His research examines the design and development of systems that support decision-making in complex organisational contexts. He has published in leading journals including the Journal of Strategic Information Systems (on knowledge management systems) and Information Systems Journal (on ethics-by-design for decision support systems). He has over 20 years' experience across publicly and privately funded research initiatives.

Education

Period	Qualification	Awarding Body
2015-2015	Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education	UCC
2006-2012	PhD (MIS)	UCC
1996-200	BSc (Business Information Systems)	UCC

University Roles

Programme Co-Director MSc Design and Development of Digital Business 2019-Present

Programme Co-Director MSc Electronic Business 2013-2018

Researcher, BIS Innovation Centre (2002-2006)

 

Committees

Reviewer: UCC Social Research Ethics Committee (2024-Present)

Member: CUBS EDI Committee (2024-Present)

Member: CUBS Postgraduate Studies Committee (2021-2025)

 

Current PhD Students:

 

Student Name	Project	Supervisors	Period
Saad Moawad T Alainizi	An Exploratory Study of Consumers’ Privacy Concerns in Big Data in the Saudi Financial Services Industry	Dr. Andrew Pope Dr. Wendy Rowan	2019-Present
Madhawi Hamoud A Althuyayb	To investigate Consumer Adoption Factors for and the use of Smart Services in Healthcare	Dr. Andrew Pope Dr. Wendy Rowan	2020-Present
Ms Oluchi Theresa Emeka Odoemene	Exploring the Relationship between Student Engagement and LMS Usage	Dr. Andrew Pope Dr. Yvonne O’Connor	2018-Present

 

Past PhD Students:

 

Student Name	Project	Supervisors	Period
Alexis Amaye	Investigating the Impact of Organizational Mindfulness on ICT Utilization for Coordinated Real-Time Decision Making in Emergency Management	Dr. Karen Neville Dr. Andrew Pope	2014-2018
Nora McCarthy	Creation of a Framework for Educators and Learners to Enable Best Practice in Assessment Development for a Digital Learning Environment	Dr. Karen Neville Dr. Andrew Pope	2018-2020

 

Research Grants

Project Description	Period	Role	Collaborators	Funder	Award
Data-Driven Decision-Making in Education	2024	Co-Investigator	Dr. Huanhuan Xiong, Dr. Simon Woodworth	National Digital Leadership Network (NDLN)	€10,000
S-HELP	2015-2018	Work Package Leader	Dr. Karen Neville (Project Coordinator), Dr. Simon Woodworth (Work Package Leader)	EU FP7	€3.5 Million

 

 

I have been heavily involved in a number of industry funded research and development projects, and have taken an active role in the formation of the Financial Services Innovation Centre. These activities highlight my commitment to developing deep linkages with industry. This work involves a number of research domains including knowledge management, Decision Support, Innovation and Design Thinking. Knowledge Management I recently completed a PhD thesis in the area of knowledge management. This area has grown in importance due to the emergence of the knowledge economy. Knowledge management is a multi-disciplinary domain that has its origins in multiple fields. Much of the extant research has focused on what knowledge management systems are, yet fails to provide insight into what capabilities and functionality they should provide. Moreover, there has been a tendency, in the IS literature, to treat knowledge management as a primarily technical discipline. This is in stark contrast to KM research in other academic domains. My thesis addresses this imbalance and proposes a mechanism-based view of knowledge transfer within organisations. I have also taken part in a number of research and development (R&D) in this area. Innovation in Financial Services Enterprise Ireland, IDA and Forfas have identified that internationally traded services will occupy a more significant role in the development of the Irish economy over forthcoming years, with a particular emphasis on the financial services sector. The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs Report of December 2007 also states that "innovation is viewed as an integral part of maintaining competitiveness". Through my involvement with the BIS Innovation Centre and the Financial Services Innovation Centre, I have taken part in a number of collaborative research projects with financial services sector companies. More specifically, my research has focuse

My teaching has focused on computer programming (with a focus on Microsoft .NET technologies) and trends in Information Systems and Technology research and practice. Every effort is made to ensure the students are exposed to cutting edge ideas and research concepts. The combination of theory and practice provides students with the relevant skills and techniques of the modern IS professional. In particular, I have been one of the first academics in Ireland to teach design thinking methods. Teaching computer programming in a lecture based environment presents a number of challenges. The lecturer must promote understanding of complex topics and stimulate interest. In addition to traditional effective teaching methods, I also write and demonstrate code examples during lecture hours using the same programming tools that students will use in their tutorials. This provides the students with a familiarity of the programming environment and represents a very useful technique for bridging the gap between theory and practice. I also encourage inquiry-based learning whereby students are encouraged to actively participate to facilitate their understanding. I teach my students the benefits of establishing a good theoretical foundation, whilst also providing the analytical skills to critically review espoused theory. I have also been able to apply my knowledge of innovation best practice and software development to enhance my supervision and support of final year development projects.