Leonie Baldacchino

Leonie Baldacchino, a lecturer in entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation as well as director of the University’s Edward de Bono Institute for the Design and Development of Thinking, was recently awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Entrepreneurship from Warwick Business School, the UK.

In part-fulfilment of the PhD degree, Dr Baldacchino submitted a thesis focusing on the role of experience, intuition and cognitive versatility in the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities. In the thesis, she studied the thinking processes employed by entrepreneurs as they generated ideas for new ventures. Her study revealed that experienced entrepreneurs are both more intuitive and more cognitively versatile than their less experienced counterparts.

Cognitive versatility is an ability to use both intuitive and analytical modes of thinking and to switch between them as needed, and it enables entrepreneurs to identify more and better quality opportunities. Dr Baldacchino graduated from the University of Malta with an honours degree in Psychology, followed by a distinction for a Master of Arts in Creativity and Innovation.

She is also an associate fellow at Warwick Business School (the UK), and a board member of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Business Incubation and of the Cottonera Resource Centre, which both form part of the University.

Since 2009, she has been involved in the coordination and organisation of various entrepreneurship-related incentives at the University, including the Global Entrepreneurship Week hosted locally by the Edward de Bono Institute, and the entrepreneurship stream on the Degree Plus programme.

Dr Baldacchino has also lectured on entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation at Warwick Business School (the UK), at Teesside Business School (the UK), and at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology.

The PhD was partially funded by a Strategic Educational Pathways Scholarship, which is part-financed by the EU’s European Social Fund under Operational Programme II – Cohesion Policy 2007-2013.