Dessy Irawati, Ph.D, is a Teaching Associate at Newcastle University Business School in the UK and a Visiting Lecturer at Graduate School of Management, University Putra Malaysia. She gained her Ph.D in International Business Strategy and Economic Geography in 2009 from Newcastle University Business School, UK. Her disciplinary background is in International Business Strategy, Economic Geography, and Regional Studies. She explores why some regions have a better economic performance than others and argues that this is because they encourage knowledge creation in the global-local networks more than other regions.　 Furthermore, she has researched and taught international business management,  investigating  overlaps with the fields of strategy, organisation, and learning. Alongside this, she continues to develop her research interests on innovation and regional development in knowledge-based economy, specifically in the context of agglomeration, industries, and networks. Her extended research interests are: international business strategy, multinational enterprises (MNEs), small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), innovation and technology management, globalisation and development studies, cluster- based policy and networks, industrial dynamics and knowledge transfer.