Research Outputs

Projects with Birmingham Business School involvement

NEW - ‘'Distribution of wealth’’ in teenagers’ language' (… and chocolate!) – Birmingham Business School & ESRC Festival of Science

As a part of the Business School's engagement with the recent ESRC Festival of Social Science, Andy Lymer led three seminars for School and FE College students. The sessions explored with more than 100 participants, ranging in ages from 14 to 18, a recent piece of research he and others in the Centre on Household Assets and Savings Management (CHASM) had undertaken on public understanding of wealth inequality and its impacts in the UK. With the visible (and subsequently consumable!) aid of piles of chocolate to demonstrate the perceived and actual levels of inequality in the UK, the groups explored the positive and negative implications of the current distribution of wealth. They discussed various options being touted in the media and by political parties for addressing the levels of wealth inequality. Responses to the sessions included - 'wish it had been longer!' at the end of the two hour session (chocolate influenced response perhaps?). The teachers involved reported it had 'provoked much subsequent debate' in their follow up sessions.

lymer-event

Smart Leadership for Smart Cities - joint research project between Birmingham Business school and University of Middlesex.

Phase one report was published by the Birmingham Business School.

The research has examined leadership in action in a number of Smart City projects by talking to a cross section of the people involved in their delivery. It revealed their everyday experience of local knowledge generation and sharing and tells us how effective leadership is contributing to these processes.

Previous research has suggested that knowledge-oriented leadership appears to play a role in influencing the outcomes of these types of ‘smart’ urban development processes, but we know little about the way that such leadership plays out in practice (i.e. what form it takes); which actors are key, or how leadership influences the necessary conditions for knowledge generation, sharing and spread in Smart Cities.
Aiming to fill this gap in our understanding of Smart Cities, our research has examined their contemporary leadership dynamics, and has surfaced new and important learning about the ways in which effective knowledge-oriented leadership is enacted in these places.

Sustainability Commission in Parliament – a joint Industry and Parliament Trust (IPT) and Birmingham Business School (Environment & Energy, Economics & Management Cluster) launched on 9th September

The Sustainability Commission is a new series of events exploring how businesses approach sustainability issues and what can be done to promote more sustainable business practices. Organised by the IPT and the University of Birmingham Environment & Energy, Economics & Management Cluster, the Commission will meet for six evidence sessions following the opening dinner, before a report is published in February 2015 outlining the Sustainability Commission’s findings.

To meet the challenges of the 21st century, governments and businesses need to adapt critical systems, innovate and transform their processes and products to be fit for the demands of the future. In a rapidly changing world, companies are increasingly realising the correlation between risk management and sustainability. Leadership is required by industry and governments to go beyond ‘business as usual’ and build on the framework put in place by the United Nations Rio Summits that began in 1992 to promote sustainable development. The IPT Sustainability Commission aims to investigate what the UK Parliament and future governments can do to better understand sustainability and create an environment to promote sustainable business practices.

The dinner on Tuesday 9 September launched the Sustainability Commission with Professor Brammer providing an overview of what the Commissioners are looking to achieve; and Adam Elman, Global Head of Delivery: Plan A at Marks & Spencer, speaking about Marks & Spencer’s approach to sustainability envisaged through its Plan A 2020 commitments.

The Industry and Parliament Trust will be documenting each session of the Commission with regular blog updates and podcasts, and comment from prominent members of the Commission. The report will be led by analysis from parliamentarians and industry and suggest a framework for industry to foster a more sustainable approach to business.

A podcast featuring the Dinner’s two speakers, Professor Stephen Brammer and Adam Elman, is available to download on the Industry and Parliament Trust’s Soundcloud page: www.soundcloud.com/indparltrust (blog www.ipt.org.uk/successful-launch-of-the-sustainability-commission.aspx)

The Centre for Household Assets and Savings Management (CHASM)- a joint research centre between the Business School and the School of Social Policy.

You can’t open a newspaper, or hear a news bulletin, without topics like financial security, inclusion, capability, pension planning, tax and wealth management featuring in some form or other. This has been particularly the case during the recent conference season for the main political parties as each position themselves for the forthcoming election. The College has a research centre that undertakes work across these areas – one that the Business School plays a key role in.

CHASM consists of around 20 members of the university, including 2 dedicated research fellows and a number of associated Phd students, and has more than a dozen active external associate members. Advised by a Board led by Sir Brian Pomeroy CBE (ex-Senior partner of Deloitte Consulting, a current FCA Board member and formerly Chair of the UK Government Financial Inclusion Task Force), it has raised over £700,000 in external funding over its four-year life to date to pursue a variety of research.

Last year it led one of the University’s Policy Commissions – on the impact of wealth inequality in the UK. This commission, chaired by the Lord Bishop of Birmingham, David Urquhart, produced a report in October 2013 [link to Policy Commission report here] and continues work on bringing academic insight to issues related to the positive and negative impacts wealth inequality in this country. The Centre’s work on this topic continues and includes running a series of linked ESRC Festival of Social Science events this November for school children (see elsewhere in the newsletter).

The Centre also produces the annual Friends Provident Foundation funded ‘Monitoring Financial Inclusion Report’ [link to the online report]. The latest report, published this summer, highlighted the impact of rising numbers of ‘zero hour’ contracts on financial security in the UK. It also produced statistics showing that at least 16% of the population had so limited access to any kind of savings that they could not find £200 at short notice, continuing to provide the fuel for pay-day lending growth and less than one on five have more than £25,000 in savings.

Full details on the various other things the Centre has been involved with can be found on their website, including a series of briefing papersand details of INRAP– the International Network for Research on Asset Policies - which it leads to bring together researchers worldwide who are interested in asset-based welfare policy.

The Centre is directed by Professor Karen Rowlingson and Professor Andy Lymer is the Deputy Director. Either would be pleased to talk to BBS staff who might be interested in working with the Centre where there are areas of common interest.

Publications

Journal articles (alphabetical order)

Carmichael, F., Duberley, J., & Szmigin, I. (2014). Older women and their participation in exercise and leisure-time physical activity: the double edged sword of work. Sport in Society, (ahead-of-print), 1-19. DOI:10.1080/17430437.2014.919261

This study explores the complex relationship between paid work and participation in exercise and leisure-time physical activity among older women. The role of other factors that enable, motivate and constrain physical activity is also investigated. National context is explored using British Household Panel Survey data. Interviews with key stakeholders and women in their fifties, sixties and seventies explore individual motivation and decision-making in depth. The research enhances understanding of the relationship between employment and participation in physical activity among older women by highlighting positive as well as negative interactions. However, the overall relationship appears to be dominated by the negative constraints on time imposed by employment. Confounding factors include level and type of activity, type of employment, age and health. Psychological, social, environmental and economic factors are also important. These findings have implications for the development of effective interventions within the context of an extending working lives policy agenda.

Gomes, E., Sahadev, S., Glaister, A. and Demirbag, M. (2014) ‘A Comparison of International HRM Practices by Indian and European MNEs: Evidence from Africa’ International Journal of Human Resource Management, DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2014.939986

By comparing the HRM practices in Indian and European MNE subsidiaries located in four of the Southern African Development Community countries, this paper tests the relevance of the country-of-origin effect and analyses the strength of institutional and firm-level influences. Examining data from 865 MNE subsidiaries obtained from the World Bank enterprise survey data, the paper finds that Indian MNEs have higher labour costs in relation to total sales than their European counterparts, that Indian MNEs make more use of temporary labour than their European counterparts, that Indian MNEs invest in less training than their European counterparts. No support is found for the hypothesis that Indian MNEs have a lower ratio of skilled workers in comparison to European-owned subsidiaries. The study shows that country-of-origin effects are weakened if they are not consistent with host country ideology and that as economies evolve so too do their expectations of HR policy and practices.

Gomes, E., Barnes, B. and Mahmood, T. (2014) ‘A 22 Year Review of Strategic Alliance Research in the Leading Management Journals.’ International Business Review, DOI:10.1016/j.ibusrev.2014.03.005

This study contributes to the strategic alliance literature by providing a comprehensive review of over 800 articles that have appeared in 22 leading management journals over a 22 year period. Our study reveals that (a) there has been an upward trend to publish articles on this subject over time; (b) a large proportion of these articles are empirical in nature, with a growing number of them reporting on statistical studies that consider variable association and causality; (c) in terms of their methodological rigour we have witnessed relatively larger sized samples, higher response rates and more frequent use of probability sampling; and (d) although the majority of articles were written by authors within the same country and these tended to report on alliances involving North American businesses, we find that a variety of thematic areas have emerged, with cross cultural management and other human related facets receiving greater attention in recent times. Finally, we highlight the study's limitations and based on our review, outline several avenues where future research could be undertaken.

Glaister, A., Yipeng, L., Sahadev, S., and Gomes, E., (2014) ‘Externalising, Internalising and Fostering Commitment - The Case of Born-global Firms In Emerging Economies.’ Management International Review, Vol. 54 (4): 473-496.

This paper examines the HR practices of mature born-global firms from 29 emerging economies. Through an examination of large scale survey data the paper questions the extent to which firm size impacts the employment of temporary workers, the employment of skilled workers and the extent of employee training. Findings suggest that as firm size increases the use of temporary workers decreases, the number of skilled workers increases and the number of employees receiving training also increases. The paper highlights how born-global firms are able to shift away from externalized, market-based approaches towards more internalized, commitment-based approaches in order to survive, adapt and grow.

Goyer, M, & Valdivielso del Real, R. (2014). Protection of Domestic Bank Ownership in France and Germany: The Functional Equivalency of Institutional Diversity in Takeovers, Review of International Political Economy, 21(4), 790-819.

We investigate the character of the market for corporate control (i.e. takeovers) in French and German banking. The key feature of this character is the marked ability of French and German banks to resist unsolicited takeover bids, especially – although not exclusively– those from foreign competitors. We present an institutional perspective to account for the restrained character of takeovers in French and German banking. Our perspective is composed of two elements. First, institutional arrangements are important since they structure power relations among firm stakeholders by providing opportunities, as well as imposing constraints, to influence the decision-making process in which takeover transactions take place. Second, institutional arrangements provide firm stakeholders with several potential opportunities, not just one, to block unsolicited bids since takeover contests are composed of sequences of decisions for which approval is needed at each stage. French and German banks have used different mixes of institutional arrangements, themselves located at different stages of takeover transactions, to secure restrained markets for corporate control. Our institutional analysis, in turn, also illustrates an important shortcoming of banking sector protectionism, namely the contribution of protection from unsolicited takeover bids to the building of banks carrying systemic risks.

Jones, R., Gross, N., & Carson, D. (2014). Beyond Marketing Rhetoric: Re-thinking Entrepreneurial Marketing from a practice perspective. Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship.Vol. 16 Iss: 2, pp. –

This paper proposes the application of social practice theory to the investigation of entrepreneurial marketing (EM) practices.The paper covers some of the entrepreneurial marketing literature and perspectives as well as examining the notion of ‘practice’ in SME and entrepreneurship research. Based on an increasing focus on practice in the social theory literature and the contributions of key social theorists, a discussion is framed in terms of how entrepreneurial marketing (EM) practice can be studied through the investigation material and bodily observations as well as common interpretations. It provides a fresh conceptual approach about how entrepreneurial marketing (EM) practice can be studied through the investigation material and bodily observations as well as common interpretations.

Kuang, P. (2014). A Model of Housing and Credit Cycles with Imperfect Market Knowledge. European Economic Review Volume 70, October 2014, Pages 419–437. DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2014.06.013

The paper presents a model of housing and credit cycles featuring distorted beliefs and co-movement and mutual reinforcement between house price expectations and price developments via credit expansion/contraction. Positive (negative) development in house prices fuels optimism (pessimism) and credit expansion (contraction), which in turn boost (dampen) housing demand and house prices and reinforce agents' optimism (pessimism). Bayesian learning about house prices can endogenously generate self-reinforcing booms and busts in house prices and significantly strengthen the role of collateral constraints in aggregate fluctuations. The model can quantitatively account for the 2001-2008 U.S. boom-bust cycle in house prices and associated household debt and consumption dynamics. It also demonstrates that allowing for imperfect knowledge of agents, a higher leveraged economy is more prone to self-reinforcing fluctuations.

Kuang, P. (2014) A note on learning in a credit economy. Macroeconomic Dynamics. doi:10.1017/S1365100514000534

This paper introduces imperfect knowledge and leaning behavior of economic agents into the Kiyotaki and Moore (1997, JPE) model and studies the interaction of agent’s collateral price belief, collateral constraint and aggregate economic activity over the business cycle. It establishes the E-stability condition and the convergence of the real time learning process. In addition, it shows that learning strengthens the role of collateral constraints in aggregate fluctuations.

Kuang, P., Schröder, M., Wang, Q. (2014) Illusory Profitability of Technical Analysis in Emerging Foreign Exchange Markets. International Journal of Forecasting, Volume 30, Issue2, April–June 2014, Pages 192–205.

We conduct an extensive examination of profitability of technical analysis in ten emerging foreign exchange markets. Studying 25988 trading strategies, we find that best rules can sometimes generate an annually mean excess return of more than 30%. Based on standard tests, we find hundreds to thousands of seemingly significantly profitable strategies. Almost all these profits vanish once the data snooping bias is taken into account. We also show that out-of-sample test can have severe data snooping bias too. Overall, we find that the profitability of technical analysis in emerging foreign exchange markets is illusory.

Myrthianos, V., Vendrell-Herrero, F., Parry, G. and Bustinza, O. F. (2014), Firm Profitability During the Servitization Process in the Music Industry. Strategic Change, 23: 317–328. doi: 10.1002/jsc.1979

Music industry revenues are highly correlated with firm profitability, which on average is below the risk-free bank interest rate after the digital disruption.

Vendrell-Herrero, F., Parry, G., Bustinza, O.F., O'Regan, N. (2014). Servitization as a driver for organizational change. Strategic Change, Vol 23 (5-6), pp. 279-285. DOI: 10.1002/jsc.1976

Servitization is the move away from selling traditional product to selling a wide range of product/service bundle combinations, contributing to firm sustainability and profitability and hence the competitiveness of nations.

Wright, M., Cressy, R., Wilson, N., & Farag, H. (2014). Financial restructuring and recovery in private equity buyouts: the UK evidence. Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance,16(2), 109-129.

A large literature has adumbrated the value-added role of private equity (PE) firms in backing buyouts. The present paper examines a different and hitherto unexplored issue: the role of financial restructuring in PE buyouts in the UK both before and after the financial crash of 2007. The UK evidence indicates that while PE buyouts had greater financial risk than comparable public limited companies (PLCs), they (1) already contained provisions to optimize recovery rates under insolvency, raising their recovery rates significantly relative to controls; and (2) rapidly adjusted the capital structures of new deals in response to the changes in financial and economic climate from 2007 onward resulting in failure rates somewhat lower than PLCs and non-PE buyouts. Non-PE management buyins (MBIs) by contrast have much higher failure rates than any other category throughout the 12-year period. Our analysis offers important implications for policymakers. First, it shows that there has been greater adjustment over time in the leverage and cash position of buyouts than for other private companies and matched PLCs. Second, policymakers need to recognize that while PE buyouts are highly leveraged, non-PE-backed buyouts are more or less well managed. Third, ceteris paribus, PE-backed deals are not riskier than the population of non-buyouts; active involvement by PE firms in helping portfolio companies deal with trading difficulties plays an important role. Fourth, the governance mechanisms in PE buyouts result in greater preservation of value when a portfolio firm enters formal bankruptcy than is the case for PLCs.

Books / book chapters:

Herrerias Talamantes, M. J. (2014) Energy Security and Sustainable Economic Growth in China. (July 2014) Palgrave Macmillan. DOI:10.1057/9781137372055

In recent years China has overtaken the United States as the world's leading producer and consumer of energy. Since 2009 China's energy requirements have grown exponentially, particularly for coal and electricity, sparking international and national debates on the sustainability of growth and the accompanying environmental implications.
This unique study provides a comprehensive investigation into the Chinese energy market at both national and provincial levels covering issues such as energy security, institutional reforms, international relations, and environmental implications now and in the future. A host of international experts provide crucial analysis of the design of China's energy policies, examining how the imbalance between supply and demand, and a primitive transmission grid, influences the overall performance of the energy industry in China. They investigate the role played by institutions, renewable energies, ownership and open-door policy reforms as suitable mechanisms to reduce energy consumption and consequently to prevent climate change. The implications of such policies are also critically assessed in relation to economic growth.
Energy Security and Sustainable Economic Growth in China is an invaluable reference source for those working in or researching the Chinese energy is also essential reading for economists and researchers working across China, development economics, environmental economics and the energy sector.

Branicki, L. and Agyei, D. (2014). Unpacking the impacts of social media upon crisis communication and city evacuation in Preston, J., Binner, J., Branicki, L., Galla, T., Jones, N. and King, J., Kolokitha, M. and Smyrnakis, M. (Eds.), City Evacuations: an interdisciplinary approach, Springer: NY

Evacuating a city is a complex problem that involves issues of governance, preparedness education, warning, information sharing, population dynamics, resilience and recovery. As natural and anthropogenic threats to cities grow, it is an increasingly pressing problem for policy makers and practitioners.

The book is the result of a unique interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers in the physical and social sciences to consider how an interdisciplinary approach can help plan for large scale evacuations. It draws on perspectives from physics, mathematics, organisation theory, economics, sociology and education. Importantly it goes beyond disciplinary boundaries and considers how interdisciplinary methods are necessary to approach a complex problem involving human actors and increasingly complex communications and transportation infrastructures.

Using real world case studies and modelling the book considers new approaches to evacuation dynamics. It addresses questions of complexity, not only in terms of theory, but examining the latest challenges for cities and emergency responders. Factors such as social media, information quality and visualisation techniques are examined to consider the 'new' dynamics of warning and informing, evacuation and recovery.

Conferences/events

Kuang, P., & Mitra, K. (June 19-20, 2014). Learning about Trends and Business Cycle Fluctuations. Paper presented at Barcelona GSE Summer Forum: Learning in Macroeconomics and Finance, Barcelona.

http://www.barcelonagse.eu/summer-forum-learning-macro-finance.html

Awards:

Professor Roger Backhouse (of the economics department) and his co-author, Mauro Boianovsky of the University of Brasilia, were awarded the Best Book prize by the European Society for the History of Economic Thought for Transforming Modern Macroeconomics: Exploring Disequilibrium Microfoundations, 1956-2003(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Professor Roger Backhouse (of the economics department) has also featured recently in Times Higher Education for having been elected a fellow of the British Academy for his distinction in the social sciences:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk.ezproxyd.bham.ac.uk/news/british-academy-announces-42-new-fellows/2014585.article

Professor Jo Duberley was awarded one of the University's Excellence in Doctoral Supervision Awards. These awards are given annually on the basis of student nominations and one recipient is chosen per College.

Dr Vivek Soundararajan won the prestigious 2014 Academy of Management – Social Issues in Management Division’s Best PhD Dissertation Award at the 2014 Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, USA

Keeping you informed - Reports from past Business School events

Upcoming Events:

(2015)

7 - 9 January 2015 Grant Writing Retreat

This event is a strategy for developing the skills of our faculty for the rigors of applying for grant support. The Research Support representatives and senior faculty will cover key elements of successful grants capture for departmental junior members. The goal of the retreat is to provide tools for strengthening each attendee’s grant-writing skills through a combination of didactic discussions, detailed one-on-one critiques of each application, and hands-on guidance in the reshaping of each application. The retreat will allow a series of brief, focused sessions on specific aims, background and significance, preliminary studies, research design and methods, statistical framework, budget, key personnel, and ethical issues. The majority of attendees’ time is spent revising the sections of their grant application, after obtaining detailed critiques from experienced senior faculty investigators. The attendees will arrive with a two page draft of the proposed research and will agree to submit the finalised grant to their chosen funding body within 3 months.

25 March 2015 Launch Event

The Financial resilience cluster members will invite key speakers from around the world to present cutting edge research on ideas of mutual interest with the expectation of increasing our visibility and generating new research collaborations with top international researchers.

23-27 March, 2015 - BRUSSELS, EIASM EDEN DOCTORAL SEMINAR IN MANAGEMENT: INTERNATIONAL MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

This event is organised by Dr. Emanuel Gomes, Business School, University of Birmingham, UK, and Nova School of Business and Economics, University of Lisbon, Portugal.

EDEN is based on an integrated set of doctoral seminars designed to bring participants into systematic academic interaction, leading them to compare their individual approaches and cross-examine their own research work. The EDEN Programmes consist of a mix of intensive one-week seminars, generally dealing with current and advanced research methodology issues in Management, as well as addressing the frontiers of specific areas of interest.

The seminar will focus on the specific problems and challenges encountered in international and domestic mergers and acquisitions. During the course, we will present and discuss alternative perspectives on these phenomena: strategic; human resource; cultural; knowledge transfer; social capital; pre-merger planning activities; post-merger integration.

For more information: www.eiasm.org/frontoffice/eden_announcement.asp