Research Roundup
Awards and appointments
Vivek Soundararajan has obtained a grant from British Academy (BA) and Department for International Development (DFID) for a project on eradicating modern slavery in global supply chains for a value of £195,600. The project will be led by Andrew Crane (Bath) with Vivek, Laura Spence (Royal Holloway), Genvieve Lebaron (Sheffield) and Michael Bloomfield (Bath) as Co-Investigators. The project will explore modern slavery practices and eradication measures in the India garment industry.
One of our recent undergraduates, Daniel Cueva, has been named as the Global Winner in the Economics Category of the Undergraduate Awards 2017. He is the first UoB student to achieve this. This is a major achievement and he had to fend off competition from around the world to win this prize. Out of 148 submissions to the Economics category from students from all around the globe, Daniel’s dissertation, about the fundamental determinants of economic development in Latin America (supervised by Ioannis Karavias), was chosen as the best submission by a panel of international academic judges.
Events and external engagement
John Bryson and Raquel Ortega-Argiles contributed to the debate at “Brexit: The Road Ahead”, held as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science.
Simon Collinson was twice featured on the Today Show, Radio 4, talking about the Autumn Budget and then commenting on the Industrial Strategy.
Simon Collinson also chaired the Chartered ABS annual conference on the 6th November.
Emma Gardner and Amir Qamar held an event titled ‘Relevance: Bridging the Gap between Research and Business Practice’ on the 8th November at the Library of Birmingham as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science. The consisted of four practitioner-friendly presentations from ECRs (Amir, Emma, Doga Istanbulluoglu and Sabina Doldor), followed by a panel discussion (Simon Collinson, Pervez Ghauri, Chris Lonsdale, Mark Hall) on how academics are engaging with the local business community/policy/other stakeholders, and how this can be improved. More details…
Anne Green spoke on Local Skills Strategies at an OECD LEED conference on Engaging employers in building better local jobs and creating a more responsive skills system in London on 2 November 2017.
Anne Green also spoke on the theme of Growing and Aligning Demand and Supply of Skills for Inclusive Growth at the CBI Conference in London on 6 November 2017.
Anne Green inputted, advised and reviewed the recently released report from the Government Office for Science – Future Skills Lifelong Learning report.
The UK Evaluation Society (UKES) is launching a Midlands Regional Network with City-REDI as a founding institutional member as part of its commitment to building analytical capability in the region. The Society exists to promote and improve the theory, practice, understanding and utilisation of evaluation and its contribution to public knowledge and to promote cross-sector and cross-disciplinary dialogue and debate. More details available.
The Urban Living Birmingham project hosted its final project dissemination event on the 1st of November. The afternoon provided delegates with one last chance to engage with ULB on identifying the critical challenges facing Birmingham. It focused upon the emerging outcomes from the ULB arts commission, showcasing the development of a creativity-led approach to engaging residents with city service delivery for the purpose of eliciting end-user innovation.
Publications
Matt Cole, Rob Elliott and Eric Strobl (all Department of Economics) have recently published the following paper in the Journal of Economic Geography:
Cole, M.A., Elliott, R.J.R., Okubo, T. and Strobl, E. (forthcoming) ‘Natural Disasters and Spatial Heterogeneity in Damages: The Birth, Life and Death of Manufacturing Plants’, Journal of Economic Geography
Abstract: In this paper we use the 1995 Kobe earthquake as a natural experiment to examine the impact of a large exogenous physical shock on local economic activity. For the first time we are able to control for local spatial heterogeneity in the damage caused by a natural disaster using geo-coded plant location and unique building-level surveys. In a survival analysis of manufacturing plants our results show that building-level damage significantly affects a plant’s likelihood of failure and this effect persists for up to seven years. Further analysis demonstrates that the plants most likely to exit as a result of earthquake damage are the least productive which is suggestive of a cleansing effect as the average productivity rate of the remaining plants increases. We also find that continuing plants experience a temporary increase in productivity following the earthquake consistent with a “build back better” effect. In terms of local regeneration our results indicate that plant births increase in areas with more severe damage consistent with redevelopment plans for Kobe.
Anne Green (City-REDI) has had the following papers published:
Sissons, P. and Green, A. E. (2017) ‘More than a match? Assessing the HRM challenge of engaging employers to support retention and progression’, Human Resource Management Journal, 27: 565–580. doi:10.1111/1748-8583.12161.
Abstract: This article considers employer engagement within a changing landscape of active labour market policy (ALMP). Employer engagement in ALMP has focused on supporting job entry for disadvantaged groups, through working with employers to attain changes on the demand side or using dialogue with employers to implement changes on the supply side. Employer engagement in this model is orientated to a point in time: the job match. However, ALMP policy in the UK is beginning to give greater emphasis to the sustainability of job entries and progression opportunities. This potentially creates a quite different set of expectations around employer engagement and asks more of employers. Yet securing strong engagement from employers in ALMP has tended to be difficult. This article examines the challenges that such a change in focus will have for existing models of employer engagement and on associated implications for HRM theory, policy and practices.
Sissons, P., Green, A. E. and Lee, N. (2017) ‘Linking the sectoral employment structure and household poverty in the United Kingdom’, Work, Employment and Society, https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017017722939
Abstract: Structural changes in the labour markets of developed economies, and changes in their institutional characteristics, have led to growing unease about the nature of low-paid employment. Related concerns have been expressed about the persistence of low pay, the fragmentation of work and the growth of under-employment. While all these factors have potential implications for individuals’ earnings, less is known about the connection between labour market change, patterns of sectoral growth and decline, and household poverty outcomes. This article shows distinct patterns of poverty outcomes by sector of employment, after controlling for other factors. However, household characteristics, in particular the presence of a second earner, do strongly mitigate the poverty risk. Overall, the findings demonstrate that policymakers need to develop a coherent policy towards poverty that recognises the nature of jobs growth and the distribution of ‘good jobs’ across households.
Raquel Ortega-Argiles (City-REDI) has a joint authored discussion paper published in The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPD) – Employment Polarisation in Local Labour Markets (available here https://www.cpb.nl/sites/default/files/omnidownload/CPB-Discussion-Paper-358-Employment-polarization%20in-local-labor-markets-the-Dutch-case.pdf).
Vivek Soundararajan (Department of Strategy and International Business)has published the following papers.
Khan, Z. Soundararajan, V., Wood, G. and Ahammad, M. F. (2017) ‘Employee emotional resilience during post-merger integration across national boundaries: Rewards and the mediating role of fairness norms’, Journal of World Business, Doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2017.06.009
Abstract: This article presents a conceptual framework to advance the understanding of the process and pitfalls of post-merger integration (PMI) across national boundaries. We argue that successful PMI is contingent on employee emotional resilience, which, in turn, depends on the efficacy of reward systems and of the underlying equity. The paper documents the key role played by financial and non-financial rewards, and of reciprocal behaviors conditioned by fairness norms, on employee emotional resilience during PMI, and the impact on them of contextual dynamics. We draw out the implications for theory and practice, again taking into special account of mergers across national boundaries, and those involving MNEs.
Soundararajan, V., Jamali, D. and Spence, L. J. (2017) ‘Small business social responsibility: A critical multi-level review, synthesis and research agenda’, International Journal of Management Reviews, DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12171
Abstract: Small business social responsibility (SBSR) related research is rapidly increasing in quantity but is found in divergent literatures and disciplines. It is time to offer a comprehensive review that identifies, synthesises, and integrates previous research, and highlights the knowledge gaps and the way forward. Our methodical search of the literature helped identify 115 multidisciplinary peer-reviewed academic articles appearing in high quality journals over the 1970-2016 period. Using a systematic and in-depth content analysis technique, we reviewed the articles and identified the theories used, the national contextual focus, and the methodological orientations in these articles. We also identified the predictors, outcomes, mediators, and moderators of SBSR at the institutional, organisational, and individual levels of analysis. Our review helps identify significant knowledge gaps in terms of the theoretical orientation, the national contextual focus, the core content under study, and the methods used. We offer numerous suggestions across these topics to help address the knowledge gaps and raise important questions for future research. The primary contributions of this paper are: delineating and summarising a multilevel analysis of an emerging literature on SBSR; integrating contributions from a wide range of management disciplines and geographical contexts; extracting the potential theoretical contributions in this field; and informing directions for future research. We propose a research agenda that is theoretically relevant and innovative, and calls for context- and size-aware research on SBSR using small business-specific methodologies and measurements.
Natalia Vershinina (Department of Management) has had the following papers accepted for publication.
Vershinina, N., Woldesenbet, K. and Murithi, W. (forthcoming), ‘How does national culture enable or constrain entrepreneurship? Exploring the role of Harambee in Kenya’, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development.
Abstract: The paper seeks to conceptualise how various value dimensions of Harambee, the Kenyan culture, affect the fostering of entrepreneurial behaviours. Theoretically, we draw upon perspectives that view culture as a toolkit and use cultural variables provided by Hofstede to examine the links between national culture and entrepreneurial endeavours in an African context. The paper is based on review and synthesis of accessible secondary sources (published research, country specific reports, policy documents, firm level empirical evidences) on the topic and related areas to understand and advance research propositions on the link between enterprising efforts and national culture specific to Kenyan context. Several theoretical propositions are offered on themes of collective reliance, social responsibility, enterprising, resource mobilisation, and political philanthropy to establish relationships, both positive and negative, between values of Harambee and entrepreneurial behaviours. Further, the study provides initial insights into how actors blend both collectivistic and emergent individualistic orientations and display collective identity in the process of mobilising resources and engaging in entrepreneurship. The conceptual framework presented bears a considerable relevance to advancing theory, policy and practice associated with national culture and entrepreneurial behaviour in the African context and has potential to generate valuable insights. This original study provides a springboard for studying the relationship between African cultural context and entrepreneurial behaviours.
Rodgers, P., Vershinina, N., Williams, C. and Theodorakopoulos, N. (forthcoming), ‘Leveraging symbolic capital: the use of ‘blat’ networks across transnational spaces’, Global Networks.
Abstract: This article contributes to debates on how social networks sustain migrants’ entrepreneurial activities. Reporting on thirty-one interviews with Eastern European migrants in the UK, this article provides a critical lens on the tendency to assume that migrants have ready-made social networks within the host country embedded within co-ethnic communities. We extend this limited perspective by demonstrating how ‘blat’ social networks, which were formulated within the cultural and political contours of Soviet society are being transformed within the everyday lived experiences of Eastern European migrants working in the UK. Our findings highlight not only the monetarization of such networks but also the continuing embedded nature of trust existing within these networks, which cut across transnational spaces. We show how forms of social capital based around Russian language use and legacies of a shared Soviet past, are just as important as the role of ‘co-ethnics’ and ‘co-migrants’ in facilitating business development. In doing so, we present a more nuanced understanding of the role that symbolic capital plays in migrant entrepreneurial journeys and its multifaceted nature.
Natalia Vershinina and Monder Ram (both Department of Management) have had the following paper accepted for publication.
Vershinina, N., Rodgers. P., Ram, M., Theodorakopoulus, N. and Rodionova, Y. (forthcoming), ‘False self-employment: The case of Ukrainian migrants in London’s construction sector’, Industrial Relations Journal
Abstract: This article, presenting qualitative accounts of Ukrainian business owners, highlights how migrants engage in false self-employment in the UK. Their experiences problematise notions of legality and binary depictions of migrant workers as “victims or villains”, demonstrating that migrants see their illegal status as a transient stage before gaining legal status.