What is it about Christmas adverts that makes them so newsworthy? By Isabelle Szmigin, Professor of Marketing at Birmingham Business School As we enter the last days of November, the Christmas ads have well and truly hit our screens. Boots, Sainsbury, Waitrose, Tesco, Debenhams, Marks and Spencer, Aldi and Lidl and not forgetting John Lewis … Continue reading “‘Tis the season to spend on advertising”
Inspiring Trust in Business – A Responsible Business Perspective
By Professor Ian Thomson, Professor of Accounting and Sustainability and Director of the Lloyds Banking Group Centre for Responsible Business Trust means different things to different people in different situations. Positive attributes associated with trust within organisations includes integrity, respect, responsibility, selflessness, equity, fairness, accountability, openness, honesty, competence and reliability. Trust confers many advantages to individuals … Continue reading “Inspiring Trust in Business – A Responsible Business Perspective”
Finance and Technology: Power to the Peer
By Wei Wu, PhD Management, Birmingham Business School In recent years, the emergence of Financial Technology, or “FinTech,” services and firms has reshaped financial services. It is continuously developing new processes and routines to provide services such as payment, banking, insurance and asset management through applying information communication technologies. FinTech reflects changes in the ways … Continue reading “Finance and Technology: Power to the Peer”
How businesses can help curb obesity this Sugar Awareness Week
This sugar awareness week, while we should think twice about putting sugar in our tea and coffee or having that second soft drink in a day, we must also put pressure on suppliers and manufacturers to act responsibly and present us with products that help us reduce our calories and of course tooth decay. By … Continue reading “How businesses can help curb obesity this Sugar Awareness Week”
Inclusive Growth Principles for Cities
‘Inclusive growth’ is increasingly invoked at international, national and city levels as offering prospects for more equitable social outcomes. Yet the concept of inclusive growth is open to a number of different interpretations, writes Anne Green, Professor of Regional Economic Development. This has not stopped interest in developing inclusive growth indicators. In the USA the … Continue reading “Inclusive Growth Principles for Cities”
Providing inclusive business support in disadvantaged areas
Ahead of tomorrow’s 21st Annual Ethnic Minority Business Conference, the most important event in the calendar for disseminating policy and research on ethnic minority firms, Professor Monder Ram and project partners write for Birmingham Business School Blog on a recent project aimed at supporting entrepreneurs in disadvantaged areas. For the last six months Mosese Dakunivosa … Continue reading “Providing inclusive business support in disadvantaged areas”
Why Inclusivity Matters
Dr Holly Birkett and Professor Jo Duberley write for Birmingham Business Blog, in aid of National Inclusion Week, an annual campaign to raise awareness of the importance and benefits of inclusion. Diversity and inclusion at work are increasingly seen as both morally and economically desirable. But what do diversity and inclusion look like? Common definitions … Continue reading “Why Inclusivity Matters”
UK Pension liberalisation: freedom and choice or risk and insecurity?
Today marks Pension Awareness Day, a day to promote the importance of saving for the future, alert the nation that they are not saving enough for retirement and encourage pension providers and employers to provide easily understandable and accessible information. By Louise Overton, Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Birmingham Since the introduction … Continue reading “UK Pension liberalisation: freedom and choice or risk and insecurity?”
Queue the Bank Holiday
What can customers do to avoid queue frustration? Here are a few tips, which may help you to reflect on how to deal with your wait this bank holiday, if you are unfortunate enough to have one. By Isabelle Szmigin, Professor of Marketing at Birmingham Business School We all love to go on holiday – … Continue reading “Queue the Bank Holiday”
Still staying underground? Informal work, small firms and the National Living Wage
“How are small firms actually implementing the National Living Wage (NLW)? Will the NLW and accompanying efforts to boost enforcement shock errant firms into compliance? And what distinguishes compliant from non-complaint firms?” By Monder Ram, Director, Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) Based on research by Monder Ram (Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham), … Continue reading “Still staying underground? Informal work, small firms and the National Living Wage”