PhD Priority Research Areas and Specific Projects

Priority Research Areas

• Corporate governance and legal development in business
• Management accounting and performance measurement

Specific projects

• Competition and choice in the audit services market
• Corporate governance, auditor change and audit quality
• Executive remuneration, ownership structure and board of directors in Chinese companies and financial institutions
• Identity and image of management accountants and professional competition
• Process of management accounting change
• Product liability in China in a comparative context and the impact of the amended PRC Civil Procedure Law on consumer rights

Finance

Priority Research Areas

• Accounting & auditing
• Asset Pricing
• Corporate finance
• Corporate governance
• Derivatives, risk & mathematical finance
• Financial economics
• Financial markets
• Financial reporting
• Liquidity pricing models
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Real estate finance
• Venture capital & equity

Specific projects

• Competition and choice in the audit services market
• Derivatives pricing models (quadrature, finite difference, Monte Carlo, trees)
• Governance and accounting
• Liquidity modeling from two approaches, either data analysis or non Black Scholes Merton
• Lessons from financial history
• Mergers and value creation
• Taxation

Economics Division

Priority Research Areas

• Applied industrial organisation
• The economics of innovation (the diffusion of innovations, R&D patenting and IP rights, eco-innovations)
• Industrial policy and market regulation
• Behavioural economics and decision making
• Public policy (civil and criminal justice systems, taxation, gambling and betting)
• Public and private sector risk management
• Financial economics

Specific projects

• Innovation and firm competitiveness
• The generation and diffusion of green processes/products
• Micro econometric evaluations of labour market effects of mergers and acquisitions
• Individual differences and group compositions: A behavioural study
• Does financial structure matter for firm growth
• Economics of risk in teenage pregnancy
• Market efficiency in spread and fixed odds betting

Priority Research Areas

• Priority Research Areas
• Customer participation and value
• Customer participation and co-creation of value
• Co-creation of value and meaning
• Ethical Issues in Marketing
• Marketing and society
• Marketing ethics
• Ethical & prosocial consumer behaviour
• Consumer protection, policy & empowerment
• Branding, trust and fairness
• Critical marketing theory
• Innovation and Firm Learning
• Learning and innovation within organisations and/or industry networks
• Product innovation

Specific Projects

• Consumer decision making in financial services
• CSR and ethical consumption
• Customer learning
• Data mining and advanced clustering of behavioural data
• Customer participation & co-creation of value
• Charitable giving in the 21st Century
• Eco and nature-based tourism management
• Social tourism/ tourist experience and decision making
• Tourism destination branding and image

OB/HRM Priority Research Areas

• Human resource management and employment relations
• Organisational practices, culture and change
• The transformation of organisation and management in emerging societies
• Management and organisations in a globalised context
• Organisational knowledge
• Sensemaking in organisations

OB/HRM Specific Projects

• Human resource management in small and medium-sized enterprises
• The impact of equal opportunities legislation, policy and practice
• Managerial careers, work life balance and identity
• Managerial and entrepreneurial behaviour in its social, cultural and organisational context
• Culture and economy in a Chinese organisational context
• Legitimacy in management
• Industrial relations and partnership agreements
• Vocational education and training initiatives in the UK
• Multi-national companies: international joint ventures and alliances; cross-cultural management/international human resource management
• Local communities and networks and the socio-economic consequences of foreign direct investment
• Top management teams and organisational change

Strategy Priority Research Areas

• The creative industries
• Organisational learning
• The nature of early mover advantages
• Modes of international business
• Applications of the resource-based view in strategy and economics
• Performance consequences of control changes in firms
• Public Services Management

Strategy Specific Projects

• The role of leadership in public sector management
• Decision taking and the perception of risk
• Cognition and the resource-based view of the firm
• The future of the business school
• Entry, exit and pricing in shopbot-mediated markets
• Strategies for generating competitive advantage in electronic markets

Entrepreneurship

Priority Research Areas

• Environmentally sustainable entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurial identity
• Family firms and succession
• Social entrepreneurship
• Public sector entrepreneurship
• Academic entrepreneurship and innovation
• Entrepreneurship education
• Corporate entrepreneurship
• Private equity and venture capital

Specific Projects

• Creativity in entrepreneurship
• Family firm innovation and succession
• Gaining organizational legitimacy in entrepreneurial contexts
• Individual identity and authenticity in driving entrepreneurial activity
• Career transitions into a range of entrepreneurship settings
• Management of strategic entrepreneurship
• The impact and effectiveness of entrepreneurship (and creativity) education
• The relationships among organizational design, strategy and creative behaviour

Priority Research Areas

• Supply chain and logistics management
• Reverse logistics and sustainability of supply chains
• Environmental issues in operations management including carbon neutral supply chains
• Design management and New Product Development (NPD)
• Customization and Mass Customization - concepts, systems and practice
• Operations planning, scheduling and control
• Quality management in the global supply chain
• Managing international operations,, including international supply chains and logistics
• Trade logistics and trade facilitation
• Risk, resilience and supply chain security
• Human factors and knowledge management in production planning and control
• Electronic government, including critical perspectives, methodologies, evidence-based policy making
• Alignment of IS/IT and business strategy, contextual models and firm performance
• On-line communities, including anti-social behaviour on the internet (cyber-bullying) and open innovation
• Inter-organizational networks: partnership working, theoretical perspectives (coordination and complexity theories)
• Interface design of complex human-machine systems, including decision-support and the effects of stress

Specific Projects

• The impact of outsourcing on lead-time and customer service
• Supply chain effectiveness, in particular quality/delivery interactions and supplier development in the context of international supply networks
• Impacts of environmental pressures on business performance
• Analysis of risks and uncertainties in supply chains
• Revenue management models in order management and order fulfilment
• Simulation modelling for operations strategy
• Readiness capability assessment for New Product Development
• Global Quick Response in different sectors
• Trade facilitation in international logistics
• Contextual models of IS/business alignment and firm performance
• Nanoweb - orchestrating supply chains using nano-scale processes
• Developing 'Business Model' theory from a process & value perspective
• 'Griefing' in virtual worlds - uses, casualties and coping strategies
• Professional decision-making in health and social care: reconciling conflicting imperatives in the New Public Management (NPM)
• Managing as designing: developing tools for the entrepreneurial public manager

Priority Research Areas

• Political Activities & CSR
• Organizational Responses to Climate Change
• Consumption, Identity & Power
• Institutional Perspectives on CSR & Socially Responsible Investment
• Economic Approaches to Corporate Social Performance
• Corporate Volunteering & Development

Priority Research Areas

• Competition in insurance markets
• Insurance and asymmetric information
• Performance measurement of insurance companies
• Pricing of insurance contracts
• Insurance as a form of a risk management
• Individual and household saving behaviour
• Insurance and the legal services market