Financial research is often criticised about being too esoteric, overly technical and lacking wider influence. Changes in funding criteria, university ranking processes and teaching practices has meant that researchers are required to focus more on the impact of their research within and beyond academia. This presentation discusses how impact is defined within the Research Excellence Framework (REF), the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. It then considers how this thinking has motivated three interdisciplinary financial research agendas with a strong impact focus. The first explores issues around the cost of capital in utilities and a project aiming at developing a financial observatory for regulated firms in the UK and internationally. The second looks at how ideas from financial markets and econometrics can be applied to understand the empirical behaviour of online review marketing data. The final agenda relates to an action research project of designing evidence-based policies for the development of a cluster of financial services firms.
Professor Markellos is currently a Professor of Finance and the Director of Research and Enterprise at Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia. His research has been published and cited widely in some of the most prestigious academic journals. With Terry Mills, he has published the third edition of the bestselling book The Econometric Modelling of Financial Time Series (by Cambridge University Press). This book is widely used for teaching at leading universities in the USA, UK and Asia. His work has often received much attention from the media.
This study examines the fracture in the world economy and three of its consequences – the reshaping of international competition, rising VUCA and the impact on innovation. It examines the theoretical challenges at all levels of international business research from the global system to individual tasks, using a uniform set of principles based on internalization theory. It concludes by examining the impact of COVID-19.
Professor Buckley is Professor of International Business, Founder Director of CIBUL, and Founder Director of the Business Confucius Institute at the University of Leeds (BCIUL). He has carried out consultancy assignments for central government, local government, international bodies (including UNCTAD Division on Transnationals and UNIDO) and leading companies. He has taught at various levels at universities worldwide, and given seminars in many countries.
Professor Buckley has published 28 books in English in both UK and USA including one in German. He was listed in The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) as one of the most “Successful academic writers” (January 2006). He has written over 250 refereed articles on foreign direct investment, the multinational enterprise, international management and the economics of tourism in leading British, US, Japanese and European journals, including 25 articles in the Journal of International Business Studies. He is also editor of 20 books, including the Edward Elgar book series New Horizons in International Business (100 titles to date), and Associate Editor of International Business Review. Google Scholar lists over 45,000 citations of his work. His current research interests centre on the theory of the multinational firm, knowledge management in multinational firms, the international transfer of technology, the impact of foreign direct investment particularly in China, and outward direct investment from emerging countries: China and India.
COVID-19 has affected every part of our lives, both professional and personal. The higher education sector is not immune from these changes, which include restrictions on international travel, social distancing around campuses, significantly more online delivery, less opportunity for international student recruitment and challenges in carrying out research.
In this talk, I will focus on the research challenges, and opportunities, in a post COVID world. I will present practical suggestions that we can take to carry producing high quality journal articles.
Amongst the challenges I will address are reduced access to research funding, not able to attend physical conferences and social distancing reducing traditional contact that is so important in research.
The opportunities I will outline include effective time management, how to collaborate remotely, moving to new research areas, carrying out research on a budget and generating research ideas.
I hope that, despite the challenges that COVID has presented, and will continue to do so, we can see opportunities that will enable us to continue carrying out high quality research that has real impact.
Professor Kendall is the Provost and CEO of The University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM), and is also a Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University. Before becoming an academic, he worked in the IT industry for 20 years, starting his career as a computer operator, and progressing to a senior manager. In 1994, he took a break from his industrial career and went to The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) to study Computation, obtaining a First Class Honours degree. Professor Kendall then decided to undertake a PhD from The University of Nottingham (School of Computer Science), which he completed in 2000. He was offered an academic position at the University of Nottingham in 1999, and was made a full Professor in 2007. He moved to Malaysia in August 2011, where he took up the role of Vice-Provost (Research and Knowledge Exchange). In August 2016, he became the Provost/CEO of UNM and also was appointed a PVC of the University.
He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS) and the Operational Research Society (FORS). He is a Director of two companies (Nottingham Green Technologies Sdn Bhd and Nottingham MyResearch Sdn Bhd) and a former Director of Crops for the Future Sdn Bhd. He is an Associate Editor of 10 journals and a former Editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. He has published over 250 peer reviewed scientific papers, with over 100 of those in ISI ranked journals.
It has long been established that firms' ability to profit from their technologies depends on the strength of IP laws. This study shows that profiting from technology is also determined by how effectively firms engage in patent infringement litigation (i.e. take legal action against their rivals) to create isolating mechanisms and protect their technologies. The study also shows that patent infringement litigation is characterized by industry and geographic specificity that affect (disproportionately) revenue-generation and costs and, therefore, its net effect on firm profitability. By identifying contingencies that influence the economic returns from patent litigation, the study helps us understand why innovative firms experience different profitability outcomes.
Professor Kafouros serves as the Chair of International Business and Innovation, and Associated Head of Research in Alliance Manchester Business School (UK). He is also Associate Editor of the journal of International Business Review (IBR), and is appointed adviser to the Commonwealth, and elected Secretary of the Academy of International Business (AIB UKI). Previously, he was member of the Faculty Executive Group (FEG), leader for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and he also served as Research Director and Head of Department (IB) in the University of Leeds (UK). He has extensive industrial and academic experience in the fields of innovation and international business & strategy. His research has received strong recognition in the form of (1) Best Paper Awards (e.g. European International Business Academy 2013, Academy of International Business 2010, and the British Academy of Management 2008); (2) funding from research councils, government organizations and multinational companies; and (3) publications in leading international journals such as the Journal of Management, the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Management Studies, Research Policy, Organization Studies, Human Relations, Technovation, the Journal of World Business, the British Journal of Management and the Journal of Business Research.
Firms that conduct R&D in multiple countries face the daunting challenge of dealing with cross-country variations in intellectual property rights (IPR) protection. We examine how two technology-protection mechanisms, namely, geographic fragmentation of R&D (cross-country fragmentation of R&D) and IPR heterogeneity (conducting R&D in both strong and weak IPR protection countries), enable firms to protect their technologies from imitation, while also accessing external knowledge, and therefore improve their productivity performance. Evidence from a longitudinal analysis of 564 R&D units located in 47 countries provides support for the effectiveness of IPR heterogeneity as a technology protection mechanism, but shows that geographic fragmentation of R&D is not effective when IPR heterogeneity is controlled for. Our analysis also suggests that weaker IPR protection enhances the effects of both external knowledge and the firm's own R&D on its performance. Overall, our study enhances understanding of conducting R&D in multiple countries explains why some firms benefit from conducting R&D in weak IPR protection countries while other firms do not, identifies which mechanisms are effective in protecting technology, and challenges the prevalent view that weak IPR protection is disadvantageous for firm performance.
Professor Wang is Professor of Strategy and International Business at Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, UK. Prior to this appointment, he served at the Centre for International Business, University of Leeds (CIBUL) at Leeds University Business School between 2000 and 2006. He undertakes external collaborative research with academic institutions throughout the world and has published around 50 papers. Many of these have appeared in UTD24, FT50, and ABS-4*/4 journals such as Journal of International Business Studies, Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, British Journal of Management, and Journal of World Business. His papers have attracted over 4,000 citations in Google Scholar. Journal of International Management (2016, Volume 22, Issue 4) ranks him 11th in the world in research on multinational firms from emerging markets based on impact score.
Our study aims to contribute to the debate on the quality of open access publishing by comparing research in different journals and by examining its impact on quality research. With a systematic literature review, we analyse 25 years of Green Human Resource Management (Green HRM) research (1995-2019). We chose Green HRM as an appropriate case, because although it is a rapidly growing area of research, the number of journal publications is limited and thus the whole literature in the field over a 25-year period could be covered. By looking closer at the journals where Green HRM research is published, we present characteristics of two broad categories of research qualities. Counter to our expectations, we do not only show that papers published in quality journals have an impact on papers published in questionable (so-called “predatory”) outlets, but also the other way around. Through citations, questionable research contributes to the success of quality publications. Moreover, we even observe that articles published in quality journals legitimize articles from predatory journals by using this questionable literature as references. Although our empirical sample mainly consists of one specific area of research, we suggest that our findings can be generalised to other areas of management research. Therefore, we close our study by giving practical implications to different stakeholders and a general plea for more awareness and responsibility.
Paper co-authored by Lisa Obereder; Raik Thiele (Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU))
Professor Michael Müller-Camen is serving as a full Professor of Human Resource Management at Vienna University of Economics and Business. Apart from teaching, he is an outstanding scholar with over 80 publications related to Human Resource Management, and Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility. Serving at different refereed journals, he was the Editor of German Journal of Human Resource Management since 2009 and became the Editor-in-Chief between 2012 and 2016. Also, he is experienced in soliciting research funding and has been granted more than €500,000 from research councils in the UK, Austria and Germany.
Professor Tamer Cavusgil currently serves as Fuller E. Callaway Professorial Chair and Executive Director, Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER), J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, Atlanta, U.S.A. A trustee of Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey, Tamer is also a visiting professor at Leeds University Business School, U.K., and The University of South Australia Business School.
Professor Cavusgil has been mentoring students, executives, and educators in international business for the past four decades.
He authored more than several dozen books and some 200 refereed journal articles. His work is among the most cited contributions in international business. Google Scholar lists him among the top scholars in the world in international business, international marketing, emerging markets, and export marketing.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate, Doctor Honoris Causa, by The University of Hasselt, Belgium in May 2014, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Southern Denmark in October 2017. In April 2018, Tamer was honored as an Honorary Professor by Atilim University in Ankara, Turkey.
Professor Cavusgil is an elected Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a distinction earned by a select group of intellectual leaders in international business.
The tourism sector contributes significantly to the GDP of many countries. This sector is responsible for millions of service sector jobs as well as an inflow of foreign exchange. COVID-19 has affected the tourism industry the worst as it is the first industry to be closed and perhaps the last to be re-opened. Upon re-opening however, there will be an intense competition among countries to attract foreign tourists. One well-known policy to attract international tourists is the hosting of sporting events. Hosting mega sports events like the Olympics and FIFA World Cup are said to leave a legacy that could impact the attractiveness of a country/city in the long term. However, the opportunity to host and failure to seize the opportunity to host these mega-events can both be expensive. The Tokyo Olympics was supposed to reinvigorate Japan's economy but now the postponement may cost Japan (est. US$18 billion) more than the spending ($US12.6 billion) on organizing the mega-event. In this paper, we consider the economic impact of hosting annual international sporting events, specifically the extent to which Formula-1 Grand Prix, ATP Tennis and PGA Golf. These leagues have already resumed play in the less affected locations to make up the revenue that’s been lost during the pandemic. Using monthly data from 1998 to 2019 and the Seemingly Unrelated Regression Estimates (SURE) we show that the effect differs from one sport to another within a country, and the same sport across countries. We conclude that there is no “one-size-fits-all” strategy when it comes to hosting these annual international sporting events. Policy-makers must consider carefully the sport that offers the best chance for driving recovery and supporting travel and tourism sector.
Professor Bala Ramasamy is Associate Dean and Professor of Economics at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) since 2006. Before joining CEIBS, he was Professor of International Economics and Business at the University of Nottingham in Malaysia. Previously, he served on the Faculties at Massey University in New Zealand and University of Macau. He has been teaching at higher institutes of learning since 1988. He has had wide experience in teaching students of different backgrounds and culture in Mainland China, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and the UK. Professor Ramasamy received his PhD degree from University of Leicester, UK and his Master of Social Sciences from the University of Macau, both in Economics. His research has been published in Journal of Business Ethics, World Economy, Journal of World Business, Journal of World Investment and Trade, Journal of Business Research, among others. His views are regularly sought by the media. He has been interviewed by CCTV, Bloomberg, AP News, Al Jazeera, Channel News Asia etc. His comments have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, China Daily, Global Times and other newspaper around the world. Outside academia, Professor Ramasamy runs leadership and moral empowerment programmes for young teenagers.
