Researchers are closer to unravelling some of the complex reasons behind the UK’s stagnant productivity, thanks to a new £11 million research investment by the ESRC. The ERC team at University of Warwick are delighted to be leading one of the seven projects being funded: Mental health and well-being practices, outcomes and productivity: A causal… Read more
More than 70% of Britons believe it is easy to start a business in the UK, but less than one in ten has any intention of doing so, a global entrepreneurship survey has found. The 23rd annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/2022 report, unveiled today at the Dubai Expo, measures entrepreneurial activity across 47 high, medium… Read more
Opportunity Amid Disruption The 23rd annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/2022 report, unveiled today at the Dubai Expo, measures entrepreneurial activity across 47 high, medium and low-income economies. Data is gathered via a survey of at least 2,000 respondents in each country who answer questions on their entrepreneurial activity, attitudes to enterprise and view of their… Read more
Firms’ increasing use of digital technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic has been widely highlighted. At the same time, evidence of the growing climate crisis also points to the need for firms to move towards more sustainable, low carbon ways of operating. The implications of these digital and net zero transitions for firms’ productivity upgrading are… Read more
The State of Small Business Britain report is the Enterprise Research Centre’s annual review of trends affecting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. The report discusses the findings from research and analysis carried out and/or published by the ERC in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to dominate the research agenda this year,… Read more
Rural businesses in parts of England have shown remarkable resilience during Covid-19 by innovating and adapting in response to the severe economic challenges of the pandemic, according to a major new survey from the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE) led by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC). More than a third of rural firms… Read more
Recently I visited a company that had performed rather well during the lockdown. One of the lucky ones, its sales grew because they were focused on a domestic market concerned with people’s homes. In the lockdown, this market performed well as fewer people have been commuting to work and have been spending a larger proportion… Read more
The Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference in Cardiff, October 2021, was a joyous occasion that brought researchers together face-to-face for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The paper awarded ‘Best in Conference’ analysed UK policy to protect the income of small traders and microbusiness directors during COVID19, asking whether the policy… Read more
The importance of human resource (HR) practices to firm productivity is a hardy perennial in academic and policy commentary. Bafflingly absent from this discourse is an important segment of the small firm population: ethnic minority microbusinesses (EMMBs), which consist of firms with between 1 and 9 employees. This omission is surprising given the economic and… Read more
Mental health issues have received a high profile in recent months, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence suggests that the crisis provoked by the pandemic has led to an inexorable increase in mental ill-health, and that this in turn has implications for productivity and employee wellbeing. Yet research carried out by the ERC indicates… Read more
