Why do Policymakers Need a Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) in the West Midlands?

Dr Meng Song, Aston University and  Professor Mark Hart, Deputy Director of the ERC and Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Aston Business School. authored a blog discussing  the need to examine the demographic characteristics and motivation of entrepreneurs to increase the understanding of people who create new businesses and to track them throughout their start-up journey… Read more

ESRC invests £11 million to tackle productivity puzzle

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

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/2022 report

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

The State of Small Business Britain 2021: Enabling the Triple Transition

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

Resilient rural businesses innovate and diversify during Covid

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

Pushing productivity to the top of a firm’s agenda

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

Income Protection for Micro-entrepreneurs Under COVID-19: Serving Neoliberal Interests or Small Traders?

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

Building an inclusive human resource community: Insights from an action research study of ethnic minority microbusinesses

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