The UK has seen a significant dip in productivity growth since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-8, according to a new report from PwC UK. However, this new analysis also highlights sectoral differences in productivity growth, with some sectors performing better than others in recent years. The slowdown in manufacturing productivity is also shown to have played a significant role in the fall in economy-wide productivity, but there is positive sentiment amongst manufacturers, with almost 1 in 5 expecting to see gains of 10-25 percent in the coming year. According to PwC UK’s new UK Productivity Tracker, a lack of sustained investment expenditure may be behind the UK’s weak performance. More →

For rival companies to successfully cooperate in the name of innovation, they need “ambidextrous” managers who can make the most of their pooled resources and exhibit strong multi-tasking skills, research from NEOMA Business School claims. Antony Paulraj, Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at NEOMA, co-authored a study analysing the approach of over 300 companies that are collaborating with their competitors, known as “coopetition”. More →

Chief Executive Officers with exaggerated self-confidence show a preference for steadiness within organisations, claims new research from the University of Mannheim Business School. Marc Kowalzick, Post-Doctoral researcher at the University of Mannheim Business School, and Moritz Appels, former University of Mannheim PhD student and now Assistant Professor at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, address a central dilemma in our understanding of CEO hubris: Are these CEOs particularly inclined to change their firms’ trajectories or not? More →

The networks of ties we build in the workplace are key to our success and performance. Yet, researchers at ESMT Berlin claim in a paper published in the Academy of Management Journal that we often build networks that hamper our performance. Professors Gianluca Carnabuci and Eric Quintane, both from ESMT Berlin, investigated how and when people build networks that allow them to perform at their best. To this end, they conducted a longitudinal field experiment within a business unit of a large semiconductor company, tracing the network and performance of each employee over two and a half years. More →

Despite the growing focus for more ethical investment and management styles, a new paper from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) claims to have uncovered eight unethical effects that can ‘sneak in’, even when organisations are doing their best to act ethically. In his research Muel Kaptein, Professor of Business Ethics and Integrity Management, has looked at how even ostensibly ethical organisations can sometimes facilitate unethical behaviour. More →

Middle managers get caught between different stakeholders’ perceptions of fair treatment in reaction to corporate change programmes, claims new research from Aalto University School of Business and published in the Journal of Business Ethics. According to Associate Professor Marjo-Riitta Diehl, from the Department of Management Studies, and her co-authors, these managers can often experience uncertainty, anxiety, and reluctance to take action as a result. The research was based on two rounds of interviews with managers in the German branch of an international company shortly before and after restructuring changes. More →