Global Economy

Area Academic Contact: Professor Mary O'Mahony, Birmingham Business School, m.omahony@bham.ac.uk

Research on the global eonomy is concerned with the impacts of the internationalisation of production on firm’s performance and the well being of consumers. This involves investigation of a broad range of topics including firm’s ability to compete in international markets through innovation and productivity growth, management and leadership of international business and international trade and investment and achieving sustainable economic growth.

In Birmingham Business School research on this topic is concentrated in five main areas; productivity and labour markets; global value chains; leadership; innovation and the economics of globalisation. This covers a broad range of disciplines including economics, international business management, human resource management and innovation studies.

The research is concentrated primarily in

Research Areas 

Productivity and Labour Markets

The research focus of this group is on examining how firms, industries and countries achieve sustained economic growth in the context of the global economy. Measuring and explaining international comparative productivity is a particular interest with group members having strong links with international researchers especially as part of the EU KLEMS network (www.euklems.net). The group also investigates various aspects of labour market performance and how this affects productivity.

Specific topics addressed are:

  • The impact of information technology on international comparative productivity
  • Education and training of the workforce
  • Labour market regulation
  • Innovation and Intangible capital
  • The employment experience of women
  • Foreign direct investment and development in low income countries

Global Value Chains

The Global Value Chains (GVCs) research group is engaged in studies that focus on how value is distributed and shared in a global chain. This involves investigating how innovation, skill formation and the changing nature of work have developed with the onset of globalisation, with particular reference to the internationalisation of business and the shifting of production to locales in developing and emerging economies - changes, which subsequently impact the organisation of firms, knowledge-sharing, quality of work, skills development and employment conditions.

Local, national and international studies are in progress or being developed for China, South and Central America, and Africa. Topics covered by this research include:

  • The role of international networks in global value chains
  • The supply of investment capital, and innovation, knowledge-transfer, and social-upgrading
  • Development of socially responsible and sustainable practices
  • Skills upgrading through innovation and training and development

Leadership

This area is concerned with identifying the role of leadership in promoting successful knowledge exchange in International organisations and business . The research in focused on the concepts of trust in multi-actor, culturally plural settings and insiders and outsiders which explores the filtering and inbuilt discrimination endemic in cross-boundary networks.

A major study is underway on the ATLAS collaboration, one of four particle physics experiments using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. This affords an excellent opportunity to examine knowledge sharing within an international, cross-institutional collaborative network. Project teams from 167 institutions from 37 countries throughout the world are working on different aspects of this 'big science' project.

Innovation and International Business

The broad area of research is Innovation Value Chains and the Dynamics of Open Innovation. The purpose of the research is to develop a deeper understanding of how firms generate and acquire knowledge for innovation, how they combine and use this knowledge to develop innovative products, processes and organisational change, and how these innovation outputs generate productivity, profitability and growth. The research is particularly concerned with ‘open innovation’, and the way firms use external knowledge sources in innovative activity.

Specific topics include

  • The innovation value chain in high-tech firms
  • Innovation, productivity and growth in services.
  • The dynamics of open innovation.
  • Risk perception and governance of international strategic alliances
  • Social capital and internationalization of firms

Economics of Globalisation

Within the Department of Economics there is an active group of researchers examining what we broadly term 'the Economics of Globalisation'. This encompasses a wide range of issues relating to aspects of international trade, foreign direct investment (FDI) and development. We have a specific interest in the impact of globalisation on the environment.

Specific research topics include:

  • The impact of economic growth, international trade and FDI on the environment
  • The impact of differences in environmental regulations on patterns of international trade and investment
  • Multinationals and the environment
  • Industrial specialisation and its effects on the spatial distribution of pollution
  • The economics impacts of climate change on development in Africa
  • Intra-industry trade
  • Empirical analyses of productivity and labour market effects of trade and investment liberalisation in developed and developing countries
  • Environmental policy, technological change and development
  • The economics of China and East Asia  

Recent Research Grants

EC Seventh Framework Programme, SERVICEGAP: The Impact of Service Sector Innovation and Internationalisation on Growth and Productivity, March 2010- February 2013, Coordinated by Prof Mary O’Mahony

EC Seventh Framework Programme, INDICSER: Indicators for evaluating international performance in service sectors, January 2010- December 2012, Coordinated by Mary O’Mahony

DG Enterprise, European Commissio:, Education, Training and Productivity, Contributions to Competitiveness report 2009, PI: Mary O’Mahony 

EC Sixth Framework Programme: EUKLEMS: growth accounts at the industry level, 2004-2007, academic coordinator: Mary O’Mahony ( with B van Ark and M. Timmer, University of Groningen).

ESRC: Bilateral (ESRC-Hong Kong), “Innovative management practices and firm performance in a large private manufacturing firm in China”; PI: Stan Siebert 

ESRC: Intellectual leadership of knowledge exchange in ATLAS, working with Dept of Astronomy and Particle Physics at Birmingham University, Aug 2009 – Aug 2011, PI: Chris Mabey

ESRC: The Dynamics of International Trade: Sequencing, Experimenting and Quality, June 2010 to November 2011, PI: Robert Elliott 

The Leverhulme Trust: Industrial Activity and the Environment: A Spatial Analysis , June 2010 to June 2012, PI: Matthew Cole

ESRC: International Dimensions of Political Regime Dynamics, October 2008 to March 2011, PI: Facundo Albornoz 

The Leverhulme Trust: Globalisation and the Environment: Causes, Consequences and Policy Implications, June 2004 to June 2007, PI: Matthew Cole

ESRC: ‘The Dynamics of Open Innovation’: January 2011-March 2012, PI: Jim Love

Research Teams and Key People