ESRC Wales DTP Collaborative Studentship in Economics - Innovation, Management Capability and Productivity in SMEs

Studentships commence in October 2021. Applications are invited from exceptional candidates with a first class or strong upper second class honours degree, and appropriate Master’s degree with an average mark of at least 65%. Applications can also be considered from holders of a first-class undergraduate degree in Economics or similar subject with significant economic content.

The University and ESRC Wales DTP value diversity and equality and we encourage applications from all sections of the community, irrespective of age, disability, sex, gender identity, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation. In line with our commitment to supporting and promoting equality, diversity and inclusion, and to increase recruitment of currently underrepresented groups, applications from Black British, Asian British, minority ethnicity British and mixed race British candidates are particularly encouraged and welcomed. 

We welcome applications for full-time study, and studentships are available as either 2+2 (one year MSc in Economics, 1 year MRes in Advanced Economics and 2 years Doctoral study), or 1+2 (one year MRes in Advanced Economics and 2 years Doctoral study).

Please visit here for further information about the PhD Programme at Cardiff Business School.

Applications welcomed by 3 February 2021 (1200 hours).

These studentships are ‘collaborative’ awards. Applicants should take careful consideration of the working title and description of the project, and may wish to contact the named member of staff for a discussion prior to applying.

·      The Lead supervisor on this project is, Professor Andrew Henley, [Email Address Removed]

·      The ESRC Economics pathway lead is, Dr Ezgi Kaya, [Email Address Removed]

Details of the project:

The project operates under the Cardiff University-ONS Strategic Partnership, between the ONS Economic Microdata and Research Team and Cardiff Business School.

The UK has a growing and deep-seated productivity gap with other advanced industrial economies, and accelerating since around the 2008-9 global financial crisis (McCann and Vorley, 2020). The COVID-19 crisis is generating a further productivity challenge, with unclear medium term implications (McCann and Vorley, 2021). ESRC has invested heavily in this thematic priority and the breadth of funded activity highlights its multifaceted nature. In common with other peripheral UK regions,Wales has a prosperity gap with the rest of the UK, and pari passu with the wider industrialised world (Webber et al., 2018). At devolution this gap was articulated in terms of low levels of economic activity and low productivity. The latter has proved much less tractable, indicative of the complex and multi-faceted nature of the problem.

ONS has invested heavily in improving data investments and analytical capacity. This project focuses on the analysis of large scale, micro-and longitudinal data, providing opportunities for a student to deploy advanced level micro-econometric and evaluation methods (Disney et al., 2003; Harris and Moffat, 2017). ONS are particularly keen to exploit their significant firm level microdata resources to support the analysis of the productivity gap. A key element of their current work is linkage of data (which contain detailed information on firm and enterprise level economic performance including value added) to other firm level datasets covering management practices and expectations, and employee skills and characteristics. They are keen to progress this work, to demonstrate the potential value of linked microdata to productivity analysis.

One particular dimension focuses on the “long-tail” of less productive firms (Haldane, 2017). This is an issue of particular interest to ONS, with resonance in Wales where firms are smaller, indigenous or headquartered “exemplars of high productivity” are more scarce, the innovation eco-system is less well resourced, and where sustained rounds of European funding have emphasised job safe-guarding rather than productivity.

Within this setting there is considerable scope to develop detailed research questions to address one or more topics under the following non-exhaustive list:

·      Management and leadership practices and skills

·      Export orientation and achievement

·      Entrepreneurial orientation, knowledge transfer and innovation absorptive capacity

·      Measurement of organizational and digital capital in SMEs

·      Effectiveness of business support funding

·      Local infrastructure (physical and digital) and impact on productivity

·      Impact of employee skills investment and employee well-being

·      Impact of COVID-19 on SME performance