Research and impact

Our research encompasses four main themes, with a focus on applied and empirical studies supported by three specialist centres.

• Corporate performance - What determines business success and failure?
• Risk - How is risk measured and managed?
• Governance - What are the optimal mechanisms for the effective management of organisations?
• Decision making - How are effective decisions made in organisational settings?

These themes are applied in the context of staff specialisms in the following broad areas:

• Accounting and business history
• Applied corporate finance and financial markets
• Business ethics
• Corporate governance
• Employee ownership
• Market based accounting
• Public sector accounting
• Pension finance and accounting

Impact and knowledge transfer

SME financing and growth, by Professor Nick Wilson

This impact case researches the ability of companies to raise finance and manage trade and other debt. Research by the Credit Management Research Centre (CMRC), led by Professor Nick Wilson, has directly influenced UK government policy and regulation, leading to policy initiatives and guidance to alleviate short and long-term financing problems for large and small businesses and organisations. This has improved understanding of alternative forms of corporate finance for new ventures, growth and corporate restructuring; improved knowledge of why some businesses grow and others fail in relation to financing, financial management and governance; and led to changes in the debt management systems and procedures in the public and private sector.

Bank risk and regulation across Europe, by Professor Francesco Vallascas and Professor Kevin Keasey

The global financial crisis that erupted in the summer of 2007 exposed major flaws in how financial institutions are regulated and showed that the governments of many of the world’s biggest economies were wholly ill-equipped to deal with the consequences. 

Faced with the prospect of winding-up failing, Global Systematically Important Financial Institutions (GSIFIs), governments opted instead to pump in hundreds of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to keep the majority afloat. As a result, public spending has been dramatically cut in many nations as governments have sought to restore fiscal order and six years later, many economies have yet to recover.

This research does not focus on what went wrong in this period, but instead details the results of four important new strands of research on European financial markets. Collectively they represent one of the most detailed analyses of this subject yet undertaken.

The strands of research offer detailed insights into the profile, characteristics and behaviour of stock market-listed European financial institutions over several decades and how this relates to market instability. It analyses the changing nature of risk, what makes financial institutions more or less stable and the relationship between transparency and stability. It offers compelling evidence-based suggestions which should be applied to help prevent another financial crisis.