Professor Jim Love

Profile

I am Professor of International Business. I previously held Chairs in international business and economics at Aston, Birmingham and Warwick Universities, and earlier worked in the economics department at Strathclyde University. My background is in applied microeconomics, principally in the fields of international business and innovation. Most of my work is empirical, using firm-level datasets.  I am also a senior researcher in the Enterprise Research Centre, an independent research organisation which conducts policy-relevant research on SME growth and development. My work here is innovation, exporting and growth in SMEs

I have acted as a consultant on aspects of inward investment and innovation policy for a number of organizations including the OECD, UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), Advantage West Midlands, the Manchester Independent Economic Review, the Scottish Executive, Scottish Enterprise, Invest Northern Ireland, and Forfas (Dublin). I have also held visiting chairs and fellowships at Copenhagen Business School and Wolfson College, Cambridge. I am a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and of the Higher Education Academy, and a former member of the Research Committee of the ESRC.

Research interests

My research has three main themes:

1)  Knowledge Co-ordination, Innovation and Business Performance

This work is based on the econometric estimation of the innovation value chain linking the sources of innovation inputs (internal R&D and external knowledge sourcing) to innovation outputs, and estimating the effect this has on productivity, profitability and growth. Another element of this work examines the determinants and effects of innovation in services, and the dynamics of open innovation.

2)  Foreign Direct Investment: Motives and Effects

Present research focusses on technology sourcing as a motivation for FDI among OECD countries, and the link between the motivation for FDI and spillover effects on domestic productivity and labour demand.  Another strand of this work examines the MNE as a source of intra-firm and international knowledge and technology transfer. 

Linking the first two themes is a programme of work estimating jointly the effects of innovation, ownership and exporting on performance (productivity profitability and growth) at the firm level.

3)  Theory of the Firm/MNE

This derives from a general interest in the transaction-cost and resource-based theories of the firm.    My current theoretical interest lies in the development of an opportunism-independent theory of the firm which is nevertheless contractual and consistent with a transaction-cost perspective, and applying this to the multinational enterprise. 

Qualifications

• PhD Economics, University of Strathclyde.
• MA Social and Political Theory, University of Birmingham
• BA Economics, University of Strathclyde

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for International Business at the University of Leeds