Tag Archives: management

Being happy to become a better citizen: happiness can help fight corruption

In this blog, Dr Luca Andriani, from the Department of Management, provides a summary of the 2022 study entitled ‘Corruption and life satisfaction: evidence from a transition survey’. The study was co-authored by Gaygysyz Ashyrov from Estonian Business School, in Tallinn, Estonia, and appeared in appeared in Kyklos, International Review for Social Science. 

Happiness is not only a state of individual achievement, but also a resource for a collective to become a better society. This is because happiness can drive individuals to be more committed towards their surrounding environment. Hence, a key question in our study was the following:  

Can happiness help fight corruption?
Corruption is bad for economies and societies, as it causes socio-economic distortions by reducing funds devoted for public goods, like safety, social services, and infrastructure. Good policies and regulations are essential to prevent people’s engagement in bribery. However, similar policies and reforms function in some countries better than in others. Fighting corruption, therefore, cannot lie exclusively upon appropriate policies and regulations. It also requires social support and public engagement.  

Our results clearly suggest that: 

  • Individuals more satisfied with their life conditions and financial situations are more likely to report a corrupt exchange if witnessed 
  • They are also more likely to believe that other people’s actions against corruption can make a difference 

Former Soviet Bloc and “Happiness Gap”: anti-corruption reforms are not enough
The context of our study focuses on the countries of the former Soviet Bloc. Despite numerous anti-corruption reforms introduced since the end of the Cold War to facilitate the institutional transition towards more market-oriented economies, corruption and bribery are still highly prevalent. Additionally, Central and Eastern European countries suffer from the so called “Happiness Gap”. This refers to Central and Eastern European citizens being less satisfied with their life than their Western neighbours, despite the economic convergence of these countries with the rest of Western Europe in the last two decades.  

The “Happiness Gap” is related to citizens’ feelings of uncertainty and frustration caused by the new way of living according to new rules governed by a more liberal market economy and democratic regime. Competing with fellow citizens to get a job, being unemployed, and feeling poorer compared to very close neighbours were emotions and conditions unknown during the communist regime in the Soviet Bloc nations. Under these new circumstances, individuals attribute this condition of unhappiness to public institutions and consider them ultimately responsible for the lack of well-being in the society they govern. We suggest, then, that implementing policies that improve citizens’ life conditions and expectations may have a positive impact on other aspects of the law and order of society.  

Happier citizens with better access to socio-economic resources may be more loyal to their public authority and more compliant with rules put in place to govern that society.
B
eyond our specific context of analysis, our study also presents a warning for Western Europe and other “high-income” economies. The increase in inequality and, hence, a subsequent decline of individuals’ life satisfaction, might drive citizens to become less compliant with rules, and more tolerant towards anti-social behaviour. In this respect, happiness has monetary value. Anti-social and illegal behaviours represent increasing monetary costs for society.  

A better understanding of the factors able to prevent, and reduce these behaviours, will help estimate these costs. Using indicators of happiness and life satisfaction to estimate anti-social behavioural patterns will allow valuation of the overall monetary benefit that can come from improving life conditions. This will help policymakers conduct more effective cost-benefit analyses of non-market service policies like those aiming to increase citizens’ life conditions. Even though corruption will still likely persist, it will be less tolerated – which is a key condition for fighting corruption. 

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Publishing for real-world impact: helping engaged scholars navigating the publication process

Dr Konstantinos Chalkias was a keynote speaker on impactful research at the Academy of Management Paper Development Workshop in August.

Dr Konstantinos Chalkias, Senior Lecturer in Birkbeck’s Department of Management was a keynote speaker at the Academy of Management Paper Development Workshop ‘Publishing for Real-World Impact: Helping Engaged Scholars Navigating the Publication Process’ on 6 August 2022.

The hybrid panel event, organised by the Impact Scholar Community, invited editor-author pairs to discuss the process of conducting and publishing research with impact.

Panellists were invited to comment on preparing a manuscript for submission with impact in mind; interacting with editors; and connecting published work with practice to maximise impact.

Reflecting on his 2019 paper ‘Exploring inter-organizational paradoxes: methodological lessons from a study of a grand challenge’, Konstantinos noted the synergies between writing papers and producing impactful work: “I believe that working on impact enables us to write better papers and working on papers enables us to have better impact.” Both Konstantinos and co-author Paula Jarzabkowski cautioned against producing work for the sake of impact, commenting instead that when research is high quality and answering important questions, it will inevitably involve generating impact in practice.

Konstantinos also commented on the value that editors bring to the paper development process. Editors can be instrumental in encouraging the authors to include more of the study’s context in the paper, bringing the grand challenge they explored to life.

The discussion was part of the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.

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How analysing co-creation during the Covid-19 pandemic offers insights on the simultaneous generation of academic, social and business value

Dr Muthu de Silva from the department of Management gives an overview of the findings of two recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports, published with her co-authors, about the role co-creation played during the Covid-19 pandemic, and how it can shape innovation going forward.  

Co-creation is a mechanism of simultaneously generating academic, business and social value. During co-creation actors of the innovation ecosystem – such as businesses, universities, governments, intermediaries and society – act as collaborators to integrate their knowledge, resources, and networks to generate mutual benefits. The idea behind co-creation is that the joint efforts towards change or impact can lead to lasting and effective innovation.  

As an institution, Birkbeck is committed to delivering theoretically rigorous research with real-terms, practical impact, and a concept like co-creation is a really great way to facilitate this. Co-creating with non-academics enables academics to integrate needs and resources of both academic and non-academic communities, enhancing the reach and usefulness of their research.   

Over the years, I’ve published about 20 journal articles on the topic of co-creation and received eight best paper awards for these publications. In 2019, I was invited by the Working Party on Innovation and Technology Policy of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to develop a conceptual framework on co-creation between science and industry. This meant publishing a high quality journal article and leading their 2021 – 2024 co-creation project that directly influences the strategies of innovation agencies, and ministries of 37 countries who belong to the OECD, and a wider audience that benefits from OECD publications.  

This work resulted in two reports and a journal article designed to influence innovation strategies of OECD member states. It has also resulted in leading another project regarding the importance of university and industry co-creation for a societal and economic green transition.  

Based on evidence gathered from 30 COVID-19 co-creation initiatives from 21 countries and three international cases, the two reports showed that co-creation was widely used to respond to the challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. What was evident through the reports was that existing co-creation networks enabled the rapid emergence of new initiatives to address urgent needs, while digital technologies enabled establishing new – and, where necessary, socially distanced – collaborations.  

For instance, co-creation of medical innovation relied on substantially larger existing networks due to the complexity of medical discovery and manufacturing processes involved in developing these innovations. The COVID-19 Türkiye Platform, the transnational Exscalate4CoV, and the UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca initiatives are examples of this. Digital tools were also used in numerous ways. As an example, the COVID Moonshot project which aimed to develop antiviral drugs against COVID-19 by identifying new molecules that could block SARS-CoV-2, involved three scientists who organised a hackathon inviting researchers/virologists to submit molecules, donations and assays (testing) via Twitter, resulting in over 4 000 submissions.  

Aside from funding initiatives, governments engaged actively in co-creation by granting access to their networks, advising on initiative goals and offering support to improve quick delivery.  The role of civil society was important as well, and the socially impactful nature of research and innovation was a motivating factor for engagement. For example, the Austrian COVID-19 Pop-up Hub initiative; the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology co-developed the themes (Digital Health, Distancing, Economic Buffers and State Intervention) for public virtual discussion and participatory policy idea development taking place via the Hub.  

What emerged from the reports, were the following lessons for the design and implementation of future policy programmes for co-creation:   

  • Purpose is the strongest driver of co-creation; incentives to support co-creation should go beyond facilitating access to funding.  
  • Crisis-specific programmes may not be needed out of the crisis, but networks and infrastructures should be strengthened during “normal” times. 
  • There is room for building new collaborations between researchers and producers to accelerate innovation during “normal” times.  
  • Policy should support wider development and use of digital tools for co-creation.  
  • New approaches should be leveraged more to tap into the large pool of diverse and readily available capacities in the economy.  
  • Governments’ involvement in co-creation activities as network builders can help speed up solutions; enhanced agility in their operations should be encouraged.  
  • Public engagement in co-creation can help market uptake of new solutions. 

  Further information 

 

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From improving assessment centres to preventing match fixing: Birkbeck’s business and management research

All Birkbeck’s REF 2021 impact case studies in business and management were rated ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. Discover our research case studies below. Full details can be found on the REF website.

Reforming governance in the UK non-profit sport sector

Following a series of scandals in the UK sports sector, research completed since 2011 by Birkbeck’s Richard Tacon and Geoff Walters has shaped significant reforms to the country’s sports governance landscape.

In particular, their work underpins the Voluntary Code for Good Governance, published by the Sports and Recreation Alliance in 2011 and revised in 2014; and through this, the Code for Sports Governance introduced at the recommendation of the UK government by Sport England and UK Sport in 2016. All sports organisations applying for UK government funding must comply with this code, which has therefore not only influenced the distribution of over £500 million between 2016 and 2022, but has also brought about significant change in individual organisations, who have reformed their governance procedures in order to comply with this essential requirement.

Numerous smaller, unfunded organisations have additionally signed up to the Sport and Recreation Alliance’s Principles of Good Governance, a voluntary code which is also based on Tacon and Walters’ research. Across the sector, governing boards are now better managed and more diverse. As such, this research can be seen to have shaped the entire UK sport sector and affected the lives and playing experiences of the millions of Britons who participate in organised sport each year.

Mobilizing the power of trade unions

John Kelly’s mobilization theory, first proposed in Rethinking Industrial Relations (1998) but refined and developed over the two decades since, offers an account of the conditions under which individual employees collectivise in response to problems at work (a sense of grievance, shared with fellow workers; a target to whom blame can be attached; and a belief that there are forms of collective action that will make a difference). The theory was taken up rapidly by trade union activists and has been widely used in trade union education programmes since 2004. In the period since 2014, major unions with a combined membership of over six million workers have drawn on Kelly’s work to educate union organisers and to inform the development of major campaigns.

In particular, Kelly ran and designed the ‘Leading Change’ programme for the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which ran between 2004 and 2018 and whose participants have gone on to become MPs, union general secretaries, and in one case the General Secretary of the Labour Party. Kelly’s work also underpins training programmes for the Public and Commercial Services Union, Universities and Colleges Union, and the NEU (National Education Union).

Kelly’s influence matters because unionized workplaces provide better terms and conditions, on average, than their non-union counterparts. The aggregated figures from the unions with which Kelly and his work have been associated tell us that between 2014 and 2020, millions of employees at thousands of workplaces received higher pay, longer holidays and better fringe benefits such as sick pay. Moreover, the achievement of collective bargaining over terms and conditions of employment means that these newly unionized workers now have more say in workplace decisions than would otherwise have been the case.

Don’t Fix It! Fighting match-fixing in European football

Match-fixing is a problem for professional sports because a perception of unfairness makes them less attractive to spectators, and because of the harm done to players (typically those who are younger, vulnerable, and less well-paid) who may be groomed or blackmailed into participating. It is also a wider social issue because match-fixing is typically orchestrated by criminal groups in order to fund their other activities. After a set of 2011-12 survey results revealed a worrying prevalence of match-fixing in the Eastern European football leagues in particular, Birkbeck researchers Sean Hamil, Andy Harvey, and Haim Levi were recruited in 2013-14 by FIFPro, the global football players’ union, to conduct research into football match fixing. Their work on the Don’t Fix It! project surveyed footballers from eight European countries and formed the basis for a code of conduct adopted by every key stakeholder organisation in European football, as well as a training programme that saw national associations develop and deliver anti-match-fixing initiatives in each of the countries concerned.

Don’t Fix It! also underpinned the development of the Red Button App for anonymously reporting match-fixing. Harvey and Hamil’s research identified the lack of a clear reporting avenue as a key impediment to reducing match-fixing and it is this that the app addresses. First developed with the Finnish football players’ union, this has now been adopted worldwide, with both FIFA and UEFA agreeing to recognise the app as a valid avenue for match-fixing reports. Another European project has seen the app expanded into sports beyond football, protecting both players and the sports they play.

Developing a co-creation model for innovation in the UK and EU

Working with major policy institutions such as the Big Innovation Centre, Innovate UK, the UK Intellectual Property Office, and the European Commission, Birkbeck researchers Brigitte Andersen, Federica Rossi, and Muthu De Silva have reshaped national and international approaches to the ways in which businesses and universities can best work together. Their research on knowledge co-creation has been a catalyst for major policy reform in the UK and EU. Andersen’s work as rapporteur for a 2012 European Commission expert group on open innovation fed directly into the delivery framework for the EU’s €80 billion Horizon 2020 programme, which has supported countless researchers and research projects across the continent. De Silva’s work with the Intellectual Property Office supported changes to the Lambert Toolkit, which is used by universities to set the terms for their engagement with business. Andersen and De Silva’s collaboration with HEFCE through the Big Innovation Centre (of which Andersen is CEO) helped to ensure the introduction of impact criteria into REF 2014, reforming the impact landscape in UKHE. And the Catapult to Success report, published in 2013, underpinned the development of the UK’s Catapult Centres and the distribution of over £1 billion in government funding.

Making assessment centres work for employers

The assessment centre process, in which candidates for a role or promotion are asked to perform a series of tasks under observation and evaluated on their performance, is widely used in employee selection, development, and promotion processes around the world. Work by Birkbeck researchers Duncan Jackson and Chris Dewberry has challenged received wisdom about assessment centre design, demonstrating that traditional dimension-based assessment (which seeks to measure candidates’ performance against specific skills or competencies) does not provide an accurate prediction of performance in-role. Instead, they propose a task-based model which replaces the abstract skill testing of a dimension-based assessment centre with a focus on candidate performance in specific, job-relevant tasks. This produces more consistent results which therefore allow employers to make better choices when it comes to promotion or recruitment.

Jackson and Dewberry’s work has been taken up by a variety of recruitment and HR consultants around the world, from America to Australasia to the Middle East. These consultancies have reshaped the tools they work with based on Birkbeck research and in doing so have improved their service to dozens of large-scale, multinational companies – providing economic benefits to the consultancies and their clients as well as benefiting the diverse customer-bases of these clients by ensuring that their service providers are run by the most competent candidates. Jackson and Dewberry have also worked directly with individual employers to improve their provision (including a London-based public service organisation which accounts for over 25% of the national budget for this service) and have helped to shape practice worldwide by contributing to the national and international guidance on assessment centres provided by British and international psychological societies.

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