Click here for a list of Research Seminars organised within these research themes.

The core research challenge under this theme is to investigate how developed economies, particularly Ireland, can strike a balance between economic and social performance in promoting “best practice” that enhances competitiveness and productivity, while concurrently embracing good employment standards and enhancing human capital and partnership at work.  Ireland’s status as a small open economy lends itself to the comparative analysis of both employment relations and practice.
Building on a long-established record of achievement in workforce management research and teaching at UL, this research theme focuses on workplace learning, human resource development and intellectual capital; work design, workplace relations and employee wellbeing; embedding foreign direct investment; strategic human resource management and business performance; and the political economy of workplace relations and labour markets.
Theme Leaders;
Prof. Patrick Gunnigle, patrick.gunnigle@ul.ie
Dr Siobhan Tiernan, siobhan.tiernan@ul.ie

 

The rationale for the establishment of this research theme emerges from the changing nature of consumption and production in modern societies. At present, over two thirds of those employed in Europe work in services (both private and public) and between 60 and 70 per cent of Gross Value Added in most European States can be attributed to Services. The broad areas for research include transport, tourism and travel, insurance, financial services, educational services, legal services, business and public services.
Theme Leaders:
Prof. Jim Deegan, jim.deegan@ul.ie ,
Dr Eoin Reeves, eoin.reeves@ul.ie

 

Ireland’s goal is to develop an indigenous innovation-driven economy.   To achieve this, innovative, entrepreneurial and marketing related skills and attitudes need to be nurtured. The KBS contributes to this agenda through its research on small and medium sized enterprises. Specific research foci include: internationalisation; family businesses; marketing strategy; advertising and consumer research; new product development; branding and relationship marketing. The interface between entrepreneurship and pedagogy; and marketing and innovation has also attracted significant research attention. Scholars are open to new research agendas, with emerging research currently ongoing in: social, female and ethnic entrepreneurship; crisis management; high growth firms; metrics for innovation and marketing. 
Theme Leaders:
Dr Naomi Birdthistle, naomi.birdthistle@ul.ie
Dr Regina McNally, regina.mcnally@ul.ie   

 

Within this theme, the public policy focus concerns itself inter-alia with industrial (enterprise) and economic development issues and policy, survival and growth and the role that public policy (amongst other factors) plays in this regard.  There is also a concern with public policy evaluation, which, to date, has been primarily applied to the evaluation of industrial and enterprise policies.  These are complemented by on-going research into the disciplinary and distributive consequences of taxation policy.  The focus on enterprise is key to the theme given that much of the research activity is operationalised at the level of the enterprise.
The focus on governance reflects the emerging importance of matters relating to regulation, corporate governance and professional self-regulation.  On-going research activity in these areas embrace risk (including political risk) and governance, behaviour and dynamics of boards of directors, regulatory and legislative compliance, control mechanisms in large and small firms and corporate social responsibility.  Emphasis on notions of sustainability reflects the emergence of this topic both as an area of discrete interest and one that offers interdisciplinary possibilities.
Theme Leaders:
Dr Helena Lenihan, helena.lenihan@ul.ie
Dr Philip O’Regan, philip.oregan@ul.ie