British Academy announces new funding partnership with the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies

The British Academy and the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS) have announced a new partnership to deliver additional funding through the Academy’s Small Research Grants scheme for the support of scholars in Management and Business Studies. The five year partnership will provide £100,000 every year to match funding delivered by the Academy through the existing Small Research Grants scheme. The new funding will enable the expansion of the support for research in these fields.
The Academy has today announced the first fourteen research awards under this partnership, awarded to scholars based in eleven different institutions across the UK, including Essex, Bath, Greenwich, Bournemouth and Nottingham Trent University. 

Two of the projects supported are focussing on the role of women in business. Dr Cathrine Seierstad, Lecturer in International Human Resource Management in the School of Business, Management and Economics at the University of Sussex, is investigating how women directors experience the use of political strategies – ranging from compulsory to voluntary – to increase the share of women on boards. In particular, this project sets out to investigate how the introduction of gender quotas for corporate boards in Norway and the “softer” Lord Davies Report with targets for FTSE 100 boards in the UK are experienced by women directors. 

Dr Sarah Lauwo, Lecturer in Accounting at Essex Business School, is exploring the role of women in the mining industry in Tanzania. Dr Lauwo’s project is aiming to raise awareness of the silencing of women in corporate social responsibility reports produced by mining companies. These reports rarely give visibility to women, who are as affected by mining as the workers are; as household budget managers, child bearers and carers. Women are still affected by inequalities in pay, lack of access to job training, exploitation of male labour and family responsibilties and caring.  

Research can span a whole range of topics and areas. Dr Jimmy Donaghey, Reader in Industrial Relations at the Warwick Business School, and Dr Juliane Reinecke, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour are researching international labour governance. Specifically looking at The Rana Plaza disaster that shocked the world and brought focus onto brands sourcing products from low wage and low labour standard economies, Dr Donaghey and Dr Reinecke will explore the highly innovative mechanism, The Accord, which has been developed in the Banglandeshi Garment sector to prevent similar disasters occurring in the future.  This research aims to examine the dynamics of the Accord and to evaluate its capacity for improving labour standards in global supply chains.

The full list of the fourteen research grants awarded can be downloaded here.