Mark Hart, Deputy Director of the ERC and Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Aston Business School uses data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Annual Population Surveys to examine the impact COVID-19 has had on entrepreneurship in the UK. This blog highlights the work of a new project “Lifting the Lid on Enterprise Diversity & Growth… Read more
Dr Meng Song, Aston University and Professor Mark Hart, Deputy Director of the ERC and Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Aston Business School. authored a blog discussing the need to examine the demographic characteristics and motivation of entrepreneurs to increase the understanding of people who create new businesses and to track them throughout their start-up journey… Read more
The importance of human resource (HR) practices to firm productivity is a hardy perennial in academic and policy commentary. Bafflingly absent from this discourse is an important segment of the small firm population: ethnic minority microbusinesses (EMMBs), which consist of firms with between 1 and 9 employees. This omission is surprising given the economic and… Read more
Anticipating adversity, and undertaking crisis planning, are associated with increased resilience in businesses. Yet research published earlier this year by the ERC (carried out before the pandemic) found many small firms struggle to identify their most potent future threats and when crisis hits, most have no contingency plans, resorting to depleting their financial resources to… Read more
Official statistics for 2018 – the most recent data available– suggest that business starts in the UK totalled around 380,000; or, just over 1,000 a day. In reality, this is an estimated figure based on VAT and PAYE records. UK Finance’s data – using bank account numbers – suggests an even higher figure. Nevertheless, it… Read more
The events of the last few months have reminded us all of the impact of economic growth – or the lack of it – on our everyday lives. Beyond the tragedy of COVID-19 in terms of the physical and mental health for individuals, families and communities directly impacted, we are all involved in the resulting… Read more
We have got used to recognising the role of innovation in generating growth and prosperity in all economies. At first, society heaped praise on individuals who led technological change (for example, Trevithick, Armstrong or Brunel). In the last 100 years, greater emphasis was given to larger firms and government policy to lead the “white heat… Read more
This report by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) draws on research from the Enterprise Research Centre and Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) at Aston Business School to provide new insights on the important contribution of, and specific barriers faced by, ethnic minority entrepreneurs in the UK. Drawing on the latest available… Read more
Given last week’s government announcement of the stimulus bill meant to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the UK economy, it is important to recognise the implications for women broadly, and self-employed women more specifically. Such bills are notoriously gender blind, thus discounting the impact on the extent to which self-employed women are… Read more
On the 12th March the ERC joined forces with the ISBE Gender and Enterprise Network and welcomed over 60 delegates to The Shard for an event focusing on ‘What Next for Women’s Enterprise Policy? Although there has been a rise in women’s self-employment in recent years, women are still much less likely to found or… Read more
Gender entrepreneurship gap to blame for one million ‘missing businesses’ Research, carried out by Global Entreneurship Monitor (GEM) experts based at Aston Business School in Birmingham, has been consulted as part of a government review The GEM research reveals that for every 10 male entrepreneurs in the UK, there are fewer than five female entrepreneurs… Read more
Major new study of 2,975 small businesses across five European cities, supported by J.P. Morgan, finds one-third have experienced a threat to their survival in the past five years. Despite this, crisis planning is not widely undertaken by small businesses, which struggle to identify the most potent sources of business disruption Firms run by women… Read more
Equipping under-represented SME leaders with the skills and resources to identify and plan for key future risks will not only improve their firms’ resilience – it will also deliver ongoing wider economic benefits. These are some of the takeaways from our latest research report, supported by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation – Building resilience in under-represented… Read more
• New study by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) of 600 London firms finds 48% of businesses run by ethnic minority leaders suffered a major crisis in past five years. • Data on different types of entrepreneur provides basis for new toolkit to help businesses become more resilient to threats. • With Brexit uncertainty continuing, study hopes to… Read more
New study by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) of 600 London firms finds 48% of businesses run by ethnic minority leaders suffered a major crisis in past five years. Data on different types of entrepreneur provides basis for new toolkit to help businesses become more resilient to threats. With Brexit uncertainty continuing, study hopes to… Read more
Having a daughter can be a delight. I should know I have two. It turns out however that having a daughter is not only a delight but that it can also have a significant effect on the decisions we make about how we run our organisations and businesses. A fascinating new research paper describes what… Read more
The ERC held an event at The Shard in London on 5th of July to mark the launch of the first report from the ‘Building Better Business Resilience’ study. The project is a 2-year European study investigating SME resilience in under-represented communities, which is being supported by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation. There was excellent engagement… Read more
Europe-wide study on ‘shock-proof’ firms ahead of Brexit Two-year project will learn lessons from 3,000 of Europe’s most resilient firms to spread best practice Focus on under-represented groups will seek to understand how entrepreneurs overcome barriers With 70% of European jobs in SMEs, study is seen as vital pre-Brexit to cushion economic fallout A new… Read more
• People from ethnic minority backgrounds and immigrants to UK are twice as likely to be early-stage entrepreneurs • New Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) findings show gap has widened sharply since financial crisis of 2008 • Women, younger people, ethnic minority groups and migrants more likely to be motivated by ‘creating meaning’ as well as making money when… Read more
• Europe-wide study by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) to find out what makes small and medium-sized businesses good in a crisis • Researchers from Aston and Warwick business schools to lead the study, supported by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation 5 February 2018 | Birmingham, UK. An international study of small and medium-sized firms has been launched… Read more
The impact of migration on the UK jobs market was a major theme of the Brexit debate. The effects of migration, despite their oversimplification in that debate, are, complex. Migrants may have taken jobs that would otherwise have gone to long-term UK residents and as a consequence helped create a climate of distrust in many… Read more
New report reveals immigrants eye for business Immigrants are more likely to start their own business than people born and brought up in the UK, according to new figures. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) UK Report, published [12th May], analysed early-stage start-up activity as part of an in-depth study into entrepreneurial trends, attitudes and aspirations… Read more
