Can non-traditional energy services and transactions provide a fair and flexible route towards alleviating fuel poverty and reducing carbon emissions? Distinguished speakers, spanning several sectors of the energy system, joined the EnTraNTS and FlexiNET Team to deliver a conference addressing that very question. Contributions in the relevant literature and divisions of the industry, as highlightedRead more
On 7 March 2018, an Association for Business Psychology (ABP) Career’s Evening took place at Loughborough University. The aim of the event was to expose students (both undergrad and postgraduate) to the world of work as a Business Psychologist. The evening kicked off with speaker and student registration, followed by a welcoming and introduction,Read more
The 19-21 March saw the 9th biennial Simulation Workshop, a conference run by the Operational Research Society. Around 70 simulation academics and practitioners met for the three-day event at the Ettington Chase Hotel in Warwickshire. The conference focuses on the latest developments and practice in discrete-event simulation, system dynamics, agent-based modelling and hybrid simulation. IRead more
Higher Education has been concerned with the matter of ‘engagement’ for some years now; I’ve blogged on this before, so I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. But in brief, student engagement can either be thought of as being concerned with academic content (the intellectual material we teach them); or ‘relational’ in nature (relationships betweenRead more
One of the most misunderstood pieces of employment related legislation in recent years has to be the Data Protection Act. So much so that even the mention of “data protection” is now invariably baulked at in the same way that “elf and safety” is widely viewed with comparable disdain. But disregard the Data ProtectionRead more
The relationship between the audit fee premium/discount and industry specialisation is an interesting and controversial research area globally. Research studies concerning this area have mainly examined the US, UK, Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand audit markets. Auditor industry specialisation is recognised as a form of auditor competency in delivering high quality audits, given theirRead more
The debate over ‘what kind of Brexit?’ seems to be reaching an important tipping point, with the Labour party now joining with pro-European Tories and the Confederation of British Industry in recommending one particular form of ‘soft Brexit’: namely, that the UK should remain in a Customs Union (or something similar) with the European Union.Read more
Let me begin by asking you a simple question: would you rather have bought a lower quality shirt from a lovely salesperson or a higher quality shirt from a rude one? Most of you would have probably chosen the former due to the positive experience you had. While this example is oversimplified, it goes toRead more
Sometimes I say to the students, ‘…it is like Rome. It is like Rome. Silicon Valley is like Rome. We live in its wake, somewhere north of it, part of it but not really at the centre. And it is the era of Antoninus Pius or somewhat earlier. We are not sure of the peakRead more
As life gets back to some kind of normality following the Christmas holidays it seems like a good time to take a look in to a crystal ball and consider the key HR and employment law themes that might influence workplaces and wider society the most during 2018. In some respects a perfect storm couldRead more