They include:

• an ESRC-funded project, on the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in mid-tier law and accounting firms, which seeks to understand how firms in these world-leading sectors can take advantage of the potential of AI in improving productivity and innovating business models.
• the adoption of ‘Industry 4.0’ by smaller firms is a dominant global policy theme: we are working on a project with the University of South Australia and the South Australia Department for Industry and Skills to study the transition to intelligent manufacturing in South Australian SMEs. This complements our research in support of the North West pilot of the ‘Made Smarter’ initiative to enable adoption of industrial digitalisation by manufacturing SMEs.

Our research in this area includes a study to understand the appropriateness of structured performance management practices in the smaller firm (funded by the ESRC-backed Productivity Insights Network). Some of the work builds on previous research by the Centre for Performance-Led HR, once a world-leading centre of applied research into human resources. This Centre delivered vital research that continues to have significant impact, for example in the work conducted with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) on novel approaches to valuing talent. Current research is examining the impact of higher education in general, and Level 7 apprenticeships in particular, on graduate employment and productivity.

Our work in this area uses both the statistical method of stochastic frontier analysis and the non-parametric approach of data envelopment analysis. Current and recent work in the centre includes both methodological developments and applied projects. Methodological developments include:

• the adaptation of stochastic frontier methods to include regression discontinuities (crucial for causal analyses),
• the design of methods to evaluate efficiency in network stochastic frontier models,
• the evaluation of efficiency where securing efficiency gains is itself a costly endeavour,
• exploring the distinction between transient and permanent efficiency, and
• new approaches to the estimation of total factor productivity.