Original Thinking Podcast

Three years on from the height of the pandemic this podcast hosted by Alliance Manchester Business School explores the lessons learnt from Protect, a major UK government study into the transmission of the Covid-19 virus and the wider UK research programme around Covid-19. Debating the findings of the nationwide study are Professor David Fishwick, Chief Medical Advisor at Health and Safety Executive GB, Sheena Johnson, Professor of Work Psychology and Wellbeing at Alliance Manchester Business School, and Martie Van Tongeren, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at The University of Manchester.

What does it mean to be truly sustainable and how should companies and organisations approach their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategies? These were just some of the key topics explored by Sacha Sadan, Director of ESG at the Financial Conduct Authority, and Professor Konstantinos Stathopoulos from Alliance Manchester Business School, at a podcast hosted by Alliance Manchester Business School.

Advances in data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and analytics are completely changing the way we think about and do business. In our first podcast of 2023, which was also filmed in our new podcast suite, Professor Richard Allmendinger from AMBS and David Walters from North-West based fund manager River Capital joined Chair Jim Pendrill from AMBS to discuss the issue. Richard, who is a Professor of Applied Artificial Intelligence, and also a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, recently joined the advisory board of the North’s first dedicated AI fund run by River Capital. The fund focuses specifically on early-stage, high growth AI, machine learning and data science investment opportunities across the North. David Walters works in the equity team at River Capital as a technology investment director, supporting technology businesses across the region. He has been a CTO at multiple PE-backed companies and has also run AI practices.

Berne Ferry, Head of the National School of Healthcare Science, will deliver this year’s Teddy Chester lecture Into the foreground: The emergence of healthcare science and public consciousness. This annual lecture marks the contribution of Teddy Chester, who was the first professor of social administration at the University of Manchester. From his appointment in the early 1950s, to his retirement in the 1970s he was an influential pioneer in management development, using evidence and research with policy makers, and working with clinical leaders. He was involved in founding and leading the NHS Graduate Training Scheme, and in founding Manchester Business School Into the foreground: The emergence of healthcare science and public consciousness Healthcare science has a long and varied history, encompassing over fifty distinct specialties working in the NHS. Around 55,000 NHS scientists are employed in hospital and community services, some of them working at consultant and director level. Until the advent of the global Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, public perceptions of scientists working in healthcare varied from being non-existent to a vague perception of an individual in a white lab coat, wearing safety glasses and peering through a microscope within the basement of a hospital. COVID-19 increased the visibility of the immensely diverse work of healthcare scientists and allowed patients and NHS colleagues to begin to recognise what a valuable resource the NHS had in this small but integral NHS workforce. Two years on, the perception that fellow NHS professionals and the public now have of NHS scientists and scientists in general has altered irrevocably. Fellow NHS colleagues and NHS patients are not only interested and open to scientists being involved in patient care but genuinely want to engage with the science behind their tests and their treatment. This talk will describe how, in the 2000s, a disparate collection of healthcare sciences was coalesced into a unifying concept that led to the rise of the ‘healthcare scientist’ as a key actor in UK healthcare diagnosis, treatment and innovation. Berne will outline the long and continuing journey that led to the emergence of the profession of healthcare science, give examples of how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this and consider how healthcare science and the need for scientists to step up into NHS leadership roles will develop into the future. Berne Ferry Berne is the Head of the National School of Healthcare Science (NSHCS) in HEE, is an associate fellow at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, UK and visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University. The NSHCS operates as the national deanery for the training of all scientists in the NHS Nationally where Berne has led on the training and education of the healthcare science (HCS) workforce since 2017. This year, Berne was recognised for her work, including leading the continuation of scientific training during the COVID pandemic, by the award of an honorary fellowship of the Institute of Biomedical Science and a Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Healthcare Science from NHS England’s Office the Chief Scientific Officer. This event is facilitated by Ann Mahon, Professor of Health Leadership and Head of the Health Management Group, Alliance MBS.

In this episode we will hear from Jan Iceton, Chair of Smart Works Greater Manchester. Smart Works Greater Manchester is a truly inspiring charity that has helped over 3,500 unemployed, disadvantaged and often vulnerable women get back into employment. Their motto is “get the clothes, get the confidence, get the job”.... and 72% of their clients do just that. They bounced back quickly after Covid and now deliver circa 100 appointments a month from their centre in Stockport. Now, at this time of exceptional need, they are working towards opening a new Smart Works in Manchester by April 2023. Aside from Smart Works, Jan supports entrepreneurial SaaS platform businesses as an Investor/NED. Jan's whole career has been in business development with 10 years in large corporate IT (Fujitsu), 10 years BPO in the UK and North America (Vertex) then almost 10 years running her own consultancy / interim business supporting private equity owned companies. In 2015, Jan went "back on the payroll" for 2 years when she joined Utiligroup, a fast growing, highly entrepreneurial SaaS provider to independent UK energy suppliers backed by North Edge Capital (PE). In April 2017 they sold the company to ESG for £100m and in November were recognised by the BVCA (Private Equity) as Best Management Team of the Year (Mid Market). Hosted by MBA alumna Claire-Marie Boggiano, Lurig Change & Development.

This episode will be hosted by Javed Siddiqui, Professor of Accounting, Alliance Manchester Business School. Pressures from various donor agencies (such as the World Bank), combined with the pursuit of legitimacy by governments in many developing countries, have resulted in various western accounting and corporate governance mechanisms to be exported to the developing world. Accounting researchers have identified the inherent limits to what (western) governance systems can achieve, especially in certain (non-western) contexts, and have often termed these practices as ‘ritualistic’. Drawing from his personal research journey, Professor Javed Siddiqui will discuss the potential policy implications of such research. For example, given the presence of weak capital markets, where investors do not really appreciate the value of a ‘good’ audit, and the reasonable success of various supply chain certification schemes, is there a scope for changing the focus of auditing and governance mechanisms in developing economies (as suggested by the Brydon review)? If so, what is stopping certain forms of change from coming within? Also, given the tendency of governments in developing countries to adopt western governance mechanisms without considering the context, do regulators in western countries need a more cautious approach towards policy development? Javed is a Professor of Accounting at the Alliance Manchester Business School, and the school Director for post-graduate taught (PGT) programmes, responsible for a portfolio of fifteen specialised MSc programmes. Javed joined Manchester Business School as a Lecturer in 2008, and was promoted to a Senior Lecturer in the same school in 2015. His primary fields of research are auditing, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, especially in the context of developing economies. His research has been funded by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), the UK Financial Reporting Council (FRC) and the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, UK. Professor Siddiqui worked with international development agencies, such as the World Bank and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Big Four accountancy firms, as well as national level professional accountancy bodies. This event will be facilitated by Christopher Humphrey, Professor of Accounting in the Accounting and Finance division of Alliance Manchester Business School.

The Scale-Up Forum is a peer-to-peer network for ambitious scaling up businesses in Greater Manchester. It gives businesses at all stages of the scale up journey the opportunity to share experiences, challenges and lessons learnt for mutual business benefit. Launched in 2018, it provides a platform for businesses in the scale up phase to gain insight from their peers and from academic experts on challenges experienced by business growing at pace, whatever their sector. The Forum is managed and delivered by our Business Engagement and Knowledge Exchange team, who help to identify routes for mutually-beneficial collaboration between our academic researchers and business partners. Our quarterly events are all based around themes proposed by the partner firms. Achieving Innovation and incorporating innovation strategies How have large and growing organisations successfully embedded innovation strategies to deliver success? We will hear an academic perspective presenting past research into this area along with a practitioner perspective. As per the usual format the session will encourage interaction and shared learning, starting discussion points include “Should innovation be tasked to specialist teams within a business or is it everyone's responsibility? How should businesses plan their strategy and decision-making process to facilitate innovation?”. Speakers Bruce Tether Bruce Tether is Professor of Innovation Management and Strategy, Associate Head of Research for the Innovation Management and Policy Division, and the Research Director of the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre led by Nesta in London. He teaches innovation management and his research interests centre around three inter-related themes: Innovation and entrepreneurship through creativity and design.The competitive dynamics of professional service firms, especially those oriented to design and creativity, such as architecture practices, design and engineering consultancies.How firms make choices regarding their geographical locations for competitive advantage. Azhar Quaiyoom Azhar is the director and CEO of QSustain, an independent award-winning specialist consultancy to the construction industry offering strategic support across many sectors. Azhar is a highly motivated and charismatic entrepreneur and Engineering professional with 20 years’ experience within sustainable design and delivery across different sectors such as mix use, commercial, and in particular, rail, creating first of its kind achievements across complex projects. This is coupled with invaluable experience in practical major programmes with extensive knowledge of the feasibility, design and implementation stages. With this experience, Azhar now runs a successful consultancy that is well placed to expand and diversify. Azhar has a rare and exclusive combination of Engineering design, sustainability and practical project management experience with knowledge of how to implement low carbon and sustainable developments from concept, design, and procurement to construction and operation. The Scale-Up Forum is sponsored by Bruntwood Works

In this Original Thinking podcast we will be joined by John List, Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago, who will be discussing his book 'The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale'. The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale The premise behind the Voltage Effect is deceptively simple: No great idea is guaranteed to succeed. Be it a life-saving medical breakthrough, a new policy initiative, a cutting-edge innovation, or a bold plan for building a better world, translating an idea into widespread impact depends on one thing only: whether it can be replicated at scale. Many college students will graduate into the world with a bold idea they hope to scale – whether by starting a company, through social advocacy or non-profit work, in the private sector, or elsewhere. The book draws on John's years of behavioural science research, as well as examples from the realms of business, education, policymaking, and public health to present a data-driven approach to the science of scaling. In it he outlines the five hurdles that must be overcome for an idea to succeed at scale, as well as four research-based strategies to achieve maximum-impact scaling. Topics include: Best experimental design practices to validate an idea (and reduce the risk of false positives)Navigating the supply-side economics of scalingUsing marginal thinking to assess the viability of an enterprise at scalePreventing the negative externalities that may emerge when an idea is implemented on a large scaleUsing behavioral-economic incentives to spur widespread adoption of an idea or increase compliance with a policy or programHow we can apply the principles of scaling to drive change in our schools, communities, companies, and society at large To order the book or download a preview, visit The Voltage Effect. John A. List is the Kenneth C. Griffin Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on combining field experiments with economic theory to deepen our understanding of the economic science. In the early 1990s, List pioneered field experiments as a methodology for testing behavioural theories and learning about behavioural principles that are shared across different domains. To obtain data for his field experiments, List has made use of several different markets, including charitable fundraising activities, the sports trading card industry, the ride-share industry, and the education sector, to highlight a few. This collective research has lead to collaborative work with several different schools and charities, as well as firms including: Lyft, Uber, United Airlines, Virgin Airlines, Humana, Sears, Kmart, Facebook, Google, General Motors, Tinder, Citadel, Walmart and several non-profits. His research includes over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and several published textbooks. He co-authored the international best seller, The Why Axis, in 2013, before releasing The Voltage Effect in February 2022. List was elected a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 2015. List received the 2010 Kenneth Galbraith Award, the 2008 Arrow Prize for Senior Economists for his research in behavioural economics in the field, and was the 2012 Yrjo Jahnsson Lecture Prize recipient. He is a current Editor of the Journal of Political Economy The episode will be facilitated by Timothy Devinney, Professor and Chair of International Business at Alliance Manchester Business School.