The Productivity ASRI aims to support organisations and businesses to better understand and address productivity challenges and the complex factors which contribute to organisational and economic productivity improvement. Core interdisciplinary research activity focuses on business productivity including supply chain optimisation and logistics, business efficiency and economics and manufacturing sector productivity.  The importance of human and organisational capital, especially executive leadership, skills and behaviour are recognised as vital for improved organisational productivity in a rapidly changing digital economy.

The University has relevant expertise to address national and regional productivity challenges and research outputs aim to contribute to value creation including:

  • product and service development
  • adoption of new and emerging business models
  • productivity measurement & diagnostics
  • utilisation and impact of data analytics and artificial intelligence
  • technology adoption

An additional focus for the productivity theme, and an area where the university has significant experience and a strong track-record, is the knowledge exchange and support for regional SMEs. UK productivity growth is very slow and linked to multiple factors including innovation challenges faced by SMEs which represent >95% of UK businesses. Understanding absorptive capacity, innovation diffusion processes and supply chain resilience within organisations, especially SMEs are core research activities of the productivity ASRI.

Key research centres at the University which have direct input to the research activities of the Productivity ASRI are: