The accidental mentor: Australian rural nurses developing supportive relationships in the workplace

improved rural nurse retention as an outcome of recognising and developing such supportive relationships in the workplace. Strategies include: performance review and development processes that account for all forms of supportive relationships conducted in the workplace; recognising the importance of developing supportive relationships and allocating time for these; and continuing professional development designed to meet local needs for developing a culture of support in the workplace

Measuring business growth : high growth firms and their contribution to employment in the UK

The Measuring Business Growth report is a comprehensive look at UK business growth over the past decade. It makes a powerful case that a small number of high-growth businesses are responsible for the lion's share of job creation and prosperity

Firm-level productivity growth in Northern Ireland:the impact of exporting, innovation and public financial assistance

Motivated by the historically poor productivity performance of Northern Ireland firms and the longstanding productivity gap with the UK, the aim of this thesis is to examine, through the use of firm-level data, how exporting, innovation and public financial assistance impact on firm productivity growth. These particular activities are investigated due to the continued policy focus on their link to productivity growth and the theoretical claims of a direct positive relationship. In order to undertake these analyses a newly constructed dataset is used which links together cross-sectional and longitudinal data over the 1998-2008 period from the Annual Business Survey, the Manufacturing Sales and Export Survey; the Community Innovation Survey and Invest NI Selective Financial Assistance (SFA) payment data. Econometric methodologies are employed to estimate each of the relationships with regards to productivity growth, making use in particular of Heckman selection techniques and propensity score matching to take account of critical issues of endogeneity and selection bias. The results show that more productive firms self-select into exporting but there is no resulting productivity effect from starting to export; contesting the argument for learning-by-exporting. Product innovation is also found to have no impact on productivity growth over a four year period but there is evidence of a negative process innovation impact, likely to reflect temporary learning effects. Finally SFA assistance, including the amount of the payment, is found to have no short term impact on productivity growth suggesting substantial deadweight effects and/or targeting of inefficient firms. The results provide partial evidence as to why Northern Ireland has failed to narrow the productivity gap with the rest of the UK. The analyses further highlight the need for access to comprehensive firm-level data for research purposes, not least to underpin robust evidence-based policymaking

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor United Kingdom 2013 Monitoring Report

This monitoring report compares Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) measures of entrepreneurial attitudes, activity and aspirations in the UK, France, Germany and the United States, and the four home nations of the UK. It also examines wellbeing measures of both entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs, business registration activity by business owner managers and the anticipated and actual funding sources for individuals starting a business in the U

Investment efficiency among a cross-section of UK firms:implications for the debate on financing constraints

In this paper, we address this policy issue using a stylised methodology that relies on estimates of the cash flow sensitivity of firms’ investment, as well as a relatively new methodology that enables us to generate a (0, 1) bounded measure of investment efficiency of firms, i.e., the efficiency with which firms can convert their sales into investment, after controlling for unobserved year- and industry-specific effects. Higher investment efficiency is associated with lower financing constraint. Our results indicate that there is considerable heterogeneity in investment efficiency across firms, during a given year; the range being 0.57-0.82. However, the average investment efficiency measure is similar across years, regions and NACE 2-digit industries. We also do not find discernible patterns in the relationship between investment efficiency and firm size, both before and during the financial crisis. The results suggest that while some firms are clearly less efficient at translating their performance into investment, broad policies targeting firms of a certain size, or those within a particular industry or region, may not successfully address the problem of financing constraint in the United Kingdom. The targeting of firms with financing constraints may have to be considerably more refined, and look at not easily observable factors such as credit history/events and organisational capacity of the firms

Who creates the jobs?

Addresses Birch's hypothesis, made in 1979 and the subject of much debate since, that small businesses create the most new jobs, using the Office of National Statistics' new Business Structure Database and focusing on the 1998 cohort of new firms and their evolution up to 2008. Assesses: the size of the firms in the cohort; the distribution of jobs as firms moved between size bands; job creation trends in firms that survived with 20+ employees; and job creation by size band. Argues that the answer to the question of 'who creates the jobs?' depends on exactly how the question is framed

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor United Kingdom 2014 Monitoring Report

In 2014, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research consortium measured the entrepreneurial activity of individuals in 70 economies, making it the world’s most authoritative comparative study of entrepreneurial activity in the general adult population. In 2014, 10,750 adults aged 16 to 80 participated in the GEM UK survey. This monitoring report compares Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) measures of entrepreneurial attitudes, activity and aspirations in the UK, France, Germany and the United States, and the four home nations of the UK. It also examines business registration activity by business owner managers and the anticipated and actual funding sources for individuals starting a business in the UK. The 2014 report shows that most UK entrepreneurship measures remain above the longer term trend. For comparative indicators the UK typically lags the US but outperforms other innovation-led economies including France and Germany

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor : United Kingdom 2019 Monitoring Report

This report documents Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) measures of entrepreneurial attitudes, activity and aspiration in the United Kingdom (UK) and compares the rates to those in Germany and the United States (US). It also summarizes entrepreneurial attitudes, activity and aspiration across the four nations of the UK and reports on business start-up funding expectations

Social work and social care: mapping workforce engagement, relevance, experience and interest in research.

Evidence-based practice (EBP) has been promoted within social work/social care, with emerging evidence of benefit to practitioners and service users. Advocates argue that EBP enables practitioners to have the skills to interpret and evaluate evidence and be actively involved in research. This project aimed to evaluate awareness, experience/skills and value of research, and explore barriers to engagement with research. A cross-sectional survey was undertaken across a diverse range of social work/care staff at a large National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust and partner Local Authority. The survey included both closed and an open-ended response to facilitate a mixed method analysis. In total, 208 staff responded (55 percent response) and findings show a high rating on the relevance of research to professional development (73 percent); however, a low level of actual involvement (10 percent) and low levels of confidence/knowledge across a range of research skills. Identified barriers include a lack of knowledge on where/how to begin, lack of evidence that it improves practice, the potential to threaten practice and low capacity and time. These findings highlight a potential gap between a current drive for social work/care to be more evidenced based and the ability of social work/care to enact this approach