The Institute for International Management is actively engaged in international research projects concerning the globalisation of economic activity and the implications for patterns of work, sustainability, (political and other) risks, and governance. Primary research areas include:

This research area within the Institute focuses on the comparative and historical analysis of work and employment relations within Europe and North America.

This includes investigating models of global best practice for work organisation and labour management, such as lean production and business process re-engineering.

This research area focuses on two broad phenomena.

Firstly, the adoption of various social and environmental responsibilities by business firms, and the relationship of this phenomenon to urgent sustainability issues.

The second phenomena being organisational wrongdoing (corruption, fraud, tax evasion, human rights violations etc.) and the various severe harms it produces to vulnerable groups and areas.

The Institute led a major ESRC-funded project investigating globalising actors, namely those who create, disseminate and implement new global norms in multinational companies.

This research area focuses on the role of macro-level factors in shaping globalisation and social, economic, and financial development. Specifically, it investigates how governments and international organisations, through their policies and reform programmes attempt to shape the strategies of firms and the economic trajectories of countries.

Focusing on the rapidly growing outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from emerging economies, this research area seeks to understand the institutional determinants and consequences of OFDI from emerging markets.