Industrial relations expert appointed as visiting professor at university
De Montfort University (DMU) has appointed a leading industrial relations expert as a visiting professor to develop its work on migrant businesses.
Professor Paul Edwards
Professor Paul Edwards joins the Centre for Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) team of highly respected academics, based at the university’s Leicester Business School, whose research focuses on diversity and enterprise.
Professor Edwards researched and taught for more than 30 years at Warwick Business School, where he was director of the Industrial Relations Research Unit and an associate dean. His research interests concentrate on the employment practices of multinational companies and employment relations in small firms, and he has conducted research for bodies including the Department of Trade and Industry and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
The author of eight books, including The Politics of Working Life (2005), and a fellow of the British Academy, Professor Edwards is currently a professor of employment relations at the University of Birmingham’s business school and an associate editor of the journal Human Relations.
Commenting on his appointment, Professor Edwards said: “I am honoured by this appointment. Colleagues at DMU exemplify the values of critically engaged scholarship, embracing rigorous research and engagement with practice. I have worked with several colleagues at DMU, in CREME and elsewhere, and look forward to strengthening my links with them.
“I have worked with Professor Ram and his colleagues for more than 10 years. CREME has established a powerful reputation for its research and practical engagement. It addresses important practical and policy issues while never forgetting the centrality of careful research. I hope to develop future work, in particular around businesses established by recent migrants from Eastern Europe and Africa. These businesses are changing the landscape of the UK economy but little is known about how they operate or the jobs that they are creating. This new work will build on CREME’s established record in this field.”
Ethnic minority enterprise is a growing and increasingly important phenomenon in many parts of the world, and DMU’s CREME is a leader in this field, pioneering research and engagement activities to promote diversity and enterprise. The centre’s cutting-edge expertise on ethnic minority entrepreneurship has enabled it to advance a wider agenda of catalysing innovative research and practitioner interventions in collaboration with a wide range of organisations, policy-makers and entrepreneurs to fulfil its mission through its work to ‘make diversity and enterprise everyone’s business’.
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