Keele Management School Magazine Keele Management School Magazine, Issue 2 | Page 3

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Keele Management School News l Spring2015
Spring2015 l Keele Management School News
A Summer
Consultancy
In our last issue, we promised
an update on what our Student
Consultants had been working
on during summer 2014. For those
of you who are not familiar with our
Student Consultant programme
(offered to MA Management,
MA International Business, MA
Marketing students) this is a summer
work placement with a difference.
The difference being that the
placements are competitively
allocated with a formal application
and interview, students work on a
discreet project, and the placements
are credit-bearing.
As always the range of projects
was diverse, from a recycling
project with Newcastle-under-
Lyme Borough Council, community
engagement and group ticketing
with Stoke City Football Club, to a
strategic marketing project for Eden
Pet Foods, a local SME producing
holistic pet foods.
The highlight of the programme
is the ‘Student Consultant of the
Year’ event which takes place
in early September. In 2014,
four students made it through
to the fi nals and Daniel Coyne
was voted Keele Management
School Consultant of the Year by
an audience of fellow Student
Consultants, employers and Keele
Management School academics.
Daniel spent the summer working
on a strategic marketing project
with Eden Pet Foods. Fellow
fi nalist James Heeks, worked
on a volunteering project for
Stoke-on-Trent Leisure Services,
Edwin Mwenda assessed the market
for newly formed company Perfect
Audio Visual and Xu Cui looked
at the recycling of plastic materials
for Newcastle-under-Lyme
Borough Council.
Student Consultant of the Year 2014, Daniel Coyne
(pictured second left) with his fellow finalists.
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KMS Researchers present at
International Ageing Conference
in Lugano
Gabriella Legrenzi
Dr Gabriella Legrenzi and
Dr Roman Raab, KMS Economics
and Finance group, were invited
to present their research at the
70th Annual Congress of the
International Institute of Public
Finance, in Lugano, Switzerland,
August 2014. The theme of the
congress was ‘Redesigning the
Welfare State for Ageing Societies’
and topics included societal
structures such as income and
wealth distribution, consumptive
behaviour, gender roles and social
Roman Raab
cohesion change in ageing
societies. Research was
presented on sustainability and
the design of pension systems,
regulation of private pension
plans, health care reforms and
the effects of policy on people’s
quality of life in ageing societies.
Gabriella has been appointed a
Fellow of the world-leading
CESifo research network on
the grounds of her research
achievements in the areas of
public sector economics and
fi scal policy. CESifo Fellows
are internationally renowned
economists and include several
Nobel Prize winners. She has been
invited to present her paper ‘Fiscal
Policy Sustainability in Turkey’, at
the Central Bank of the Republic of
Azerbaijan international conference
on macroeconomic policy and
fi nancial stability, and also her
work on debt sustainability in
the euro-periphery to the Central
Bank of Greece.
KMS Research into Workload
and Work-life Balance
Dr Steve French, KMS Senior Lecturer in HRM & Industrial Relations, presented his research
on the working time and workload of UK Civil Servants at the conference of the German trade
union-based Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), in Berlin, November 2014.
This followed the publication of a report on workload and work-life balance for the Public
and Commercial Services Union (PCS) which highlighted work intensifi cation, growing
stress and ill health levels of union members in the current climate of austerity policies,
job cuts, restructuring and the tightening of performance management systems.
Steve was also invited to give a keynote speech to a conference of European Works
Councillors organised by the UNITE union which focused on the development of
European Union social policy and employment law.