Events Calendar

As of 2017, 5.5 million (21% of the UK employees) were earning less than the living wage. The UK initiative on advocating the real living wage among employers via the Living Wage Foundation accreditation programme appears to be a successful national move with the potential to generate impact across the globe going forward. Paying employees a wage sufficient to live a decent life is aligned with achieving the broad sustainable development goals including but not limited to: SDG 8. Decent work and economic growth; SDG 10. Reduced inequalities; SDG1. No poverty; and SDG3. Good health and wellbeing. While it is perceived as ‘the right thing to do’, paying employees the real living wage also provides a variety of benefits to the investors and their clients, employers, employees and society in general. Exploring this further we present “an investment case on living wage accreditation” highlighting the current situation of the investors’ perceptions of living wage accreditation and the financial significance of paying employees the real living wage.

Speaker information
Dr Krish Vithana,Dr Krish Vithana is a Lecturer in Accounting in Southampton Business School. Prior to joining the Southampton Business School Krish worked in Durham University Business School, and Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka in academic capacity and in Sri Lanka Business Development Center and Outward Bound Trust of Sri Lanka in the capacity of a professional development trainer. Krish mainly research on firm level human capital investment decisions and presented her work on leading academic conferences and journals. Krish is currently leading two research projects funded by ESRC including the project, ‘investment case on living wage accreditation’. As a part of this project, Krish is on a secondment with Aviva Investors since October 2017. Krish has always maintained a healthy collaboration with the industry offering services to several other organisations including Aviva Investors, Living wage Foundation, Sri Lanka Business Development Centre, Outward Bound Trust of Sri Lanka and ILO project on Youth Employment in Sri Lanka.

Consuming for status and showing-off of luxury goods has become a defining element of new consumerist societies. However, status directed consumption is not a recent phenomenon. From the extravagance and excesses of ruling elites in earlier societies to the new business maharajas, status directed consumption has been well observed and documented. However, with the increase in the standard of living beyond wealthy elite, status consumption has percolated through to the masses who are attempting to adopt profligate lifestyles globally. For example, brands such as LVMH, Gucci and so on have seen phenomenal growth in the last two-three decades. This inaugural professoriate lecture attempts a brief review of the historical trends relating to status consumption and presents several studies conducted over the last decade focusing on status consumption in the developed and emerging markets. They offer a novel account of surprising similarities and differences in motives for luxury consumption worldwide.

Agenda
18:00: Registration, refreshments and networking (by the entrance of Building 2)

18:45: Keynote seminar (in room 3043)

19:30: Q & A

20:00: Event Close

Speaker information
Professor Paurav Shukla is the Professor of Marketing at the University of Southampton. He teaches and trains regularly in countries across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. His main research interests include comparative consumption experiences and cross-cultural consumer behaviour with a special focus on luxury branding and marketing. His research highlights the hidden meanings and associations embedded within consumption practices across cultures and offers novel insights for researchers and practitioners. He has published on these topics in wide range of research outlets, including the Journal of World Business, Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, Marketing Letters, International Marketing Review, among others. He has contributed chapters to edited books, case studies and popular accounts of his work have appeared in the Sunday Times, the Guardian, BBC, Woman’s Wear Daily (the fashion bible), Luxury Society, Business Week, Bangkok Post, National Post of Canada and LiveMint Wall Street Journal, among others.

Using a sample of UK universities from 2001 to 2016, we find that high remuneration packages contribute to higher university performance. Particularly, a one standard deviation increase in Vice Chancellor (VC) pay is associated with an increase of 2.21% in university performance index. Also, Knighthood by Her Majesty the Queen or other prestigious rewards increase institution performance. In addition, we document that while VCs with general human capital receive higher pay, they decrease the performance of their universities. Our results suggest that the positive impact of pay on performance concentrates among universities with external promoted VCs with managerial discretion. The positive effect of VC general managerial skills on compensation is more pronounced for universities with young VCs with foreign experience. The results are also confirmed after controlling for self-selection bias and other various tests.

Agenda
18:00: Registration, refreshments and networking (by the entrance of Building 2)

18:45: Keynote seminar (in room 3043)

19:30: Q & A

20:00: Event Close

Speaker information
Dr Victoria Patsika is a Lecturer in Accounting in the University of Southampton. Before joining the Accounting Group at Southampton Business School, she held post at the School of Management in the University of Bath. Her research interests are in the area of accounting and include firm disclosure policies, earnings management, regulations development, corporate governance, executive compensation, real estate market and empirical corporate finance. Her research work has been presented at leading international academic conferences such as the European Accounting Association (EAA), Financial Engineering and Banking Society Annual Conference (FEBS), the BAFA Annual Conference, the World Finance Conference, the International Journal of Accounting Symposium and the Sussex Young Scholar Conference, among others, as well as at professional organizations and practitioners' conferences and workshops.