PhD Studentship - Board Approaches to Workforce Engagement, Employee-Perceived Effectiveness, and Sustainable Corporate Efficiency in UK Firms

This project intends to examine how workforce engagement mechanisms recommended by the UK Corporate Governance Code relate to sustainable corporate efficiency through employees’ perceived effectiveness. The Code recommends that boards engage with their workforce through one or more of three mechanisms: a workforce director, workforce advisory panel, or designated non-executive director. These provisions reflect the Financial Reporting Council’s view that effective workforce engagement can contribute to long-term sustainable growth.

However, given the UK’s long-standing shareholder-primacy model and differences in how these mechanisms enable employees to communicate with boards and influence strategic and monitoring decisions, whether they shape employees’ perceived effectiveness and, in turn, sustainable corporate efficiency remains under-explored.

The project intends to address this gap by combining primary survey data on employees’ perceived effectiveness with secondary firm-level data on engagement mechanisms and sustainable corporate efficiency.

Objectives

The project aims to examine how workforce engagement mechanisms recommended by the UK Corporate Governance Code relate to sustainable corporate efficiency and whether employees’ perceived effectiveness of engagement explains this relationship.

The objectives are to:

• Assess whether employees’ perceived effectiveness of workforce engagement differs across the Code-recommended mechanisms.

• Examine the association between different workforce engagement mechanisms and sustainable corporate efficiency.

• Investigate whether employees’ perceived effectiveness of workforce engagement mediates the relationship between the engagement mechanism adopted and sustainable corporate efficiency.

Funding

This studentship is open to home and international applicants. Home and international tuition fees will be covered for the duration of the 3-year award.

The student will receive a standard stipend payment for the duration of the award. These payments are set at a level determined by the UKRI, currently £21,805 for the academic year 2026/27.

Candidate requirements

We welcome applications from candidates with strong academic backgrounds across a range of disciplines.

We particularly encourage applications from candidates from the Global South, Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds, and other groups currently underrepresented in the doctoral research community.

Prior experience in quantitative research and data analysis using statistical software such as Stata, R or EViews would be particularly advantageous.

How to apply

If you have any questions, please contact the proposed Principal Supervisor, Dr. Md Abdus Sobhan (m.sobhan@mmu.ac.uk).

To apply you will need to complete the online application form for a full-time PhD in Finance. Please note that you are not required to submit a research proposal through the online application portal.

Please complete the Doctoral Project Applicant Form, and include your CV and a covering letter to demonstrate how your skills and experience map to the aims and objectives of the project, the area of research and why you see this area as being of importance and interest.

Please upload these documents in the supporting documents section of the University’s Admissions Portal or email the requested documents to pgradmissions@mmu.ac.uk.

Expected start date: October 2027.

Please quote the reference: FoBL-MAS-2027-28-Sustainable Corporate Efficiency

This PhD project is one of six independent projects open for applications, with only three funded studentships available. All applications will go through an initial review stage conducted by the project supervisors. Candidates selected from this stage will be invited to a second-round interview, where final funding decisions will be made based on performance across all projects.

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