Business and Law in the time of COVID-19

This blog is written by Dr Francesca Calo, Lecturer in Management at The Open University Business School (OUBS). This blog was originally published on 2 February 2021 and was written for the OUBS Department of Public Leadership and Social Enterprise (PuLSE) blog.

Circumstances are right for meaningful and fundamental change in the world of work. But what will that change look like – and what role will HR play in it? The People Space and The Open University Business School are partnering throughout 2021 to highlight the issues and suggest how HR can help work to become radically better. Siân Harrington and Katie Jacobs report

A blog post by Dr Zoe Lawson MBA alumna and a member of the OU Business School’s Alumni Council is ambition and is it good or bad?

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine received regulatory approval for emergency use from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on 3 December. This came only months after a team of researchers led by Professor Zhang Yongzhen in Wuhan in early January made the genome sequence of Covid-19 publicly available.

Following the recent publication of her blog by Wonkhe Dr Hilary Collins, Senior Lecturer in Corporate Programmes with OUBS Executive Education, has been interviewed on ‘The experience of teaching during a pandemic’ as part of the Expert Talks for Cumulus Connects.

Social entrepreneur and MBA alumna Dr Zoe Lawson discusses how to build resilience during the pandemic. 

The disruption caused by Covid-19 has had far reaching impacts and required all of us to adapt to life’s challenges under lockdown. University law clinics are no exception and law academics and clinic supervisors have had to act fast and think creatively to keep their clinical programmes running.

The current pandemic has forced a lot of people to change patterns of behaviour and how normal activities are approached and carried out. In normal circumstances, change in the legal system is often cumbersome and slow, often reactive, rather than progressive in nature.

Public procurement is a highly regulated government activity, governed by laws or circulars within a state. In the UK, the procurement of goods, works and services is regulated by The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR), with similar provision for utilities, concessions and defence procurement. 

A team led by Dr Jacqueline Baxter of The Open University Business School has been awarded nearly £300,000 to investigate online learning and strategic planning through, and post, lockdown in English secondary schools.