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There was quite a reaction when the world’s most famous investor, Warren Buffett, announced last November that he had accumulated in excess of $10bn in IBM stock – enough for a five per cent stake in the company.

Buffett has traditionally shunned the high-tech sector, instead favouring the more predictable earnings derived from less glamorous industrial companies. His long-standing argument was that he simply didn’t know enough about the technology sector to profit from it.

So what does he know about it now? Professor Simon Mosey, of Nottingham University Business School, examines the farsighted motives behind the Sage of Omaha’s seminal move into the high-tech and sustainable sectors.

It is easy to be blinded by its surge towards superpower status, but China does not have a monopoly on success.

Research by the Globalisation and Economic Policy Centre and Nottingham University Business School sheds an instructive light on the sophistication of supply chains and production networks in East Asia.

As study author Dr Eunice Ngat-Chin Lim explains, the findings underline that, while China predictably dominates, many of the Dragon’s neighbours still have vital parts to play – and thus something to offer.

Breaking up the eurozone would represent a “nightmare” scenario and lead to another major financial crisis, one of the most influential voices in economics has told an audience at the Globalisation and Economic Policy Centre.

Financial Times Chief Economics Commentator Martin Wolf predicted the risk of a break-up would remain “significant” in the coming years but said such a course should be resisted.

Delivering a Leverhulme Globalisation Lecture, Wolf – often described as the world’s pre-eminent financial journalist – suggested it could take a decade for the eurozone to return to health.

We are all familiar with the “chicken” game, if only from films. James Dean and his rival blasting their hotrods towards the edge of a cliff in Rebel Without a Cause probably provides the most celebrated cinematic illustration of the idea. More substantially, Bertrand Russell saw “chicken” as a metaphor for nuclear deadlock.

Writing in Public Servant magazine, Dr Swee-Hoon Chuah, of Nottingham University Business School, explains why the concept – and the notion of “frog-boiling” – could be particularly germane to the continuing government-unions dispute over pension reforms.

Britain’s energy policies are in increasing danger of being paralysed by a growing “sense of drift”, the chairman of an influential commission has warned.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath said the UK might risk being unable to deal with “formidable challenges” if it fails to decide upon a clear direction in the near future.

He was speaking at a debate organised by the University of Birmingham’s Policy Commission on Nuclear Energy, which is due to publish its findings later this year.

It has been suggested in some academic quarters that Chinese consumerism will replace its US counterpart as the engine of global economic growth by as early as 2014.

Dr Robert Hoffmann, of Nottingham University Business School’s International Centre for Behavioural Business Research, sheds new light on the likely role that China’s consumers will play in not only powering but shaping the global economy – and to what extent patriotism might influence their choices.

The dramatic events that unfolded at the Fukushima nuclear power plant after the Japanese tsunami of March 11 last year are commonly referred to as “the Fukushima disaster”.

Professor Martin Freer, Director of the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Nuclear Education and Research, argues that the first anniversary of the tragedy provides an opportunity to reflect on the nuclear power debate and to start couching the broader discussion in language that will help develop well-balanced judgments rather then further entrench long-held biases.

The continuing effects of the financial crisis demand a combination of introspection and radical thinking from the world’s economists, an audience at the Globalisation and Economic Policy Centre has heard.

David Fenton, Senior Economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland, admitted experts around the globe “failed to join the dots” in the run-up to the meltdown of four years ago.

He also suggested that radical potential solutions – including the concept of debt forgiveness – might have to be considered if a sustained recovery does not take hold.

The process of globalisation has always produced fascinating synergies. One that merits particular attention at present is the ever-strengthening relationship between Chinese business and Western academia.

University of Nottingham Vice Chancellor Professor David Greenaway and Professor Chris Rudd, the University of Nottingham’s Pro Vice Chancellor for Business Engagement, examine a form of association that is earning growing recognition and increasingly delivering benefits for both sides.

The NHS in Scotland has developed arguably the most ambitious labour-management partnership so far attempted in the UK public sector. More than that, it continues to make it work.

A full and independent assessment of its effectiveness is contained in the final version of a major Nottingham University Business School report that highlights the factors vital to sustaining a system consistently able to devise and deliver policies and initiatives, drive organisational change and formulate and implement appropriate workforce strategies.

Dr Peter Samuel, the report’s author, reflects on a philosophy that appears to raise serious questions about its rival ethos south of the border.