Unlike studies on the vertical integration-performance relationship, we focus on disintegrating firms and investigate the performance consequences of vertical disintegration. We predict a positive disintegration effect on operating performance which is further conditioned on the initial degree...

The measurement of company performance poses several challenges. Three critical ones are: balancing short-term and long-term performance, the need to use multiple measures to capture the broad meaning of performance, and finding the right peer comparators. We argue that truly sustainable long...

Within the debate on the UK productivity gap regulation has been identified as a potential cause. This paper investigates the effect of regulation on productivity by exclusively focusing on indirect, unintended and/or unforeseen effects. First we develop a conceptual framework, then we use this...

This paper seeks to explain why some subsidiaries are isolated from the knowledge transfer activities within multinational corporations. Applying a new theoretical and empirical approach to intra-firm knowledge transfers, we argue that differences in learning capabilities and in-group-out-group...

Given the increasingly popularity of strategy workshops within organizations, it is surprising that there are few accounts of this phenomenon. This paper addresses this issue through two in-depth case studies of organizations employing strategy workshops for strategic reviews. The paper builds...

Organisational change is a fact of business life. With globalisation, increasedcompetition, and improved technology, organisations are moving towards flatterorganisational models.Managing the type of fundamental changes involved in moving from a hierarchical toa flatter organisational structure,...

Meetings, an understudied aspect of organisational life, play a key role in theformulation of strategy and strategic change within organisations. More importantly,the likelihood of proposals for strategic change being made, and how those proposalsare received in the wider organisation, depends...

This briefing examines the international success of British companies in the contextof the industries that they operate in. It does this by measuring international successusing global market share and international revenues and combining these in a matrixto create a visual representation of...

The issue of who benefits from innovation is a complex one. The answer is notalways the innovator. It may be other firms that are needed to get an innovationto market (complementary assets), or even those who produce imitations andadapted versions of the original innovation.For the innovator the...

Since the 1960s business schools have prospered in the UK. Now, however, there aresigns that the success story is coming to an end. The future of UK business schoolsis under threat from a number of directions. Their purpose is questioned – they areaccused of focusing on theoretical research at...