This paper provides evidence of the movement towards a sector-based approach to regional development by the Welsh Development Agency, its effects on economic competitiveness and its role as a focal point for stimulating the development of specialized industrial clusters. The paper concentrates...

The author reviews and examines the relevant literature concerning the role that networks have played in the local economic development activities of Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs). The analysis focuses on TECs as actors within, and catalysts of, networks -- specifically at the local...

This paper investigates awareness among Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) and firms in the UK of inter-firm networking, and the effectiveness of the instruments used by TECs to generate networking. It evaluates the consequential outputs of and barriers to networking, the level of...

This article reports on an in-depth evaluation of European Union (EU) Objective 2 Structural Funding in Industrial South Wales (ISW). The central aim of the evaluation was to assess the main results obtained during the programming period 1989-93, as part of an analytical review of the main...

The academic discussion of business co-operation and networks is often undertaken in fairly abstract terms. The objective of this paper is to add some realism through “on-the-ground” examples of inter-firm networks in which Training and Enterprise Councils (TECS) have acted in a facilitating...

The objective of this paper is to review, from a TEC perspective, the effect of changing Conservative Government policies in the 1990s, such as the introduction of Business Links, on local economic development strategies. The paper focuses on the effects of the Government's attempt to vest in...

This paper examines the processes and causes of inter-firm network success and failure, defined in terms of the ability of networks to become a sustained and valued form of business activity for their members. The paper examines four different case study network initiatives: (1) a failed...

This paper is a study of the skills economy of the rural region of Mid Wales, and the subsequent policy responses that could be activated to stimulate job creation and upgrading through skills development and training. A skills economy approach incorporates the means by which the expectations of...

The author examines the role of workforce development - in the form of skills upgrading and training - in integrating and embedding foreign direct investment (FDI) in the economy of Wales. He finds that by far the most important deciding factor in choosing Wales as an investment location is the...