Offshoring – the practice of sourcing business services fromoverseas – ignites controversy. The loss of UK jobs in businessservices to foreign providers makes headline news. Theimplication is that the UK has become less competitive in thebusiness services market. But what is the reality?...

Research points to a productivity gap between the UK and some of its majorcompetitors such as France, Germany and the US. To close this gap, it is widelyaccepted that the UK must move towards competing on value and innovation ratherthan on low costs. So how can the UK boost innovation? How can...

A productivity gap has been identified between the UK andits leading international competitors such as the US, France,Germany and Japan. The adoption of leading edge workingpractices, it is argued, can help UK firms close that gap.But the UK currently lags behind its major competitors in this...

Improving the UK’s competitive position has become a matter ofnational importance. The DTI Review of UK Manufacturing Policy,published in July 2004, stressed the need for the UK to become ahigh value economy1. Previous studies including the Porter Reportand the DTI Innovation Report2 3 also...

Improving the competitiveness of the UK economyis a national priority. Recent studies – the PorterReport1 and the Department of Trade and Industry(DTI) Innovation Review2 show that the UKlags behind its major competitors in terms ofproductivity. There is a growing consensus thatclosing the...

Regional agglomerations or clusters of specialised firms and other organisations, in particular industries, have beenaround for centuries and have been a subject of research for decades (for an overview see Porter 1998a: 206-208;Enright 1998, 2003). Obviously, this is true for traditional...

Government policy emphasises five ‘drivers’ of productivity: competition, enterprise, innovation, investment and skillsand each of these has been the subject of major programmes of reform (HM Treasury, 2006). Despite this, andnotwithstanding some improvement, UK productivity in terms of output...

While scholarly research has produced a great deal of useful knowledge about various forms of innovation, there has been very little attention given to the dynamics of management innovation - the implementation of a new management practice, process or structure that significantly alters the way...

Increasingly universities are seen to be one of the key actors in national innovation systems (Bessant & Venables,2008; Cosh, Lester, & Hughes, 2006; Etzkowitz, Webster, Gebhardt, & Terra, 2000; Lundvall, Johnson, Andersen, &Dalum, 2002). Firms reach out to universities as a source of knowledge and support...

This report summarises the research findings from a study into how the successfulintroduction of innovation in motorsport is organised and managed.The motorsport industry is a good example of how creativity, engineering,manufacturing and support services can be combined to produce world...