Ordering and managing stock is a key function to organisationalperformance in the retail sector in general and in food retail in particular. The advent of such technologies as EDI (electronic data interchange) and EPOS (electronic point of sale scanners) has allowed retail companies to...

Proposes that, in the chaotic organizational environments of the 1990s, managers must be able to design winning competitive paradigms and then change these continuously and sometimes discontinuously if their organization is at least to stay crisis-averse and ideally grow and prosper. Indicates...

In recent years there has been widespread discussion concerning the purported shift away from Taylorism towards a new production paradigm premised upon techniques of high performance management (HPM). This paper argues that in seeking to capture the essence of the phenomenon commentators...

The technique of ABC has been widely adopted by universities in the UK, with the assumption that the more accurate identification of costs makes them more manageable. It is the purpose of this paper to consider this question of manageability through identification and allocation in the...

This paper presents evidence to show how vocational qualifications act as boundary objects in the stimulation of learning at work and how they, in turn, become the catalyst for the creation of artefacts that have a purpose and existence beyond the life cycle of an accreditation process....

This paper examines two competing systems of organising theconstruction process and their consequences for learning. Under the adversarial system, contractors compete solely on price, risks are shifted onto those next in line and disputes are institutionalised through complicated, but inevitably...

Sales work is a key feature of the contemporary service economy which has prompted considerable academic debate. This has centred on the processes of standardization exemplified by sales routines and scripts. It is frequently suggested that these management devices are unproblematically embraced...

Over the last two decades there has been a substantial increase in the number and range of service sector SMEs. The management competence of the owner-manager and/or senior staff is crucial to their success. Developing appropriate competencies presents a particular challenge for professional...

This paper explores the nature of the relationship between Head Office and stores in a large British supermarket chain. It focuses on the role played by a range of technological tools available for managing the stock and connecting different parts of the productive system and the implications...

Over the past 15 years, a crucial part of the U.K. Government's agenda has been to develop industrial and innovation policies in support of entrepreneurship and the creation of new businesses. They included significant investment in an incubator fund, increased funding for the exploitation of...