AbstractSaudi Arabia is a young wealthy nation with multiple social and economic problems. While the country is extremely wealthy, it has a young population, many of whom are unemployed. The country is highly dependent on a single resource (oil), and relies heavily on imported labour to meet the...

Drawing on the Resource-Based View of the Firm (RBV) the study suggests a set of mainly knowledge-based resources, specific to high technology SMEs, at firm and individual levels, explaining why in the same industry, some firms consistently outperform others in international markets.A conceptual...

Total Quality Management (TQM) has been established in the western world for over 15 years, yet attempts to implement it have reported mixed success. Although the technique adopts a planned prescriptive approach to change, organisations have not found it so easy to implement and to achieve the...

This research attempts to build a model to evaluate the economic development level of cities using a set of factors associated to the concepts of competitiveness and attractiveness. Traditionally competitiveness has only been related to rankings with a very limited contribution to regional and...

This thesis investigates the learning processes of internationalising small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on a framework of absorptive capacity the research explores and examines: i. types and sources of new knowledge acquired by firms, ii. assimilation of new knowledge within...

Partnering has been the most commonly used term to describe collaboration between a buyer and its direct supplier. The automotive industry has been the basis for the development of most studies on the subject. Despite the many studies on partnering, some people share the view that largely...

This thesis analyses the key developments in foreign trade for Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Moldova on a comparative basis between 1996 and 2006. It examines trade developments and restructuring with the region’s two major trade blocs: the European Union (EU) and the...

This study explores the relationship between some demographic characteristics and job satisfaction among Kuwaiti women employees in the Kuwaiti private banking sector. The analysis is focused on the responses of the female employees to their own jobs as indicated by their level of job...

Broader transformations in the economy are linked to a changing spatial organisation for economic activity, particularly in industries imbued with a high creative content, although there are competing explanations regarding the nature of this logic. This thesis explores theways in which space...

This thesis traces the development of the copper industry, mining and smelting, located mainly in Cornwall and South Wales respectively, between 1760 and 1820, and the interaction between them. It is especially concerned with the impact on the mining industry of new sources of ore, technological...