This paper addresses the issue of 'reverse diffusion' of employment practices in multinational companies, which is defined as the transfer of practices from foreign subsidiaries to operations in the country of origin. It adds to the literature by examining the influence of the parent business...

This paper uses time-series analysis to model explicitly the take-up rate of the UK Government's Loan Guarantee Scheme over the 1980s. In doing so we consider the rationale for the scheme in the context of empirical and theoretical research into the financing of small businesses and in...

This paper seeks to identify and model the key parameters which impact on the commercial performance of a specialist, technology focused, early-stage, venture capital fund. Using both input (costs) and output (expected values) data provided by a number of specialist, independent venture capital...

This paper enhances cost efficiency measurement methods to account for different scenarios relating to input price information. These consist of situations where prices are known exactly at each decision making unit (DMU) and situations with incomplete price information. The main contribution of...

Makridakis and Hibon (2000) summarize four main implications of the latest forecasting competition, which we paraphrase as: (a) 'simple methods do best'; (b) 'the accuracy measure matters'; (c) 'pooling helps'; and (d) 'the evaluation horizon matters'. We applaud the detailed empirical...

This paper reports on a bibliometric analysis of peer-reviewed articles in business and management studies, initially conducted in 2004 and repeated in 2009. It reveals that a small number of firms (11 in 2004) account for over 50% of the total 'hit count' for all firms in our list of the...

In this paper we propose methodologies for assessing the relative efficiency of state owned enterprises that operate under monopolistic conditions. Irrespective of the ownership structure (private or public) monopolistic operation is often given unclear/conflicting operating objectives by their...

This paper aims to contribute to the empirical literature on industrial demography. It analyzes a stratified sample of the Italian metalworking industry composed of 810 plants with more than 10 employees. It considers plant closure over the period 1989-1997. Probit type econometric models are...

Market segmentation is widely regarded as a panacea for a variety of marketing ailments. Yet research in the financial services market highlights a number of significant barriers to the implementation of segmentation schemes. These barriers range from weaknesses in customer data and...

Several theories have been developed and try to communicate to managers how innovation occurs in a firm and which factors affect the outcome of this process. These theories come from different perspectives that either focus on management, economic or social sciences and create a complex net....