If, as Adam Smith once famously suggested, Britain was a nation of shopkeepers then it is now a nation of shopworkers. Retail is now a significant part of the UK economy, accounting for £256 billion in sales and one-third of all consumer spending (Skillsmart, 2007). It is the largest private...

Across the world, companies are forming some of the most complex and exciting collaborations in the business world: cross-border alliances (CBAs). Yet while this offers multinational companies a way into the global marketplace, there is no guarantee of success. This book looks at the business...

This book examines how and why corporate strategy, structure and culture is continuing to change markedly in South East Asia. Among the issues that have forced widespread changes in the region are the economic meltdown, the growth in electronic technology, regional market integration, changing...

This 13th volume of the Academy of International Business (AIB) series focuses on a selection of issues reflecting the complexity of challenges faced by managers in today's global economy and the importance of context in managerial decision making. It contains a number of chapters on two major...

This paper uses a Bayesian belief networks (BBN) methodology to assess the reliability of search and rescue (SAR) operations within the UK coastguard (maritime rescue) coordination centers. This is an extension of earlier work, which investigated the rationale of the government's decision to...

A hitherto neglected phenomenon in international new venturing is portfolio entrepreneurship, which occurs when entrepreneurs found, own, manage and control more than one business at a time, with ownership of the new venture being distinct from that of the existing business ventures. This study...

Nearly four hundred non-routine organizational decisions were investigated to discover search approaches--determining the frequency of use and success of each search approach uncovered. A 'search approach' is made up of a direction and a means to uncover solution ideas. Direction indicates...

Organizational decline prompts leaders to downsize, reducing the size of the workforce in an attempt to cut costs. This paper discusses some of the dangers of downsizing in which organizations experience an unanticipated and unwanted loss of core competencies. An alternative to downsizing is...

The new Labour Government elected in the UK in 1997 has a declared commitment to the modernisation of local government and has proposed radical change to the way councils plan and deliver local services through best value in service delivery. Best value emphasises the role of sound management as...

Informational challenges---absence, uncertainty, asymmetry---shape the working of markets and commerce in many developing countries. For developing country micro-enterprises, which form the bulk of all enterprises worldwide, these challenges shape the characteristics of their supply chains. They...