Intense global competition and the advent of a raft of employment regulations (notably, the national minimum wage, or NMW) have placed the UK garment industry under severe pressure. The prospects for a significant segment of this sector-ethnic-minority-owned businesses-appear to be extremely...

This paper addresses two related issues: the effect of the 'regulatory shock' of the National Minimum Wage on small firms and the consequent effects on the commonly observed practice of 'informality'. It draws on a survey of such firms but primarily uses case study evidence from five firms to...

The social and economic institutions of a country provide a framework shaping the performance of individual firms. The introduction of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) in the UK provides a key illustration of the weakness of institutions and the ways in which they might be strengthened. Evidence...

The competitive state of the Chinese higher education industry is set to intensify over the forthcoming years. Where previously institutions may have been able to obtain high returns for relatively little effort, the future most certainly will be tougher. In response, an 'action research'...

Purpose – This paper seeks to shift the focus to the implications of various quality management systems, as a pervasive feature of modern organisational life, for business excellence. Design/methodology/approach – A mail-based survey is conducted among a total of 150 UK-based European...

This paper bridges the literature on real options in strategy with that on financial options. It uses insights from both literatures to show how the use of options contracts can encourage innovators to enter markets by mitigating the effects of uncertainty and permitting the capture of greater...

This paper bridges the literature on real options in strategy with that on financial options. It uses insights from both literatures to show how the use of options contracts can encourage innovators to enter markets by mitigating the effects of uncertainty and permitting the capture of greater...

Investors in ventures that threaten to disrupt the markets of incumbents can use the options markets to add value to their investments by purchasing put options on the stock of the disrupted rivals on the basis of their asymmetric knowledge. By making a profit on these derivative trades in the...

It is a widely accepted premise that we are in a midst of a radical change of economic and social relations, associated with terms such as the “knowledge economy”, “weightless economy”, “post-industrial society” or “information society”. The intellectual capital literature...

Purpose – The paper reports on an exploratory study aimed at analysing a series of independent variables derived from international industrial marketing and channel management literature. Design/methodology/approach – The respondents represent a number of dyadic business-to-business...