A large-scale survey of UK small business finances is analysed for evidence of ethnic discrimination in the credit market. A summary analysis of credit outcomes (loan denials, loan interest rates and discouragement) reveals large differences across ethnic groups with Black and Bangladeshi...

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to apply Heskett, Sasser and Schlesinger's service profit chain to a single retail service with a view to developing a better understanding of the performance linkages between employee perceptions and performance, customer perceptions and behaviour, and...

This paper assesses current issues of economics and law, to propose that economic understanding, law reform and public policy should recognise and encourage hybrid types of collaboration, whilst simultaneously recognising that. pitfalls also exist. It is acknowledged that innovation is...

The context of this study is the public sector provision of services involving travelling in local authority areas in England. Such travelling services are costly and the relative levels of these costs across different local areas have raised a number of policy issues, particularly how...

Call centres often experience large fluctuations in demand over relatively short periods of time. However, most centres also need to maintain short response times to the demand This places great emphasis upon capacity management practices within call centre operations. A total of 12 UK-based...

This paper presents a comparative study of the New Product Development (NPD) environment and practices between American and British firms. Our analysis is based on an in-depth survey of 63 British and 37 American firms. The selected firms represent key industrial sectors of computer,...

Recent advances in systems theory have significantly raised its utility for supporting problem-structuring activity in organizations. However, this approach has been inadequately developed for representing and evaluating the nature and outcomes of organizational functioning. Toward that end this...

The expansion of Japanese FDI into the UK manufacturing sector during the 1980s and early 1990s gave rise to the debate on the Japanization of British industry. The paper argues that this debate was constructed from a Western perspective. It did not locate the strategies and structures of...

Most academic research into segmentation in the financial services industry has focused on alternative analytical approaches and base variables; relatively little attention has been paid to implementation issues, despite management's concerns about the practicality and usefulness of...

A consultancy project to develop an information systems (IS) strategy for a copper mine located in South Africa is described. The mine is operated by the UK based mining company RTZ, the world's largest mining company. The approach taken was based on an earlier project at Sainsbury's, a major...