In England, publicly supported advice to small firms is organized primarily through the Business Link (BL) network. Using the programme theory underlying this business support, we develop four propositions and test these empirically using data from a new survey of over 3000 English SMEs. We find...

This study defines an aspect of consultant knowledge that provides credibility without claiming unrealistic status for a field like consulting. Our focus is the "sector knowledge" that consultants accumulate which derives from repeated assignments in the industrial sector in which the client...

This paper reports on the results of an in-depth Study of how a top management team (TMT) puts strategy into practice in a UK university. A study of the top team in Warwick University was conducted to analyse how strategy was formulated and implemented. The results suggest that a combination of...

In an attempt to increase both efficiency and service quality, more and more companies are outsourcing to third-party suppliers some key business processes, such as human resources, information technology and procurement. The universe of potential suppliers is diverse and growing, made up of...

This paper examines the extent to which the remuneration levels of non-owner managers employed by UK small and medium size enterprises (SME) can be explained empirically by a number of firm specific, human capital and job history characteristics. The UK SME sector is very heterogeneous and we...

Despite a pervasive belief that the world's largest firms compete globally, the vast majority have most of their sales in their home regions. Of the top 500 firms for which regional sales data are available, 118 are from Europe, and they compete predominantly within the European region. On...

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop an analytical model for assessing the performance of supplier relationships (SRs). The majority of performance measurement models incorporate hard quantitative measures that are not appropriate for the soft features of business relationships. As...

This paper reports on an international comparison of three organisations established to promote new business start-ups in the USA, UK and Canada. A 'knowledge-based' approach is adopted to examine how networks of would-be entrepreneurs interact with networks of experienced entrepreneurs and...

Is branding important in industrial markets? To answer this question, the authors synthesize previous research in branding and related areas to develop a new conceptual model of industrial brand value to the customer. Expected brand value consists of four components: product performance,...

This paper introduces a framework for analyzing technology-based organizational action. It presents the concept of 'value programs', to represent the complex, pluralistic nature of organizational action around the application of IT systems. The nature of IT based organizational functioning and...