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WP24: Joint Ventures & Economic Reform in China: A Case Study of the Coca-Cola Business System, with Particular Reference to the Tianjin Coca-Cola Plant
Peter Nolan
No longer available to view
This first in-depth case study of a single Coca-Cola plant analyses the impact of the growth of the Tianjin bottling plant, China, on capital markets, including profits, plant size distribution and firm structure, on supplier networks, and on direct and indirect labour market employment effects.
WP23: Business Services, the Management of Change & Regional Development in the UK: A Corporate Client Perspective
Peter Wood
No longer available to view
Reviews the recent rapid growth in use of strategic management consultancies by large UK corporations , in relation to clients’ in-house management capabilities, the reasons for employment of different types of consultancy such as small and large firms, and the focusing of consultancy functions in southern England.
WP22: Economics, Ethics & Unfair Competition
Ian Jones and Michael Pollitt
No longer available to view
Considers the nature of unfair competition between firms in terms of vertical and horizontal relationships, and relations with customers. The paper develops concepts of fairness based on biblical principles, and discusses case studies of Hewlett Packard, the UK clothing industry, ServiceMaster, UK mortgages, United Biscuits and the BA ‘Dirty Tricks’ campaign.
WP21: Vertical Inter-Firm Relations in Britain & Germany: The Role of Trade Associations & Legal Regulation
Christel Lane and Reinhard Bachmann
No longer available to view
Assesses how industry associations and legal regulations affect inter-firm trust and power relations in Britain and Germany, and shows that the radically different institutional environments in these countries lead to significant differences in the nature and quality of inter-firm coordination.
WP20: Communities of Competitors: Open Price Associations & the American State, 1911-1929
Gerald Berk
Examines successful US efforts to ‘regulate competition’ in the 1920s, via open price associations and Federal Trade Commission experiments in trade practice conferences. Business associations helped generate cooperation and were more successful than is commonly thought.
WP19: Executive Remuneration, Executive Dismissal & Institutional Shareholdings
Andy Cosh and Alan Hughes
This paper shows that in the UK electrical engineering industry the likelihood of executive dismissal declines with company size and rises with poor performance. Pay is positively related to both size and shareholder returns with the former more significant. The presence or absence of institutions as major shareholders makes little difference to the direction or strength of these links.
WP18: Failures, Acquisitions & Post Merger Success: The Comparative Financial Characteristics of Large & Small
Companies Andy Cosh and Alan Hughes
This paper analyses the financial characteristics of acquired, failed and surviving firms in the whole UK company sector and draws conclusions about the nature of the ‘natural’ selection process in that sector.
WP17: Economic Growth as an Evolutionary Process
Matthias Kelm
No longer available to view
This paper derives a coherent evolutionary theory of economic growth from the basic assumptions of genuine uncertainty and bounded rationality. The theory developed here attempts to improve on previous theories of economic evolution by distinguishing more precisely between the various evolutionary forces driving the growth process.
WP16: Tacit Knowledge & Technology Transfer
Jeremy Howells
No longer available to view
Outlines the key parameters and traits of knowledge and analyses the way tacit know-how is acquired and transferred within and between firms, before concluding with an investigation of the policy implications of tacit knowledge for technology transfer programmes.
WP15: The Competitive Selection of Democratic Firms in a World of Self-Sustaining Institutions
Ugo Pagano and Robert Rowthorn
Uses a simple mathematical model to explore the relationship between property rights and technology. The paper argues that causation flows in both directions, showing how this could explain the persistence of inefficient productive arrangements. Parallels are drawn with the biological theory of speciation.
WP14: Britain’s Industrial Performance since 1960: Underinvestment & Relative Decline
Michael Kitson and Jonathan Michie
Argues that Britain’s poor industrial performance, deindustrialisation and relative economic decline has continued since 1980 notwithstanding government policies, and that the key problem is underinvestment by manufacturing industry.
WP13: The Role of Manufacturing in the National Economy
Robert Rowthorn
No longer available to view
A major review of global manufacturing and structural economic change, focusing on changing trade relations between advanced and developing countries. Argues that a new international division of labour is emerging between ‘knowledge-intensive’ and ‘labour-intensive’ production of goods and services, and examines the problems, causes and policy implications of poor manufacturing performance and rising unemployment in advanced countries.
WP12: Manufacturing, the Balance of Payments & Capacity
Andy Cosh, Ken Coutts and Alan Hughes
Argues that the restoration of full employment in Britain requires a sustained improvement in manufacturing capacity and output, and quantifies the levels of manufacturing investment, output growth and net exports needed if unemployment is to be reduced without persistent external deficits.
WP11: Korea at the Cross-Roads
Robert Rowthorn
No longer available to view
Reviews key processes of Korean economic change such as agricultural employment decline, rising wage costs, and growth of overseas investment by major firms, and examines the industrial policy options confronting the Korean economy in the 1990s.
WP10: Contracts, Cooperation & Trust: The Role of the Institutional Framework
Simon Deakin and Frank Wilkinson
Examines the nature of contractual cooperation between firms in vertical supply chains, and argues that institutional mechanisms which foster ‘trust’ between firms, including arrangements commonly condemned as collusive or restrictive, may in fact have important efficiency-enhancing effects.
WP9: A Simulation Model of North-South Trade
Robert Rowthorn
Uses a three-sector, two-labour-category general equilibrium simulation model of North-South trade to explore relationships between production, trade and employment in more developed and less developed economies. Results have significant implications for understanding North-South trends in skilled and unskilled employment and wages.
WP8: On the Size Distribution of Establishments of Large Enterprises: An Analysis for UK Manufacturing
Paul Kattuman
Uses a maximum entropy method to derive a null hypothesis on the nature of the intra-enterprise, establishment size distribution for large UK manufacturing enterprises, in aggregate and by two-digit sector, and shows that the degree of concentration of this size distribution determines the variance of the distribution of growth rates of the enterprise.
WP7: Capital Formation & Unemployment
Robert Rowthorn
No longer available to view
Examines the relationship between capital stock and investment, on the one hand, and employment and unemployment, on the other, both theoretically and using empirical evidence for OECD countries. It argues that low capital investment, especially in manufacturing, has been a significant factor in the rise of unemployment in Europe.
WP6: Growth-oriented SMEs in Unfavourable Regional Environments
Peter Vaessen and David Keeble
No longer available to view
An investigation of business performance, innovation, competition, R&D, and labour force characteristics in small and medium sized enterprises in “unfavourable” regional environments of northern Britain, relative to firms in south-east England, based on analysis of the Cambridge SBRC national SME survey.
WP5: Risk, Trust & Power: The Social Constitution of Supplier Relations in Britain & Germany
Christel Lane and Reinhard Bachmann
No longer available to view
Analyses the concepts of trust, risk and power in inter-firm relationships, and reports empirical research in Britain and Germany on trust-based relations between buyer and supplier firms in selected manufacturing industries.
WP4: Enterprising Behaviour & the Urban-Rural Shift
David Keeble and Peter Tyler
Presents new survey evidence on the nature and causes of urban-rural differences in business creation and growth in Britain, and develops a theory of enterprising behaviour to explain the urban-rural shift of business activity.
WP3: Employment in the United Kingdom: Trends & Prospects
Ken Coutts and Bob Rowthorn
No longer available to view
An examination of recent trends in the UK labour market with particular reference to diversity and inequality resulting from unemployment and low-quality jobs. The paper also considers likely future trends and policy measures to improve job creation.
WP2: Seedcorn or Chaff? Unemployment & Small Firm Performance
Michael Kitson
Analyses the impact of unemployment on the creation and growth of small and medium sized firms in Britain, and concludes that there is no difference in growth performance between firms established by unemployed and employed founders.
WP1: Management Consultancy in Europe
David Keeble and Joachim Schwalbach
Reviews the growth, size distribution and market structure of management consultancy businesses in Europe, with a detailed case study of small management consultancy creation and dynamics in the UK.