Sustainability is a concept that continues to evolve and perplex in tourism, one of the world’s largest industries. Effective new theories and practices are constantly explored to incorporate the three pillars of sustainability (economic, socio-cultural and environmental) into tourism frameworks. Although marginally successful, sustainable tourism development remains a much criticised concept due to its lack of consistent implementation and conceptual and practical difficulties. In comparison, due to their focus on participation processes, integration of resources and response to specific needs and contexts, ecomuseological principles can be very useful for the development of community-based sustainable tourism products. These principles can be recognized within the philosophy and practices that tend to characterise individual ecomuseums and can be viewed as the key values of the ecomuseum ideal. This research project examines the potential of using the principles of ecomuseology to support sustainable tourism development. In particular, the research adopted a mixed-methods approach which analysed the potential of using these principles for supporting sustainable tourism development in the Rupununi, an isolated and heritage-rich region in central Guyana. The data collection process involved a mixture of literature reviews, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with a variety of local, national and international stakeholders. The primary goal in data collection was to construct a profile of the Rupununi tourism structure to identify and evaluate areas in which ecomuseological principles would be best suited to provide support. The findings from this research suggest that the principles of ecomuseology possess considerable potential to support sustainable tourism development in the Rupununi and potentially other destinations internationally. Indeed, results demonstrated that several of these principles were already being implemented by stakeholders in the region, although the term ‘ecomuseum’ is not being used anywhere by stakeholders. However, many principles are decidedly underused while the Rupununi is currently experiencing a significant shift in its relationship with the ‘outside’ world where societal changes are already affecting local economic development, heritage resources and host communities. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that ecomuseology presents a flexible framework that can be used to address these changes and dually support heritage management and iii economic development in the region. However, adopting the ecomuseum name is not recommended as a way forward for Rupununi stakeholders to improve sustainability. Instead, incorporating particular ecomuseological principles including a holistic approach to interpretation and information sharing, placing equal attention on cultural and natural resources and monitoring the changes to the region over time can support the three pillars of sustainability in the region. Lastly, this research demonstrated that these principles can be applicable to sustainable tourism development in many developing world contexts. However, the researcher argues that the theoretical framework for ecomuseums needs to be re-considered before it can be fully adopted in the lesser developed countries. This dissertation concludes by addressing this and other areas in need of further research while outlining the future of Rupununi tourism.

German municipal electricity utilities (MEU) have in recent years seized the chance to access the broad band services market through different kinds of cooperation models in order to try to open up new business opportunities and thus offset profit reductions in their native markets. As these companies did not enter this new market afresh, but brought existing organisations, processes and business networks affected by their "native market conditions" with them, they have been confronted with major challenges regarding a structured transformation approach. This paper examines these organisations' efforts to transition to the new market environment of broad band services by developing a holistic business model framework that can be used as a corresponding transformation tool. The lack of such frameworks in the literature makes this research project especially relevant both for academics and practitioners. Framed in a constructivist research paradigm and guided by Grounded Theory as research strategy, this qualitative research project rested on two thematic pillars: business network and business model theory. The overall analysis was supported by an extensive collection of data in the empirical phase which comprised 25 in-depth interviews, covering two case studies from the German broadband services industry.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate a particular form of cultural production; the creation of musical product, the pop song. Previous accounts have been dominated by casting the process as one of transmission in which the music of the artists is captured in a recording and the resulting object is released into the market. I argue that this portrayal of cultural production as a pipeline directs attention towards activities at either end: the recruitment of talented artists and the distribution and promotional efforts of the record companies. What happens in the ‘pipe’, how the product is created, is concealed, explained away by reference to stylised notions of technological and economic forces and the operation of unknowable creative talent. To open up this ‘black box’, an approach not previously applied to popular music production is used, actor-network theory. This thesis traces the formation and performance of moments in the production of musical product: songwriting, recording, mixing, mastering and live performance. Tracing the production of music is carried out through analysis of interviews conducted with the protagonists, the producers, engineers, studio managers and artists, and is supported by observation of studio sessions. The principal argument that I develop in the thesis is that musical product is not a discrete ‘thing’ to be diffused, but a networked entity indissociable from the roles and identities, qualities and practices of others that constitute and perform the production, reproduction and consumption of popular music. Accordingly in this thesis musical product is revealed as an achievement, not an a priori fact, and I examine how its constructed qualities are stabilised and shape the network of production and consumption. Following the construction of these qualities reveals how the various interests of the protagonists are translated through their enrolment in practices and systems of calculation into relational arrangements that perform the power of the producer. The contribution of this research lies not just in making visible what has previously been obscured, but also in the way that it illustrates the value in analysing organised activity as a performative association of relationally constructed roles, objects, and qualities, of, in this case, the musical product, colloquially known as ‘a pop song’.

This project examines the ways in which commodification and identity work in the particular context of world music production. I trace the path of world music of West African origin as it connects different people, ideas, and objectives in the London world music scene. I look at how commodification occurs in this context and the implications for how identity gets (re)-constructed during the commodification processes to suit a variety of individual needs. The paper empirically examines some theoretical assumptions about space, representation, and commodification by problematizing them as three key aspects of this production/consumption process. Lastly, the thesis shows how performance spaces become spaces of performance through the interactions of various social actors, namely, the musicians, promoters, and DJs and that world music is a site of struggle over representation. Drawing on ethnographic approaches used in the fieldwork, I demonstrate the relationship that relatively small players in the local world music scene maintain with the larger structural forces that control the industry. In doing so they create value for the art and for themselves. The thesis is an effort to understand the ways in which identity can shift and is relational with respect to space and power. It contributes to literature on geography and music, music and identity, and commodification.

This thesis presents an overview of a selection of previously published works from 1994-2003. It focuses on the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the hospitality and tourism sector, with particular reference to small and medium-sized hospitality enterprises. It specifically evaluates the critical internal and external factors that influence the diffusion of ICTs in this sector. The first chapter introduces the overall research question, the publisher works and the models that are used to guide the progress of this thesis and its structure. It reveals the phases of investigation throughout the research period and provides a framework for the following chapter, which reviews the published works. The second chapter presents a review of the selected publications in the context of a contemporaneous literature review that starts from a baseline of Gamble’s 1984 model of diffusion. It builds towards populating a new model that takes into account the emerging internal and external factors that emerge not only from these works, but also from other sources that impact on this sector over the research period. The third chapter outlines the research process using a timeline model and provides a critical review of that process in terms of the methodologies used in the phases of the research. It highlights and justifies the pluralistic, pragmatic approach adopted and concludes with a review and reflection on the methodologies chosen. The final chapter evaluates the contribution to knowledge and highlights the empirical evidence in the new model that has emerged as a result of this thesis. It considers the direction of future research and reflects on the overall thesis.

Triple Bottom Line Sustainability (TBLS), i.e. the balancing of economic, social and environmental agendas, is being increasingly used as a framework for sustainable tourism development, especially in rural areas. However, the conflicting priorities of different stakeholders and the different emphases of governmental policies pose major challenges to its achievement. This thesis presents a case study demonstrating issues of stakeholder empowerment in relation to TBLS in relation to the Bluestone development in west Wales - a major holiday village is aiming to create a leading UK short-break destination and to deliver sustainable tourism. A major problem relates to half of the development being inside the National Park with the other half outside the National Park. Accordingly, two planning authorities were involved in granting planning permission to the development. The case for Bluestone emphasised the provision of 600 jobs - a promise which achieved a significant contribution (£16.5M) from the public purse before planning permission for building inside the National Park was granted. This thesis explores the issue of stakeholder empowerment as illustrated through the Bluestone case study which involves a range of stakeholders (the developers, local and national government, the community, lobby groups). The research used stakeholder analysis and a Venn diagram of TBL to identify the various stakeholders' approaches and foci on different aspects of the TBL. Discourse Analysis (DA) was used and the case study was developed using document analysis, in-depth convergent and semi-structured interviews, archival records, direct observation to collect data about the priorities of different stakeholders in relation to this development. The thesis concludes that TBLS is rhetoric not reality and can only be considered a guiding fiction. When forced to select between the different aspects of the TBL, this case study demonstrates that it is the economy not the social and environmental agendas that win.

This interpretivist study investigates the case for health/spa tourism as a driver for economic regeneration in Powys, Wales as a sustainable and competitive health/spa tourism destination to answer the following questions. What are the essential ingredients for a sustainable and competitive health/spa tourism destination? What is best practice in implementing major public-private partnership projects? Has Powys got the basic ingredients for a competitive health/spa tourism destination? What would a blueprint for health/spa tourism in Powys look like? What actions would be required of key stakeholders to achieve it? The thesis presents a critical review of literature on destination development, biomedical and bio-psychological models of illness and their relationship to traditional and modern spa practices and stakeholder theory to develop a theoretical framework for a sustainable and competitive health/spa tourism destination. The research adopts a case study methodology involving data collection through semi-structured and unstructured interviews, document and archival analysis, and direct observation. Data collection comprised three key phases. The first phase involved four French case studies - three - Vichy, La Bourboule, Châtel-Guyon - in the Auvergne and the fourth - Saint Malo in Brittany - to determine the applicability of the theoretical framework. The second phase of data collection involved a case study of Bath Spa to explore best practice in implementing major public-private partnerships for economic regeneration. The third phase provided an audit of selected resources in Powys against the framework to determine the feasibility of health/spa tourism as a focus for economic development. The thesis concludes that health/spa tourism would provide an appropriate development path for economic development in Powys and develops a set of recommendations from the best practice case studies into a blueprint for health/spa tourism in Powys and action plan identifying responsibilities for key public and private sector stakeholders in implementation of the blueprint.

This research is the first of its kind in not only reviewing how the UK food packaging industry introduced a voluntary code of practice for packaging hygiene but also in developing a set of guiding principles for companies to adopt it. Given the context of operating within the food supply where hygiene remains paramount, the challenge for the food packaging industry in the UK was to meet the high hygiene expectations of the food manufacturers and retailers. Prior to the Global Packaging Hygiene Standard, many audits were carried out by food manufacturer and retailer visits measuring against their own individual hygiene criteria. The food and packaging manufacturers spent a great deal of time and money preparing for each audit. They were also faced with rising costs caused by the need to audit a global supply chain. The need for a universal hygiene standard for food packaging was escalated by these rising costs and the need to demonstrate and defend the process in place, beyond reasonable doubt for the food packaging hygiene risk. The BRC (British Retail Consortium), an association representing the British retailer, had already used a working group method for the development of a common UK food hygiene standard (BRC Food standard). It was therefore a logical extension of this to also address the quality and hygiene levels of the packaging being used in food manufacture, storage and distribution. The first universal Global food packaging hygiene standard was launched together with the Institute of Packaging (the UK Packaging Association) in 2001 (BRC & IOP, 2001). The key principles for a model of compliance for companies seeking to adopt this standard are achieved through a variety of research methods: - surveys, audit reports and case studies. Two specific models are used to determine the readiness and evolution of the culture of selected paper and board companies, in implementing this standard. The models used are Cameron and Quinn's competing values framework and Kotter's eight stages of implementation. This research brings together the food and packaging industry, in demonstrating how collaboration throughout the supply chain can provide an effective system for self regulation as well as: - • providing guidelines for other sectors/industries developing self regulatory standards. These will aid other sectors also having to develop voluntary standards to comply with government regulations. • establishing key principles for a model of compliance for packaging companies based on the BRC/IOP Global Packaging standard. These principles will support the required growth of the Global Packaging standard worldwide.

This essay analyses some of the more important incidents which make up the economic history of the Lancashire cotton industry during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and more particularly of the intervening years between 1873 and 1896, the period which long since assumed the title of the "Great Depression". The work is divided into two Parts; in Part I we shall begin by examining the changes in the pattern of overseas trade in Lancashire cotton" textiles between 1873 and 1896, followed by an analysis of the fall in wholesale market prices for cotton. textiles and changes in 'mill margins' (not profit margins. the difference between the two being made abundantly clear in the written text) for the Lancashire producers, which occurred during the same period. It appears - as part of the conclusions to this section of 'the work - that foreign competition to the export of United Kingdom cotton goods increased in intensity during the last quarter of the nineteenth , century, proving detrimental to the export opportunities for the United Kingdom cotton industry. Market opportunities were especially curtailed to the United Kingdom industry where the development of foreign textile industries was favourably assisted by the raising of tariff levels, or by some other form of restriction upon the free import of cotton .textiles •. Total quantities of United Kingdom yarn exports declined steadily after 1886, whilst the pace of expansion for United Kingdom piece good exports was severely curtailed compared with previous experience.However, foreign competition was intense only in those overseas markets where 'home' textile industries were growing rapidly in size and more pronounced among the coarse quality yarns or fabrics. As a result, and beyond the total quantity figures, considerable and important re-adjustments were taking place in the detailed regional distribution and in the quality of cotton textiles exported from the .United Kingdom. Lancashire producers and exporters began developing sales to overseas markets where the degree of competition from 'home' textile producers was less intense than elsewhere, and they concentrated increasingly upon the production of the finer and medium quality goods at the expense of the coarse quality goods. This latter re-adjustment particularly, had profound effects upon the wages and conditions of work for cotton operatives in the Lancashire mills. The second set of conclusions involves the changes in prices of cotton textile commodities after 1873. prices of all raw cotton qualities, yarn and cloth goods fell heavily after 1873 - although the pace of each separate price decline was different for each set of commodities; raw cotton prices, for instance, fell by more than fifty per cent. between 1873 and 1896, yarn prices fell less heavily, and cloth prices least of all.As regards mill margins per pound of yarn spun or per square yard of cloth produced ,the spinners and coarse cloth manufacturers suffered a noticeable reduction in their margins during the period 1873-1896 whether the fall be expressed in money or in real terms; ,the manufacturers producing the fine or medium quality goods· experienced only a slight fall. in the money level ,of their margins, and in real terms they were actually increased. The second Part of the essay examines some. of the tensions which were exerted within the Lancashire cotton industry by these changes in foreign market conditions and the fall in cotton textile prices after 1873; first, upon the business fortunes of four Public Companies in the Oldham cotton spinning industry, then upon the outlook of Lancashire businessmen meeting together in the Manchester Chamber of Commerce,- toward the problems of growing foreign competition and increasing restrictions upon international trade in cotton goods, and finally, to the bulk of this section, the effects of changing market conditions for cotton textiles upon the relationships of the employers with the employed in both the spinning and "leaving sections of the cotton industry. Finally, after elaborating the protracted joint negotiations between employers and union representatives in both the spinning and weaving industries which took place after 1873, the necessary conclusion is to discover how these negotiations and the Wage Agreements which often arose from them, affected the level of money earnings for the different sets of cotton workers. Thus the final Chapter of Part II will be concerned with tracing the changes in the level of wage rates and earnings for workpeop1e engaged in both the spinning and weaving sections of the cotton industry during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Each of these separate Chapters in Part II has been built up from original Manuscript sources - Company Balance Sheets, Employers' Association Minute Books, Trade Union Reports, Chamber of Commerce Proceedings, and similarly' important primary source materials. The broad conclusions derived from the different Chapter Studies have been gathered together in a final Chapter entitled "General Summary and Conclusions", and it is not intended here to - further embark upon their detailed content.

This thesis constitutes an empirical critique of neoclassical economic theory as applied to the study of commodity markets. It is argued that the liberalisation of coffee marketing systems in producing countries, the collapse of the International Coffee Agreements, and the consequent restructuring of international coffee markets has had profound effects on the relationship between futures and physical markets for commodities in the context of liberalised capital flows and a world economy increasingly shaped by finance. Using evidence from the New York Coffee Exchange on trading activities and futures prices, together with a study of price formation and price risk management practices along coffee chains in Tanzania and Uganda, this thesis refutes the neoclassical assertions that futures markets facilitate efficient price discovery, that futures markets reduce price risks by providing effective hedging instruments and by stabilising prices, and that liberalisation enhances market integration and efficient price transmission along the chain. It is shown that the liberalisation of coffee markets and an emphasis on the wide spread use of hedging instruments for price risk management has facilitated their financialisation rather than enhancing their efficiency. Prices have increasingly been formed on the basis of supply and demand for coffee derivatives that has become in many ways divorced from the supply and demand for physical coffee. The ability for certain large coffee traders to derive enormous incomes from their engagement in derivatives trading to the exclusion of the majority of coffee chain actors in producing countries from engaging in such activities has serious implications in terms of the exacerbation of international inequalities along international supply chains.