Recent government statistics highlight an imbalance between the employment rate of the creative industries and its Gross Value Added contribution to the UK economy. This necessitates investigation in order to explore how creative industry organisations could potentially improve the efficiency of their creative/business outputs and generate more economic value for the creative and UK economies. This thesis therefore provides an exploratory examination of how user-centric innovation (UCI) is affecting the development of business model (BM) typologies for a critical area of the creative industries - music industry stakeholders. The thesis begins with a review of creative industry literature sources and a pilot study with four creative industry research expelis. The research context for the PhD study is explained and the research perspective is identified as BM innovations. The succeeding literature reviews reveal gaps in research/knowledge relating to the component relationships of BM typologies and ucr is identified as the research focus of the study. Additional literature reviews result in the development of a research framework for UCI and identify a lack of research within the context of music industry BM typologies relating to finance, marketing and production. The methodology of the study incorporates a three-stage, qualitative, semi-structured interview design that includes within-method data triangulation. Fifty seven interviews are conducted with senior managers of UCI music companies, artist management firms, live sector organisations and major record labels. A four-phase constant comparison analysis framework is developed to analyse the results. The subsequent analysis and conclusions provide new insights into the effects of UCI on the BM typologies of industry stakeholders, the crossover implications across these typologies and stakeholders, the approaches they are taking towards user-centric 8M typologies and what future adaptation strategies they should implement. Finally, implications of the findings to theory, knowledge, industry and policy are presented, and directions for future research are proposed.

This study is an empirical comparison between statistically recorded and unrecorded garment establishments in Shubra El-Kheima. The comparison covers three main areas: labour, marketing channels and forms of cooperation between establishments. Within the area of labour, our findings suggest, firstly, that there are no significant differences in wages, working conditions and secondary terms of employment between workers in recorded and unrecorded establishments. Secondly, that both types of establishments recruit most of their labour from the same pool. And thirdly that differences in the technology used in the production process are limited. These findings challenge some of the assumptions of dual labour market theories. In the area of marketing channels our findings suggest that there are significant differences between the unrecorded and the recorded establishments. The two kinds of establishments rely on different kinds of cloth and use different markets for dissemination. In both cases there was no evidence of links to export markets. These findings suggest that the two types of establishments are part of two different and distinct commodity chains. The unrecorded establishments are linked to a global commodity chain through imported cloth and import competition. The recorded establishments are part of a local commodity chain linking the large textile mills and local retail. In the area of cooperation, our findings suggest that there is a significant level of horizontal cooperation between the unrecorded establishments. This type of cooperation was found to be lacking in the case of the recorded establishments. The findings also suggest that although Shubra El-Kheima has a concentration of firms at each stage of the textile and garment industry, there are no backward linkages between the private garment producers and the local textile industry. Finally, our findings suggest that a combination of intense import competition coupled with policy restrictions on legally imported cloth, have prevented the emergence of an industrial cluster in Shubra El-Kheima, with the varieties of vertical and horizontal cooperation associated with successful clusters in other developing cities.

Trust lies at the heart of relationships. On the one hand, organizational trust is a crucial source of competitive advantage for family firms hence the initial trust embedded in the firm shapes interaction between the family and business systems. On the other hand, familiness has become widely accepted as the appropriate construct representing the unique bundle of resources arising out of family involvement in business. However, we do " not fully understand the nature of trust, the types of familiness or the conditions that give rise to them, their impact on the firm's entrepreneurial activity as well as the firm's performance. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore organizational trust and familiness construct, and its role in perpetuating entrepreneurial activity to achieve nonfinancial performance objectives across multiple generations of family businesses in Nigeria. The exploratory nature of this study permits us to use in-depth qualitative case studies. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews, observation and secondary documents from six (6) multigenerational family firms in Nigeria. NVivo assisted with the coding and analysis of data, identifying themes, patterns and comparing within and across case analysis. The empirical finding of this study is threefold. Firstly, we identified resource dimensions that constitute the nature of: Organisational Trust (communication, experience, reward, commitment, openness, meetings); Familiness (relationships, networks, leadership, culture, learning, decision making, research & development, experience, commitment, shared Vision/goals, location, distribution channels, family funding, non-family funding); Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) (pro-activeness, risk taking, autonomy, competitive aggressiveness, innovativeness); and, Non-Financial Performance (growth, continuity, customer satisfaction, market share/position, philanthropy, workforce, legacy). Secondly, we identified a symbiotic relationship ,between: organisational trust and EO; organisational trust and familiness; organisational trust and non-financial performance; familiness and EO; familiness and non-financial performance; EO and non-financial performance. Thirdly, we identified that family generation plays a moderating role in the symbiotic relationship between organisational trust and EO; and between familiness and EO. In summary, the study contributes to theory (better understanding of the studied constructs) practice (valuable information for family business owners/managers) and education (curriculum).

This thesis explores the idea that economic evolution is a process of self-transformation over time, in which the source of endogenous growth is structural change in economic activities. Structural change is seen as the core factor encouraging economic evolution, via a creative destruction process. The evolutionary approach is an attempt to explain this continual self-transformation of the economy reflecting the fact that capitalist economies are never in equilibrium. This research contends productivity growth is the main cause of structural change that explains the endogenous process of self-development and growth in the Mexican economy. Thus, the main research question concerned how to explain the process of productivity growth driven structural change that endogenously selftransformed the Mexican economy. This research confirms that the Mexican economy is self-transforming and that the key sector in this self-transformation is manufacturing. The Mexican economy is characterized by diversity of productivity growth experience across its manufacturing sector. In effect, Mexican manufacturers exhibit independent behaviour. As the Mexican economy has never been in equilibrium, the neo-classical notion of equilibrium has been avoided because it is an unsuitable theoretical structure in explaining how the Mexican economy evolved over time. An alternative to the production function approach is required - one that is coherent with the evolutionary perspective based on nonaggregate components and yet operates at the industrial level. Fabricant's productivity laws, provide a suitable framework for explaining how manufacturing labour productivity makes the economy self-transform. Fabricant's second productivity law suggests that there is a positive correlation between the growth of labour productivity and the growth of output [gl = al + bl g]. This is the core relation explaining self-transformation, because it is a different form of production relationship. Metcalfe et al (2002) derived the same correlation, however from a technical progress function perspective. In essence, every individual sector makes a contribution to overall productivity growth in which individual productivity growth rates are economically independent due to inherent manufacturing heterogeneity within the economic structure. This framework supports the idea of a mesolevel of economic growth far better than the macroeconomic approach. This thesis concludes that the technical progress function emanating from the work of Fabricant and Metcalfe et al. explains the dynamic diversity in labour productivity growth across Mexican manufacturing sub-sectors, whilst illustrating how a change in State economic policy influenced structural change in manufacturing diversity. 11

This thesis investigates trust in companies. Some authors have proposed trust as the explanatory variable for organisational performance. The thesis starts with an overview of how the notion of trust, as an essentially personal phenomenon in Medieval Christianity at the beginning of the millennium, became secularised in early sociology in the first half and economised in the second half of our century. After a literature review, this thesis goes on to show that authors from different social disciplines describe trust in the language and using instruments of social psychology. More specifically, they use the language and instruments of the construct known as `attitude'. The thesis defines trust as attitude: as a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour. In the empirical part of the thesis hypotheses on the communicative antecedents of trust toward a company in a population and the consequence of trust for organisational performance are tested on time series data for three companies: British Airways, Shell and The Post Office. Hypotheses establishing functional relationships between media exposure, media favourability, awareness and trust on one side, and between trust and organisational performance on the other side are rejected. In the final chapter results are discussed and four major conclusions are suggested. First, that trust in and around organisations can not account for organisational functional performance, but for organisational contextual performance, which refers to what people do to environments affecting organisational task performance. Second, communication has amplifying effects on trust, but is irrelevant as far as the direction of the trust term is concerned; units of communication have different weights, and thematic analysis is needed to capture it. Thirdly, trust is a multidimensional concept that is composed of the subject's functional components (utilitarian, value-expressive, ego-defensive and knowledge functions) and the trust-object's functional components (ability, capability and willingness). Fourthly, when measuring trust, the principles of aggregation and compatibility developed in the attitude research field need to be respected.

The competition and challenges facing construction enterprises during the recent recession have brought risk management to the forefront of SMEs' agenda. Enterprises risk management has been extensively addressed in standards and guidelines; however, none of those has explained the fundamental principles of applying the process to the situation that SMEs could adapt themselves to. Evidence indicated that the required amount of resources to support risk management implementation and its continued application are unrealistic for SMEs and beyond their capability and affordability. There is a small number of empirical research in the area of risk management for small and medium-sized organisations. Most studies addressed risk management practices in large enterprises with less attention to SMEs. In order to facilitate risk management implementation ID SMEs in the UK construction industry, in this study an explanatory mixed method was adopted to discuss risk management issues from the organisational perspective. A total of 453 usable postal questionnaires were received and 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted: to identify the key difficulties associated with implementation and practice of risk management; to evaluate the degree of SMEs' awareness of the risk management tools and techniques; and to assess the nature of the training provisions that will be of benefit to SMEs with regard to their risk management process. Results achieved from the study identified the need for a framework for scaling risk management. The Scaling Risk Management (SRM) framework was developed to support SMEs to recognise the importance of risk management, key difficulties in risk management implementation, and how to adjust risk management processes and allocate resources within the organisational capability. This framework was designed based on the Kolb's learning cycle. The SRM framework was validated by senior training advisors from the National Construction College of Scotland (CITB) and SMEs within a workshop. The study recommends that risk management needs to be connected to organisational business plan through the scaling risk management process. Results achieved from the study identified the need for a framework for scaling risk management. The Scaling Risk Management (SRM) framework was developed to support SMEs to recognise the importance of risk management, key difficulties in risk management implementation, and how to adjust risk management processes and allocate resources within the organisational capability. This framework was designed based on the Kolb's learning cycle. The SRM framework was validated by senior training advisors from the National Construction College of Scotland (CITB) and SMEs within a workshop. The study recommends that risk management needs to be connected to organisational business plan through the scaling risk management process.

Even though the adoption and implementation of innovation within the construction sector is an area that has attracted wide attention, gaps have been found in terms of the interface between innovation, construction sector and micro firms and the concept of clusters. Therefore the aim of this study is to focus on clustering as the way towards innovation, and to investigate what the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) are for the creation of a cluster within micro companies working in the construction sector within a specific context, Greece. To do this an explorative study was implemented adopting the Pragmatism approach and choosing for the research the mixed method approach. The research design was divided into three phases. The preliminary where the theoretical foundations of the conceptual framework has been set; the fieldwork where both structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews were used for data collection; and the modifications where the Conceptual Framework was refined to an Empirical one, within the specific context of the Greek construction industry. The findings of the research demonstrated that the Greek construction sector is mainly comprised by micro firms with less than five employees, and that such firms had interesting perspectives to innovation and clusters. In this regard, the results established that even though the Greek construction sector shared most of the evident CSFs, their importance was altered and more were added based on regional specificities and operating environment. Examining the original nineteen CSFs, clarifying them and resulting in thirty two CFSs for the construction sector in the Greek context is clearly one of the main contributions of this work. Therefore even though there is a number of contribution referred in this thesis's last chapter, this study's key contribution in terms of policy is by offering focused interventions to the local authorities; in terms of practice by presenting the Greek case study as an example for other European countries that share and faces similar challenges; and in terms of theory by introducing a framework based on the literature and refmed in practice linking CSFs for innovation adoption, clustering formation and the construction sector, under the scope of micro firms.

Saudi Arabia has a unique culture and society, which has influence on the way entrepreneurship is perceived and experienced. This study, one of the first to explore entrepreneurship within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has two overarching aims. The first aim is to explore the perceptions and experiences of male and female entrepreneurs and the second aim is to explore the attitudes and intentions of male and female employees towards entrepreneurship and new venture creation. In exploring both the experiences of entrepreneurs and the attitudes of employees, the study deployed two different research methodologies. Firstly, exploratory in depth interviews were conducted with ten Saudi Arabian entrepreneurs (five male and five female). This data, which was analysed inductively, provided insights into the behaviours and perspectives of each entrepreneur and, at the same time, observations were conducted on the entrepreneurs themselves and their organizations. Secondly, Saudi Arabian employees were surveyed to elicit their attitudes and intentions towards entrepreneurship and new venture creation. Using stratified sampling, 410 usable questionnaire responses were received (205 women and 205 men). Results suggest that Saudi Arabian entrepreneurs exhibit similar motivations to those of entrepreneurs in other countries' contexts; however, their perceived obstacles included a culturally specific issue, the 'Saudization' of the workforce. Female entrepreneurs were additionally concerned about losing their money, being afraid of society, and feeling insecure. These reasons may partially explain why wealthy and well educated Saudi women tend to leave their wealth in banks rather than investing in business ownership. Among both men and women, there was a sense of confusion about matters of regulation and legality; women entrepreneurs, in particular, were unaware of their legal rights and were bound by social convention. The survey of Saudi Arabian employees suggested that men tended to have a greater interest in entrepreneurship and more often wanted to quit their job in order to start a business. Male employees also had greater levels of self-efficacy towards starting a business, confidence in performing effectively as entrepreneurs and being sufficiently responsible to be their own boss. By studying both men and women and entrepreneurs and employees, the study provides new empirical and comparative evidence drawn from diverse parts of Saudi society. In so doing, the study contributes new knowledge with regards to how Saudi Arabian society, culture, policies and the economy influence attitudes, perceptions and experiences of entrepreneurship.

No description available.

China has witnessed a proliferation in the number of non-profits over the past two decades. As the ‘third sector’ that sits between the government, on the one hand, and commercial/for-profits, on the other, non-profit organisations have helped generate revenue for the Chinese Government, increased the number of jobs in this sector and delivered a wide variety of essential services. Notwithstanding these benefits, however, non-profits in China are unlikely to fulfil the increased social, economic or cultural expectations placed upon them, unless their own governance and infrastructure mechanisms are efficient, functional and well-designed. This throws up important and difficult questions about the role (and design) of board governance for non-profits in modern China. To answer these questions, the thesis seeks to develop an account of what contribution a board can make to the effective governance of non-profits in China, and how certain features of a board might be designed to achieve that. However, whilst the UK benefits from an abundance of academic literature, and regulatory experience, addressing non-profit governance, the Chinese non-profit sector, by contrast, has given such governance much less attention. Hence, this work provides a comparative study on non-profit board governance, drawing on the UK’s richer literature, thought and history in order to analyse better the challenges which China presents. Within this comparison, a number of social and political characteristics will be emphasised which distinguish the Chinese non-profit sector from that of the UK. Of crucial importance here is the interplay between board governance and social determinants in the Chinese context, especially the relationship between the sector and the Chinese Government. In short, then, the overarching goal of my thesis is to develop a blueprint for an effective board for non-profits, which can be adapted to the distinctive characteristics of the Chinese non-profit sector, and against which current board regulatory requirements in China can be measured.