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This thesis explores how service orientation can be developed in public sector settings, particularly through the management of customer feedback, in order to enhance service performance. This was seen as critical as public sector organisations have been experiencing increasing pressure to ameliorate services. However, little research has been conducted to understand how public management can achieve this objective. The research involved a literature review on service orientation, customer feedback in services and public sector management. The fieldwork which was undertaken at Scottish Enterprise included interviews with 18 members of senior management across the organisation's network, as well as an online survey of all business customer facing employees (322). The responses from 203 employees (63% response rate) were analysed in SPSS and AMOS. The findings suggest that there is a strong service orientation discrepancy in public sector organisations: while employees have a genui ne desire to deliver effective services to the public, management practices introduced to address the Modernising Government agenda may act as counterproductive in the development of organisational service orientation as they mainly focus on efficiency savings. However, organisational service orientation is critical as it seems to mediate the link between service performance and job satisfaction. One of the management practices impacting positively on organisational service orientation is the management of customer feedback. Directly gathered customer feedback at a business unit level is perceived as being more meaningful than customer feedback collected through national survey initiatives, as it helps to improve services and to motivate employees. Moreover, particularly interactive channels to communicate customer feedback are effective as they allow for the simultaneous analysis of the data and employee involvement in action planning. More research is necessary to understand how business unit management can be supported in the development of organisational service orientation within complex public sector settings.

This thesis is a study of the political relationships between Britain and the three Scandinavian countries within the European Free Trade Association, 1960 to 1968. The particular relevance of studying these four countries within this context will be explained in the Introduction. However, some definitional notes are needed at this early stage. I have taken "Scandinavia" to cover Denmark, Norway and Sweden. When Finland is included, this will be specifically stated but the study as a whole does not cover this country---it is only brought in when it affects the relationships between the other Scandinavian states and the United Kingdom. She "Nordic countries" include not only the three Scandinavian states but also Finland and Iceland, although in general usage the terra often excludes one or both of these countries. I will try to make clear which lands are covered by this term either by specifically stating them or by the context. Whilst the distinction between the terms "Nordic states" and "Scandinavia" as adopted here is useful, I found that within Scandinavia, it was often blurred or non-existent. This leads on to a more definite misuse of terms. In some of the speeches made by Scandinavian or continental politicians, the United Kingdom is referred to as 'England'. This will be allowed to pass without any further comment or 'sic' annotations. 1968 has been chosen as the limiting date for the study for several reasons, it allows coverage of the first two applications by the United Kingdom for membership negotiations with the E.E.C., the major internal crisis in BFTA---Britain's a surcharge on industrial imports in 1964, and the completion of industrial free trade within EFTA at the end of 1966. It also permits some comment on the problems facing EFTA after December 1966. As this includes issues that were not always resolved by the end of 1968, then in such cases I have not been bound by the limitation of the title. After the introduction, the thesis is divided into five sections. The first section covers the economic aspects of EFTA which, will be referred to throughout the thesis. It covers not only the economic development of poet 2nd World War Western Europe, hut also, gives brief monographs of the development of the British and Scandinavian trading positions in this period. The second section is introductory and attempts to build up the stage on which the four countries acted out their parts in EFTA's history. Chapter 2 deals with the situation in Western Europe from 1945 until the early 1950's, paying special attention to British attitudes towards European integration efforts and the various European institutions created during this time, Chapter 3 gives an outline of Scandinavian history with particular reference to attempts at closer co-operation between the three countries and the reasons why some of 'these efforts failed'. This chapter covers the Scandinavian reaction to events on the continent of Europe in the half decade after the last war and their own further attempts at working together on the international scene. The third sector deals with the immediate pre-history of the events leading to the formation of the European Free Trade Association. EFTA was not created in a vacuum but was the result of long negotiations for a wider free trade area (Chapter 4-) which led to the establishment of the "Maudling Committee" of O.E.E.C. (Chapter 5) and finally to the division of Western Europe between the Six Community countries and the seven members of EFTA. The main, section of the work Is devoted to the working of EFTA from. 1960 to 1968 and, in this context, the relationship of the Scandinavian states and Britain during the period. As it happens, a historical division of EFTA's existence can also be typified by the major events therein. After the agreement on the Stockholm Convention which led to the establishment of EFTA (Chapter 7), and the first year of EFTA's life (Chapter 8), Chapter 9 covers the 1961-3 period during which many of the EFTA states started negotiations with the SEC and Chapter 16 deals with the EFTA members' response to the breakdown of these negotiations. The following chapter discusses the period from October 1964 when the United Kingdom created a crisis of confidence within the organisation by attempts to solve her balance of payments problems, This particular episode was weathered and finally the Association began functioning in 1967 as a fully fledged industrial free trade area. But the achievement of Indus- trial-free trade did not solve the question of F.FEA members' relations with the EEC (Chapter 12) and it also highlighted certain problems connected with the relationship of the members amongst themselves (Chapter 13). The final part of the thesis is. the conclusion which includes a quantitative evaluation of the relationships of Britain and the Scandinavian members of EFTA, The appendix contains the Stockholm Convention and other relevant documents.

This thesis considers three food-centred spaces in London. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from sociology, geography, urban design and morphology, it explores the spatial and social transformation of the Borough Market, Broadway Market and Exmouth Market areas through the revival of their food markets. Using a mix of methods including interviews, observations, mapping and urban design analysis, the case study-based research situates these neighbourhoods along a continuum of food quarter development. The work reflects on the quarters not only as fast gentrifying locations in which renewal is grounded in new forms of conspicuous food consumption, but as places that also support changing - and potentially less alienating - relationships between sustainable urban form, urban design context and convivial social processes focused on food. It is argued that the aspatiality of much sociological research into foodscapes tends to underemphasise the connections between the physical and the social, which in the three food quarters are nuanced and complicated. On the one hand, food quarters are experienced by some, after Bourdieu (1984), as 'mini habituses' (Bridge, 2006) in which identity construction is linked to distinction based on food, and modelled on particular forms of food consumption. On the other hand, despite sometimes 'idealised narratives' (Butler, 2007) of community' formation, food quarters may also make a contribution to developing more sustainable cities, by supporting and nurturing convivial socio-spatial food practices that sometimes transcend commodification. In particular, the thesis explores how compact city design, founded on a strong sense of place, underpins local economic vitality, and informs the richness of experiences of food and eating. The thesis concludes that despite some gentrifying effects, the food quarters are in certain respects defying dominant spatialised trends evident in London, to develop in a more convivial, gastronomically rich and sustainable way.

This thesis is a study of the Korean retailing sector since the 1970s. It focuses on analysis of the three elements in retailing development - government, retailer and consumer - which engaged in a process of mutual interaction. It is used to address two main questions, namely why was the leading role of the department store in the Korean consumer market delayed, and why was its golden age both quite explosive and extremely short. The thesis argues that the emergence of modern retail formats in Korea was artificially delayed through consumption repression. It also argues that the explosive golden age of the department store industry was a result of the combination of two sets of behaviour: a strategic change by the department stores to focussing on necessities rather than luxuries; and the enthusiastic consumption attitude of consumers in response to previous consumption repression and consequent purchasing power. It shows that the short golden age of the department store industry was in addition closely related to the ownership structure of the big retail businesses which also owned other types of retail format. Companies made strategic decisions that led to the Korean department store sector moving back into the luxury market and giving the existing mass market up. The research also examined the application of the conflict theory of retail evolution to Korea, and the thesis argues that this theory is of limited applicability. Under Korean conditions of ownership, the evolution of retailing, particularly the department store format, was likely to depend not on competition and conflict between different types of retail format, but on mutual cooperation for the profit maximisation of the big retail businesses. The thesis also considers consumption as a criterion of equality or inequality, and argues that consumption should be regarded as a factor that had a huge effect on people's willingness to comply with the prevailing economic system.

China is the largest developing country in the world, and yet internationally comparable data about her economy is very scarce, to the detriment of our knowledge both of China and the Third World as a whole. This thesis attempts to piece together a crucial statistic, her terms of trade, from the 1930's when the last major Chinese series ends to the 1970's when CIA estimates become available. Because of the lack of Chinese data, the thesis constructs core unit value indexes for Sino- British trade from British returns,and subsequently adjusts the com¬ ponent weights to allow for the difference in composition between China's trade with Britain and her trade with the West. This necessitates the development of a specific methodology and the meticulous construction of the Sino-British indexes at a high level of disaggregation. Chapter One examines the available statistics and explains the strategy of using British data. Some of the problems of defining Sino- British trade, especially undeclared indirect trade via Hong Kong, are examined in Chapter Two, while Chapter Three describes the methodology and documents the structure of the sample (which incorporates some 600 commodities). Chapters Four and Five describe the intellectual and historical contexts in which the study is located. Chapters Six and Seven construct the core indexes, Chapter Eight examines the weighting modes used, Chapter Nine focuses on the 1930's and links the British indexes with the Chinese ones. Chapter Ten analyses the price movement of the components of Sino-British trade over the period and Chapter Eleven arrives at an estimate of China's terms of trade with the West and links up with the 1970's statistics, thus completing China's long-term terms of trade from 1867 to 1976. The investigation is extensively documented with some 1,000 pages of tables and figures.

This study contributes both theoretically and empirically to the understanding of workers' social consciousness and images of society. A major feature is the documentation and analysis of 80-in-depth interviews with maintenance craftsmen, steel melters and insurance workers in three locations in Central Scotland. Previous British and European research is examined and it is argued that the common hypothesis of a straightforward connection between social experience and social imagery remains unsupported by the majority of findings. There follows a detailed consideration of the theory of worker's consciousness to be found in the 'actionalist' sociology of A. Touraine and its particular advantage in viewing consciousness as a relation rather than an object is explained. A methodology for the investigation of social consciousness is developed so as to capture the ambiguities and inconsistencies in people's thinking about 'society' which the action theory predicts. The analysis of the interviews is presented in the framework of three theoretically-constructed elements of social consciousness: identity, opposition and totality. The steelworkers are the only group with a strongly occupational identity. The maintenance craftsmen have a measure of 'craft consciousness' but the clerical workers' consciousness of social relations within the firm and society at large is dominated by a 'systems' or totality view. The interpretation emphasises the effects of the long-term tendency towards fragmentation of work in industrial societies. The consequences for social action of these variations in social consciousness are studied in relation to trade union participation, styles of association, voting behaviour, etc. and an attempt is made to account for the relative absence of oppositional elements among the three groups. To conclude, this evidence is placed within a wider historical and social context. Contemporary tendencies in work and culture are examined in order to explain why social consciousness is not synonymous with class consciousness.

This thesis explores the scope, nature and form of relationship marketing in the hotel industry in Thailand. For the last twenty years, relationship marketing has attracted enormous interest from both academic researchers and business practitioners. However, the majority of research conducted in this area has been conducted in Western business environments (Palmer 2000). Theoretically, the aim of relationship marketing is to establish long-term relationships with customers and is subject to cultural specificities. While relationship marketing research may achieve encouraging results in Western business environments, its wider effectiveness in the context of Eastern culture remains unverified. This study thus aims to produce insightful results by carrying out relationship marketing research in Eastern business environments and within a specific cultural context - that of Thailand. This thesis investigates the influence of national culture on the development of relationship marketing and finds that specific aspects of Thai culture have a significant influence on the success of relationship marketing in the Thai hotel industry. In the context of Thai culture, 'relationship marketing' is interpreted as a long-term commitment to customers and all hotel business stakeholders, and it possesses certain cultural implications which differ substantially from Western business concepts. The findings from the research conducted in this study are based on the data collected from interviews which examined the individual attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and preferences of 41 respondents. Quantitative surveys were also conducted and targeted a larger group of 369 travellers from eighteen hotels in Bangkok. An extensive analysis of the data enabled the researcher to formulate a relationship marketing model for the Thai hotel industry in order to conceptualise customer-hotel relationships. The model combines relationship marketing theories with business practice in the hotel industry in Thailand. It contributes to the existing body of tourism and marketing literature by introducing nine relationship marketing elements: Thai personality, quality of service, personal attention, customer recognition, product improvement, creativity, trust and commitment, friendship, and social networks. These nine elements are considered to play a significant role in customer-hotel relationships and relationship marketing strategies, particularly in the maintenance of customer loyalty and the development of long-term relationships.

This thesis examines marketing and buying of legal services in the context of medium-sized companies from theoretical and empirical perspectives. The theoretical foundations for the market of legal services are laid by studying the particularities of services and their intrinsic challenges for marketing. Different ways to segment the legal market are examined, including client-led segmentation, which includes segmentation by client size, such as medium-sized companies. After studying the theoretical foundations of legal marketing, this thesis examines forces in the macro- and micro-environment responsible for driving or hindering the development of strategic marketing initiatives in law firms. Taking the standpoint of medium-sized companies as corporate buyers of legal services, the thesis also examines purchasing behaviour in the different stages of the organisational buying process. The empirical research considers both marketing and buying perspectives. Managing partners and marketing directors were interviewed regarding marketing in their organisations. The interviews covered such matters as marketing organisation, marketing information, policies, as well as strategies and tactics. Mirroring the literature review, the purchasing behaviour of decision-makers in medium-sized companies was also studied empirically.