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Retail in general and the fashion sector in particular have been slow to develop online despite the considerable opportunities and efficiencies offered by the marketspace. Sixty percent of established fashion stores are yet to move online (Herrod, 2007b) even though fashion products (clothing, footwear and accessories) are the third largest category sold over the internet. The case for smaller companies in this context remains unclear (Verdict, 2007). This research is therefore grounded in an era of conflict where retailing remains polarised between enterprises willing to 'embrace e-commerce for longer-term benefit' and those for whom cyber-operating 'is not seen as a desirable route to growth' (Reynolds, 2002: 530; Doherty ~nd Ellis-Chadwick, 2006). This thesis represents the first comprehensive exploration of the definitions and drivers of success for twenty-five independent SME fashion electronic retailers (SMEFEs) operating thirty-seven websites in the clothing, footwear and accessories sectors. Within this context this study also identifies the organizational development process and presents continuity strategies from a high-interest stakeholder (i.e. owner-manager/webmaster) perspective. Both first-movers and recent entrants into the marketspace enable a holistic view. The participating pure-players and clicks-and-mortars offer a rich, cumulative online retail experience-base equalling almost one-hundred and eighty years' online. The position of this thesis in relation to ontology and epistemology is that reality is socially constructed rather than objectively determined (Carson et aI., 2001). A qualitative critical-case approach exploring the online context of twenty-two successful cases with insight from three further devil's advocate ('not-yet-successful') enterprises is employed from a social constructionist perspective. Data is generated via in-depth interviews involving a combination of telephone and face-to-face methods. Findings are developed through thematic qualitative analysis and theoretical contributions are based on saturation ofdata. This research study asserts a contribution to knowledge on several levels: new synthesis of the literature; innovative methodology; and fresh findings which have enabled extension of the literature and new theory to be constructed and from this future research streams are considered. The findings have important implications to policy, practitioners and education.

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How should capabilities and resource-constrained High-Technology New Venture (HTNV) companies deal with selling and marketing? I answer this question by developing a conceptual model for viewing supplier-customer (business to business or business to consumer) relationships for HTNVs. I call this model the HTNV Purchaser-Stakeholder Model (P.S.M.). I set the scene of the inquiry by outlining the difficulties HTNVs face and the competitive environment in which they operate. I accomplish this through the theoretical lens of the Resource-Based View of the firm. I take a holistic view of HTNV-customer-supplier interaction by analysing how different starting resource configurations are related to the role of purchasing-stakeholders and their purchasing behaviour. I incorporate elements of the resource-based taxonomy with the seminal “buyer model” of Webster and Wind (1972) to create a more holistic model with customer-supplier interactions. This model helps a business to break down its customers or potential customers on the basis of its Decision Making Units (DMU) or “buying centres” into initiator, influencer, gatekeeper, decider, buyer and user and outlines appropriate strategies to take given its relationship with each of these DMUs. This model is useful because managers in new companies can then view the model as integrated with a customer’s business processes, rather than isolated evaluations of discrete product or service offerings. This model provides a useful tool for new companies to determine the most appropriate marketing, selling and growth strategies. It is hoped this model may provide some guidance for early stage HTNVs when planning and implementing marketing, selling and growth strategies.

It was not until the early-1960s, after the formation of the European Community, that U.S. policy makers began to seriously advocate a low tariff policy for the United States and Western Europe. The change in trade policy during the 1960s was the result of President John F. Kennedy's determination to form a more tightly knit 'partnership' between the United States and the European Community in response to mounting tension between the two superpowers, the threat of trade diversion in Europe, and America's own economic difficulties. These factors were clearly inter-linked, and, each played a vital role in putting America on the swifter path to freer trade and the Atlantic Community on the road to greater economic integration during the 1960s, even though the French were determined to keep the United States from interfering with their political and strategic-designs in Europe. The Trade Expansion Act of 1962 contained the necessary provisions for the President to cut tariffs substantially across the Atlantic and fix the emerging Common Market in a liberal, outward-looking mould, compatible with a close political and military relationship with the United States. It also paved the way for a new round of GATT negotiations, known as the Kennedy Round, which would ultimately reduce average tariff levels on both sides of the Atlantic below 10 percent for the first time in history. In short, the assumption that American trade policy during the early years of the <I>Pax Americana </I>was characterised by an unwavering commitment to free trade has undermined the significance of the Kennedy Round period - the period beginning with the passage of the Trade Expansion Act in October 1962 and ending with the signing of the Kennedy Round's Final Act in June 1967 - as the true turning point when the United States decided to shift its tariff policy towards Europe from moderate to low tariffs. This shift in trade policy was an important part of Kennedy's "Grand Design" to renew American world leadership and to strengthen the Western Alliance on the international front, while at the same time promoting the interests of American exporters who were faced with the threat of trade diversion and competition from a European marketplace equal in size and potential to their own economy for the first time.

The dissertation consists of four essays on the development and effects in developing countries of international protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs). The first essay critically reviews the literature on rationales for and against IPR institutions. Several theoretical and empirical considerations provide increasing grounds for doubting the welfare gains for developing countries of increasing IPR protection. The second essay examines the patterns and driving forces of international IPR protection since the enactment of the Paris and Berne Conventions. Over 2,800 country-level decisions were considered within a 120 year period and 68 Treaties. The analysis shows that IPR protection has been historically positively related to the level of economic development of countries, confirming literature reports. Such evolutionary tend is disrupted with current IPR harmonisation. The third essay analyses industrial property protection provisions of 17 post WTO-TRIPs US bilateral trade agreements with smaller and mostly “South” countries undertaken in the 2000s. The analysis reveals significant heterogeneity on extent of protection reached by different bilateral trade partners. The fourth essay examines the determinants of IPR protection reached bilaterally between the US and small south countries during the 2000s. A political economy model of a North-South bilateral joint negotiation of market access and IPRs rules is developed, in which governments’ decisions are driven by their preferences, and the possibility of facing costs inflicted by stakeholders. The model is tested using data developed in the third essay. After controlling for countries’ IPR preferences, the data supports the model’s predictions; South countries that enable organised and non-organised stakeholders to inflict costs on governments when policies deviate from their preferences have been able to resist North (US) demands regarding IPR protection more successfully.

I suggest that in order to re-ignite the evolution of the concept of consumer values and, in turn, broaden its application, increase its employment, and, ultimately, raise its significance, a new conceptualisation of consumer values which improves our understanding of the phenomenon of consumer values is needed. The purpose of this research, therefore, was to develop a new conceptualisation of consumer values. In order to do so, the research explored the phenomenon of consumer values in the high-fidelity audio microculture, using a research design which was guided by hermeneutics and which drew on axiology. The result was a meaning-based conceptualisation of consumer values which suggests that consumer value is the meaning which is ascribed to a product as the result of the consumer’s valuation of the product. Valuation is a judgement process in which the consumer considers the characterisation of the product vis-à-vis his/her interest. Characterisation is the descriptive/appraisive meaning which the consumer ascribes to the product. Interest is a mental disposition - the meaningful standard to which the consumer appeals. Interest arises from appetence, and accompanies, stimulates, and directs valuative attention toward the product. Appetence is an instinctive and unconscious tendency. And attention is intentional meaning-making cognitive activity. The research contributes to the discipline of marketing by offering this meaning-based conceptualisation of consumer values which improves our understanding of the phenomenon of consumer values, thereby providing new insights into both the property of value and the process of valuation. It challenges long-standing assumptions of the phenomenon of consumer values in the discipline of marketing, and offers a more contextually- and culturally-attuned alternative to the economics-oriented conceptualisations of consumer value which have dominated the discipline of marketing. This meaning-based conceptualisation of consumer values, in combination with a microcultural analysis, constitutes a viable approach for understanding the links between products and consumers’ motivating structures. The research also lends support to the constitutive relationship between the distinct patterns of a microculture and the broader historical context of postmodern consumer culture. Additionally, it affords a richer understanding of how consumers use the distinct patterns of a microculture as frames of reference in the valuation of products, and conversely, how this valuation, in turn, helps to shape these distinct patterns.

The telecommunications sector has undergone rapid change over the last two decades. The market structure of the telecommunications sector has been transformed from one of monopoly to one of competition. Its regulatory framework has evolved from a ‘command and control’ model to ‘competition promotion’ and ‘market-steering’. The trigger of liberalisation of the telecommunications sector in the early 1980s caused a series of reactions in the market and the law. Current and potential prosperity has led authorities to consider how this process occurred and the direction it will follow. This thesis looks at the telecommunications sector through the three categories of: market, law and regulation. Key issues raised include the interaction of market forces and regulatory policy; causes and effects of regulatory reform for liberalisation; the relationship between market mechanisms and regulatory control. The aim of this thesis is to present an analytical study in telecommunications regulation, illustrating the linkage between the market development and regulatory reform within the liberalisation process. One of its main objectives is to explore the role of regulators, with particular emphasis on how regulatory reform for liberalisation has been carried out in different market backgrounds. Through a comparative study of the UK and Taiwan, experience from both developed and emerging markets is illustrated, and path-dependent regulatory approaches are analyzed in order to contribute to the learning process with regard to regulatory reform.

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This research attempts to investigate the relationships between the perceived competitiveness of the operating environment, competitive business strategies and the performances of hotels within Singapore's hotel accommodation industry. The operating environment is conceptualised using Porter's industry structural framework which comprises five competitive forces, i.e. perceived bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, perceived threat of new hotels and substitutes, and perceived rivalry amongst existing hoteliers. This research reveals that there are distinctly three strategic groups of hotels in Singapore, i.e. the 'QPS(high)', 'QPS(mid)' and 'P(low)' groups. The 'QPS(high)' groups focuses on the market, which expects luxury and could afford it. It employs, dominantly, a combination of strategies of differentiation by quality, price and support. The 'P(low)' group focuses on budget travellers and employs, dominantly, the strategy of differentiation by price. The 'QPS(mid)' group focuses on the market sandwiched by the other two groups. In identifying these strategic groups, there seems to be convergence between the 'multivariate strategic dimensional' approach and the 'self-typing paragraph' approach. In addition, the survey method and the case study method were employed to help explore why some hotels outperform others. There is a significant relationship between competitive strategies and the perceived bargaining power of buyers on the performances of hotels based on the 'ibfchot' indicators. Overall, the performances of the strategic groups, in descending order, are 'P(low)', 'QPS(high)' and 'QPS(mid)' groups. Nevertheless, each group has hotels which are successful as well as those which are less successful. Hence, membership in any strategic group does not necessarily guarantee success or failure. Financial success of hotels is, therefore, not strategy-specific. However, the successful hotels in all the strategic groups have the following characteristics, i.e., ability to align the threats of the perceived operating environment to formulate suitable competitive strategies to meet the expectations of the target market segments at relatively low operating costs; dynamic management to effectively communicate and implement the strategies formulated; and synergy of the owner's and management's business objectives.