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The immense changes to have taken place in UK food retailing during the second half of the 20th century are detailed, explained and analysed, with constant reference to theories of retail change. The result is not just a history of UK food retail change post-1950, but a comprehensive evaluation and extension of retail change theory, with new driving forces and ideas elaborated, and a forecast of likely key developments to 2010. The thesis is based largely on the testimonies of key industry actors of the period, including past and present executives of leading food retail organisations, and followed an un-structured interview approach, allowing stories to be told without unnecessary constraint. The development of the industry is detailed and explained, drawing heavily on these testimonies, and this change is explained with reference to major factors with a direct hearing on the industry, such as government policy and socio-economic change. Because of the emphasis on witness accounts, the theories of retail change are analysed with a heavy focus on the people driving change, a refreshing change in a field where the historical nature of the subject tends to drive research towards secondary sources of data. The thesis contributes a better understanding of the forces driving the theories of retail change, and proposes an extension to the domain of application. The relevant elements of the theories of retail change are implemented to forecast likely developments in the UK food retail industry to 2010, which is complemented by an 'expert' Delphi forecast and a projection of current socio-economic trends.

A number of studies, including those in the World Bank and the IMF, would suggest that trade liberalisation is an integral part of economic reform in developing countries. Although trade liberalisation is a well researched area, there are still some remaining issues that need to be addressed. Most of the earlier studies focus on establishing a link between trade policies and long-term economic performance, measured in terms of productivity or per capita GDP growth. Although theories promoting inward-oriented policies emerged in the fifties and sixties, the unsustainable and often destructive effects of importsubstitution policies have, by and large, been discredited with the realisation that potential benefits of an open trade regime may outweigh its costs. In the early 20th century, openness was not a popular policy while protectionism dominated, and during the fifties a majority of developing countries followed it as a genuine path to industrialisation.

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Corporate parenting and corporate-level strategy concepts are about value creation and gaining corporate advantage. This study will identify the successful world-class practices or ideals inherent in the literature, benchmark them with the currently embedded corporate parenting and corporate-level strategy practices in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and highlight any gaps arising. To close the gaps, the study will suggest adoption of any identified non-existent ideals and effective practice of those currently present. Five research questions are explored in this study, namely: what world-class corporate parenting ideals are being practised in the corporate centre of the NNPC? What world-class corporate parenting ideals are nonexistent in the corporate centre’s management of the NNPC? What are the evidences that suggest that the strategic business units (SBUs) and corporate services units (CSUs) play their roles within the corporate parenting framework? What effects do the ideal corporate parenting practices bear on the corporate design of the NNPC? And what effect does government control over the NNPC have on its current corporate parenting and corporate-level strategies? The case study research strategy and subjectivistic research approach were deployed. An actual sample size of 181 respondents and two interviewees were deployed for the study. The research instruments used for the data collection were the semi-structured, self-completed questionnaire and semi-structured personal interview guides. The results showed that 73 ideals were being practised or present and 44 ideals were not being practised or existent in the corporate centre of the NNPC, the SBUs and CSUs were playing their roles within the corporate parenting framework and that corporate parenting practices had bearing on the corporate design of the NNPC. Also, that government’s control of the NNPC was impacting negatively on current corporate parenting and corporate-level strategies. To apply the utilities of corporate parenting and corporate-level strategy in the corporation, a number of recommendations were made, which suggest the steps the corporation can take to create added value and gain parenting advantage to perform better than rival organizations in the oil and gas industry. The research findings can create awareness amongst staff and management of the corporation on the value potentials to be exploited through adoption of the tools embedded in the concepts. The Nigerian government can also appreciate the value its hands-on influence had destroyed in the corporate management of the NNPC. The findings led to further development of the existing corporate-level strategy framework as well as two models for the oil and gas industry. These, hopefully, can contribute to the literature on corporate parenting and corporate-level strategy and can also enhance best practices and policy formulation. The study can further serve as a reference document for operators in the oil and gas industry and academic researchers alike.

When a population of agents divides into subgroups, and subsequently interactions happen between largely fixed subgroups, we regard the population as segregated. The segregated state might confer benefits, e.g. a buyer who has a strong preference for a particular seller has shorter exploration time when buying. As it might also add vulnerability to a system, understanding how segregation emerges is essential. To investigate whether the segregation can arise spontaneously, as a consequence of repeated interaction and co-adaptation among the agents, a stylised model of double auction markets and traders is developed and investigated. We show that in a system with two discrete-time double auctions and a large population of adaptive traders a collaborative segregated state emerges. When the typical scale of market returns become higher than some threshold, the preferred state of the system is segregated: both buyers and sellers are segmented into subgroups that are persistently loyal to one market over another. The segregated state is stabilised by some agents acting cooperatively to enable trade and provides higher rewards than its unsegregated counterpart both for individual traders and the population as a whole. Realising that the agent’s adaptation is the key promoter of the segregation, we investigate the robustness of our findings in continuous double auctions with sophisticated trading strategies – adaptive agents still prefer to segregate. Accordingly, to create informed regulations e.g. in large financial systems, we believe it is necessary to investigate benefits and risks that segregation brings and consequently how to promote or suppress it.

Economic activities comprising measurement embrace the science of metrology and its associated institutions, its diffusion through instrumentation and standardisation, and the use of measures by firms in their production and marketing activities. This thesis argues that the coherence of these activities provides a useful way of thinking about the role of technology in a modern economy. Emphasis is given throughout the thesis to the role of an 'infrastructure' of measurement in reducing transactions costs and enabling markets by assisting firms in the generation of product variety. The framework of measurement in an EU context is explored in chapter 2 of the thesis. The remainder of the thesis is devoted to a theoretical and empirical analysis of the role played by measurement in creating international trade and determining underlying patterns of trade. Chapter 3 provides contextual background, considering the existing literature on the theoretical and empirical analysis of international trade, with emphasis on the role played by technology and innovation. The monopolistic competition model of international trade - which focuses on the generation of variety - is identified as providing a particularly suitable vehicle for the theoretical analysis of how measurement impacts upon international trade. This model is developed in chapter 4 in a way which allows for the public good effect of measurement infrastructure supplementing the role of market size in these models. The hypotheses developed suggest that the strength of this infrastructure across industries should be positively related to the generation of intra-industry trade. Chapters 5 and 6 provide the empirical analysis of the thesis. Chapter 5 embeds the idea of measurement into standard models of intra-industry trade in the context of bilateral trade in the EU. It is found that proxies or the strength of the infrastructure based upon industrial standards, as well as measures of the use of instruments, are important determinants of intra-industry trade. In chapter 6 the question of whether measurement infrastructure is associated with patterns of UK trade is addressed. It is found that the intensity of standard use by industry has a positive and significant associated effect with both UK exports and UK imports, but is not a source of comparative advantage for the UK. Chapter 7 of the thesis summarises and provides a concluding discussion.