This thesis is structured around four empirical chapters examining related issues in corporate governance. The sample of FTSE 350 companies 1995-2005 has unique properties which are exploited to advance our understanding of the executive pay-setting process; the turnover of Chief Executives (CEOs); the market's reaction to shareholder activism and voting behaviour; and the distribution of pay within the boardroom. Chapter two assesses whether remuneration committees facilitate optimal contracting or whether CEOs are able to capture the pay-setting process and inflate their own remuneration. The findings of prior research, which have been mixed, are shown to be sensitive to the econometric specification employed. A comprehensive assessment of non-executive directors' independence is undertaken. Little evidence is found to support a rents capture model. Chapter three applies duration analysis within a competing risks framework to model the tenure and mode of exit of CEOs. The likelihood of forced departure is found to decrease sharply from the fifth year of a CEO's tenure. Some evidence is found to suggest that this is because CEOs who survive beyond year four entrench themselves in their position. Chapter four considers the impact of shareholder activism. Voting dissent appears inconsequential in terms of increasing shareholder returns, reducing CEO pay or increasing the likelihood of CEO dismissal. However, firing the CEO of a poorly performing company improves shareholder returns soon after the CEO's dismissal. Chapter five examines the structure and distribution of pay amongst board members. As a test of tournament theory, the impact of a rival's succession to CEO on the incumbent directors' compensation and likelihood of exit is examined. A rival's succession has a greater impact on the existing directors' likelihood of exit than it does on compensation.

There are many factors influencing the sustainability of Closed-Loop Supply Chain (CLSC), in terms of industrial operation flows and environmental perspectives. This research aims to identify these factors in order to provide a better understanding of the process flows and interactions between the primary and secondary metal manufacturers and remanufacturers. In particular, it focuses on the influences of the Customer, Environment and Technology (CET) factors, with the intention of finding out “the specific approaches and techniques the Chinese metal manufacturers and remanufacturers adopt for sustainable development of the CLSC”. Qualitative case studies were performed in seven companies in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region of South China. These companies are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) of primary metal manufacturers, secondary metal remanufacturers, dismantlers, and third party reverse logistics providers. Data and information were collected through semi-structured interviews and observations on sites, in order to analyse the process flows in the supply chains. The key findings include the demonstration of the CLSC networks in the context of the Chinese metal industry, and the development of the process maps and Positioning Tool for case companies to identify themselves in the CLSC. These are theoretical and practical supports for academics and companies to understand the handling of various qualities and quantities of primary and secondary metals. Simultaneously, they assist companies in identifying and positioning themselves in the CLSC in order to define their direction for sustainable development in the long-term.

Unsustainable urbanization in Ghana has resulted in poor environmental conditions in urban settlements in the country. Solid waste disposal, in particular, has become a daunting task for the municipal authorities who seem to lack the capacity to tackle the mounting waste situation. This study investigates the nature of the solid waste problem in two Ghanaian cities, Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi. It describes the waste situation in the study areas and identifies the causes of the problem from the perspective of key stakeholders in the waste sector. The delivery of solid waste collection services across different socio-economic groups of the urban population and the siting of waste disposal facilities are also examined in relation to the concepts of social justice and environmental justice respectively. For the empirical investigation, a mixed methodology was used which combined questionnaire and interview data from stakeholders in the waste sector, together with documentary and observational data, to examine the issue of solid waste disposal in the two study sites. The key issues identified by the study include: that Ghanaian cities are experiencing worsening solid waste situations but the municipal governments lack the capacities in terms of financial, logistical and human resources to cope with the situation; that while several causes of the urban waste crisis can be identified, the lack of political commitment to urban environmental management is the root cause of the worsening solid waste situation in Ghanaian cities; and that social and environmental injustices are being perpetuated against the poor in the delivery of waste collection services and the siting of waste disposal facilities in Ghanaian cities. Based on these findings, it has been argued that the solution to the worsening environmental conditions in Ghanaian cities lies in the prioritization of urban environmental management and commitment of Ghana’s political leadership to urban settlement development and management.

In this thesis, we focus on the housing sector, which is important to the economy but is under-researched in business cycles analysis. We discuss several housing sector related issues in dynamics stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. To begin with, we conduct a sensitivity analysis using a simple DSGE model with the feature of sticky prices and a fixed housing supply, which is similar with the basic model in Iacoviello (2005) but with representative agents. Then we introduce credit market imperfections in two different ways. The first case is referred to as 'borrowing to invest', in which entrepreneurs take loans and accumulate production housing, which is a factor of production. We observe the financial accelerator (or decelerator) effect since their borrowing is related to output directly. The second case is referred to as 'borrowing to live', in which impatient households take loans to buy housing and gain utility from it. In contrast with the first case, we do not find the financial accelerator (or decelerator) effect, since the borrowing is not directly related to output anymore. First, we add a variable housing supply, thus we can discuss the supply side effect in the housing market, including both the direct effect and the feedback effect. The direct effect is the impact of a housing technology shock, and the feedback effect is the impact of a change in new housing production, which is caused by other shocks. We find, however, that the magnitudes of these two effects are negligible under the standard setting of the housing market that is commonly used in the literature of DSGE model with housing, such as Davis and Heathcote (2005), Iacoviello and Neri (2010). The key assumption in the standard setting is that every household trades housing in a given period. An empirical examination of the U.S. housing sector suggests us to (i) re-construct the housing market and (ii) introduce the feature of time to build to new housing production. After constructing the new setting for the housing market by introducing the probability of trading housing, we find that (i) the steady state ratios from the model are consistent with their empirical targets and (ii) the magnitudes of both the direct effect and the feedback effect are 60 times larger. Furthermore, the feature of time to build, together with the new setting of the housing market, allows us to observe overshooting behaviour on the real house price. Second, we discuss the impact of the assumption of adaptive learning, as we are convinced that the house price bubble is partially contributed by this alternative way of forming expectations. After writing the Nottingham Learning Toolbox1, we find that, given the AR(l) learning model, in which variable is forecasted using its own lagged terms, the adaptive learning mechanism largely amplifies and propagates the effects of a goods sector technology shocks to the economy, and also, enlarges the impact of the time to build feature on the real house price. Furthermore, our sensitivity analysis shows that the values of initial beliefs are important to the mechanism but forecasting errors are not if the constant gain coefficient is small. Then we consider the assumption of heterogeneous expectations. From the impulse response analysis, we find that (i) the adaptive learning mechanism also has amplification and propagation effects to the economy when only a fraction of the population are learning agents; (ii) when two types of agents have equal weights, the impulse responses from heterogeneous expectations are much closer to those from rational expectations than those from adaptive learning; (iii) when rational agents are fully rational, the adaptive learning mechanism has larger amplification and propagation effects on the economy than when rational agents are partially rational. From the sensitivity analysis, We find that fully rational agents always have larger impacts on model variables than partially rational agents. Finally, we introduce credit market imperfections to the housing market, thus the mortgage market subjects to a costly verification problem. Our empirical analysis suggests that, while the default rate is countercyclical, the loan to value ratio is procyclical. Our impulse response analysis shows that, given a positive goods sector technology shock, the default rate is counter cyclical, but the loan to value ratio is also countercyclical. The reason we suppose is that, in our model, credit constrained households have less housing in an economic upturn, thus the volume of loans they receive also decreases, leading to a fall in the loan to value ratio. Moreover, we illustrate that, when the mean of the idiosyncratic shock is time-invariant, we always have a positive relation between the default rate and the loan to value ratio. In order to overcome this co-movement, we show that a time-varying mean is necessary. 1 The Nottingham Learning Toolbox is a series of Matlab files that can solve a general form of DSGE models under adaptive learning and heterogeneous expectations. The toolbox solves the model using the Klein's QZ decomposition method, and facilitates the impulse response analysis. The Cambridge Learning Toolbox provides helpful reference for this toolbox at the initial stage.

Petrochemical industrial (PTCI) sites may be considered a niche in the property market. Mainstream economics, industrial development and real estate studies related literatures treat it as the same as others. By prescribing the New Institutional Economics (NIE) approach, this research seeks to find a definitive line to divide between this sub-sector with other industrial activities. In particular, from the real estate perspective. The key research question is on the effect of formal institutions on industrial land supply. The empirical research was carried out in Kerteh and Gebeng in the Malaysian East Coast region. Despite being isolated from nation’s mainstream economic activities as well as politically distinctive, the tiny townships managed to be host to global petroleum, gas and chemical giants, believed to have received the highest concentration of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Malaysia. Data were gathered on the physical development on the industrial sites, through official records investigation at the government offices as well as interviews with key figures both in the government and firms. Qualitative and descriptive quantitative data analyses were applied. Within the studied area, it was found that the two State Governments, Terengganu and Pahang are the only land suppliers for PTCI use. Results from the analyses indicate that formal institutions have a substantial influence on supply-side behavior. The key findings suggest that due to the complexity of the government decision making process, government supply of industrial sites for PTCI use is timely, uncertain, and not flexible according to demand. To arrive at a decision, on land in particular, the authorities have to consult a massive set of information, dozens of public offices, hundreds of standards and a wide range of expertises. In addition, a structured decision making process is strictly observed. The findings indicate that in the PTCI sector, where the investment is vulnerable to various forms of risks, the property transaction mode is slightly distinctive. The deadliest threat is unexpected changes in prices and supply of the chemical feedstock. As natural gas derivatives, especially butane, ethane and propane, the supply is dictated by the global market. Anticipating a threat, new sites must be sought. The authority’s inability to respond to the immediate firms’ needs invites additional risks. In addition, where the risk is very high, land prices are not imperative in industrial locating. The findings also signify that the government decision making process which is framed out by the social institutions which has been inherited since generations has hardly changed. The firms however, without touching the institutional arrangements, through a unique clustering process find ways on how to beat the red tape to secure a site together with the chemical feedstock.

In this dissertation, it is contended that existing theoretical frameworks for understanding racist and anti-racist action in trade unions are conceptually flawed. The primary function of a trade union is not to defend the interests of the whole working class as black radical theorists imply (see Sivanandan 1982; Gilroy 1987; Howe 1978) but rather the sectional interests of their members through the negotiation of improved pay and conditions within the confines laid down by the capitalist social formation (Hyman 1972; Clarke and Clements 1977; Kelly 1988). To enable the theorisation of anti-racist as well as racist action in trade unions, I also reject Phizacklea and Miles' (1980) uncritical use of the Leninist concept of trade union consciousness which leads them to associate racism with reformism and anti-racism with revolutionary social change. Instead, I recognise that trade union consciousness masks a range of different forms of reformist consciousness which include a sectionalist consciousness and a corporate consciousness. Through a consideration of the relationship between organised labour and the migrant worker over the past two centuries, it is demonstrated that the black radical claim that the racist action of trade unionists was motivated by the economic benefits they accrued requires re-evaluation. First, it was mainly during periods where a weak class identity (i.e. a sectionalist trade union consciousness) prevailed that trade unionists employed racist exclusionary practices. Second, such action was not motivated by a recognition that it would result in economic gains at the expense of other groups of workers but rather marked an attempt to protect what little they had in a capitalist social formation that could never fully guarantee their economic security. Importantly, this study establishes that during periods of acute class struggle and sustained strike action, the formation of a strong class identity (i.e. a corporate trade union consciousness) helped to undermine the prevalence of racism in trade unions and led to the development of an 'inter-racial' class solidarity where the advancement of sectional interests came to be perceived as being synonymous with the defence of general working class interests. Critical to the formation of this 'inter-racial' solidarity was the intervention of migrant workers and socialist activists. Looking at the significance of 'black' self-organisation, both Gilroy (1982; 1987) and Miles (1984) incorrectly conceptualise it as representing a move away from class-based politics. Instead, this study demonstrates that self-organisation was key to the foundation of an 'inter-racial' working class solidarity that developed during periods of acute class struggle. Their inability to adequately conceptualise 'black' self-activity lies in their failure to undertake a detailed assessment of the politics that inform such action. In redressing this weakness through a critical assessment of developments in one trade union - NALGO - it was established that self-organised groups were informed by two competing ideological perspectives: socialism and black nationalism. It was the dominance of the former current within these groups that persuaded a significant layer of 'white' activist opinion to support the principle of 'black' self-organisation which ensured that racism continued to be challenged during a period characterised by the widespread prevalence of a weak class identity and with organised labour in retreat.

Partnering has been the most commonly used term to describe collaboration between a buyer and its direct supplier. The automotive industry has been the basis for the development of most studies on the subject. Despite the many studies on partnering, some people share the view that largely missing from the literature is a clear definition of this concept and of how it operates within dyadic (i.e. between a buyer and its direct suppliers), network and firm contexts. This is found to be particularly important if automotive companies geographically spread in the globe are to be properly managed. The purpose of the research presented in this thesis was to explore inter-firm collaboration and partnering between a subsidiary of a motor vehicle manufacturer and its direct suppliers, taking into account the ownership ties of firms, such as those of multinational corporations (MNCs). The objective was to generate new knowledge on how inter-firm collaboration and partnering operate and on the factors that influence the business relationships that are established between the referred companies. The researcher followed a single case study research strategy in order to develop a new and empirically grounded understanding, while favouring contextualisation and complexity. The researcher adopted a triangulated research design in which quantitative and qualitative data were gathered in two stages, through a self-administered mailed questionnaire and in-depth interviews, respectively. The findings suggest that: (a) relationships can be characterised by several dimensions, (i.e. commitment, trust, win-win, long-term orientation, co-ordination, joint problem solving, flexibility, mutual dependence) each of which is a mix of collaborative and non-collaborative elements; (b) a diversified scenario of relationships can be explained by the different combinations of several contextual factors (i.e. organisational, relational, spatial and network); the importance of each needs to be weighted and hierarchised; (c) the network affects both to enable and constrain the freedom of action at the level of the customer supplier dyad; and (d) partnering is contingent on the position, role and influence at different points in the network. The research argues that relationship management can be enhanced through the application of analytical tools to the assessment of business relationships. New frameworks for analysis are presented as significant contributions to knowledge, among a series of theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions. The researcher suggests directions for research which will further enhance the understanding of inter-firm collaboration and partnering and business relationships within a multinational network context.

The topic of international skilled labour mobility has received growing attention within the field of population geography and other disciplines. This interest reflects the large growth of international skilled labour mobility, especially during the 1980s. Attention of prior research has focused on the migratory movement of managers and professionals as they radiate across the globe, recording and representing the dispersal of international investment and the overseas expansion of producers of goods and services. The research examines Scotland's participation in the international exchange of skilled labour. The research undertaken addresses the varying theoretical, conceptual and methodological approaches of prior research on international skilled labour mobility in geography, as well as in other disciplines, such as management studies and occupational psychology. In doing so, the interplay between work and non-work spheres in shaping Scottish international skilled labour mobility is highlighted, as is the differing temporal and spatial focus of existing studies. The author's research thus investigates both the economic and social contexts of Scottish international skilled labour mobility, these contexts being characterised at macro, meso and micro level. In addition, the research adopts a broader definition of skilled labour movements than prior research, and so the study discusses the place of short term business travel as well as longer term migratory movements and the relationship between them. In illustrating the economic context of Scottish international skilled labour mobility, the research outlines macro level changes in the Scottish economy and the role of foreign direct investment as a source and channel of Scottish skill exchange. In turn, the specific institutional characteristics of activities generating these labour flows are examined and related to the occupational status of mobile persons.

This research is concerned with understanding how organizational performance can be improved through effective knowledge transfer. In particular, the researcher is interested in organizational performance as it relates to those organizations that rely on core horizontal business processes, such as those found within a supply chain. Many organizations develop knowledge strategies to try and utilise existing knowledge within their organizations. However, this process tends to be developed from a top-down perspective, and deployed on an organization-wide basis. It is the researcher’s contention that this is not a suitable approach for developing an effective knowledge strategy for supply chain / complex organizations. It is the researcher’s belief that in order to develop and define a suitable method for knowledge strategy development and implementation, how knowledge and information are created and shared along core business processes must first be understood. To do this it is important to identify the barriers that impact knowledge transfer across an organization, and more specifically, along core business processes. By mapping a core IBM supply chain process, and identifying the employee work groups associated with the process (through social network analysis), the researcher was able to identify and assess knowledge transfer barriers, and how they impact along the IBM order flow process. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods the researcher developed an emergent theory concerning how organizations should approach the identification and management of knowledge transfer barriers.

This thesis applies the spatial mismatch hypothesis to the Glasgow conurbation in Britain. It also develops an innovative methodology which addresses some of the methodological concerns associated with much previous work and allows three different types of spatial barrier to employment to be examined - commuting, residential mobility and job search / recruitment. Specifically, this thesis looks at firms which have relocated within the Glasgow conurbation. The number of employees who leave their job or move house because their employer relocates is examined in order to assess to what extent commuting and residential mobility are barriers to employment within metropolitan areas. Recruitment patterns to the firm's new sites are analysed in order to assess the extent of job search and recruitment as spatial barriers to employment. The results show that those without access to a car and those in lower-paid and lower-skilled jobs are least able to commute to the new sites, and are the least able to move house closer to work, and so consequently are more likely to leave their job. Those in higher paid and more secure jobs are more likely to move house closer to work. People recruited at the new sites tend to live much closer to the firms than the remaining original workforce, which suggests that across space, job search and recruitment processes, as well as social networks and other neighbourhood effects, may be greater barriers to employment than commuting. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed. It is argued that skills and spatial mismatches reinforce each other, and that this interaction needs to be incorporated into explanations of the relative importance of each. The proximity of jobs to neighbourhoods within metropolitan areas needs to be considered in understanding the level of unemployment in small areas.