This thesis has adopted a qualitative approach to research into executive remuneration, to look inside the 'black box' of process. Executives, nonexecutives and others involved in the remuneration-setting process were interviewed in order to establish how executive remuneration is determined. In all, 40 interviews were conducted, covering 12 FTSE 350 companies plus other stakeholder bodies. The interviews yielded rich data illuminating the processes followed by the companies, and highlighting their similarities and differences. These data were considered in the light of existing economic, social-psychological and organisational theory approaches,n one of which proved sufficient, either alone or in combination, to explain what was happening. Companies determine the level of their executive pay based on their interpretation of 'the market', but the research shows that such a market is a construct that does not exist independently. They determine the structure of their executive pay based mainly on structures successfully adopted by other companies, and those considered acceptable to the investing institutions and regulators. Institutional theory explanations and the need for legitimacy are clearly seen in the data. A further finding of the research was that all of the companies had made changes to their remuneration schemes, some major. The various reasons for these changes included changes (actual or desired) to the corporate environment, changes to key personnel, and, notably, the need to increase pay packages that were 'below-market'. Incentive schemes that did not pay out were also changed. Finally, as regards process, it was clear that each of the case companies followed 'good governance' practices. It was also clear that each did this in a different way. For some, the process was managed by the non-executives; in others the executives had a leading role. The relationships between the protagonists had an important impact on the resultant governance processes.

My thesis aims to demystify the form of the Korean state by unveiling the theoretical shortcomings of developmental state theories and re-examining the historical development of the Korean state in the context of the formation and reproduction of capital relations in Korea. The first part develops a Marxist critique of theories of the developmental state. Through a close reading of Marxist theories of the state and Marx's own theory of value and commodity fetishism, I derive an understanding of the state as a differentiated moment of the reproduction of capital relations. Accordingly, I define the most serious theoretical shortcoming of the statist approach as its understanding of the state as a set of institutions and of capital as a set of businessmen. This approach enabled statist to define the state in East Asia as a state 'autonomous' from capital by deriving the form of the state from the nature of the seriously narrowed-down state-society relations as relations between state officials and a group of businessmen. On the basis of an understanding of capital as a social relation through which social labour is organised toward commodity production to make profits, and of the state as a social form through which unequal class relations are inverted into class-neutral relations between citizens, I argue that the developmental autonomy of the state, which underlies developmental state theory, results from a mystified form of the capitalist state and contributes to mystifying the state further. In the second half of this thesis, I present the Asian 'developmental state' as resulting from a particular mystification of the state in the historical development of the highly politicised formation and reproduction of capitalist social relations, in which the state's complementary role to capitalist development was maximised in suppressing labour, on the one hand, but also at the same time its differentiation from individual capitals in strictly regulating financial flows and selectively promoting industries developed to a great extent, on the other. An extensive investigation into the state's involvement in forming and reproducing capital relations in the 1960s and 1970s shows the real process of building-up the mystified state. Furthermore, I will show the demise of this mystified state through analysing crises of the politicised reproduction of capital relations, by a massive politicisation of domestic class conflicts, on the one hand, and the weakening of state control over individual capitals, particularly over the chaebol (Korean conglomerates) as capitalist development deepened in a growing involvement in the global economy from the 1980s, on the other. On the basis of this historical exposition, I also attempt to grasp the nature of the restructuring of capital relations in Korea in the aftermath of the Asian crisis in 1997, which is understood as an ultimate expression of the amalgamation of the crisis of the early configuration of capitalist social relations with the growing involvement of Korean capitals into the crisis-ridden development of global capitalism. Looking closely at the development of the increasing marketisation of the reproduction of capital relations, I argue that, although the form of the state has undergbne a significant transition, it is still subjected to the further development of new forms and subjectivity of class struggle, through which the unresolved contradiction of the newly created basis of capital accumulation manifested itself by putting the market-based reformulation of capital relations into an increasingly difficult condition.

This research contributes to the literature on subsidiary evolution by exploring the developments of subsidiary technological capabilities. It has been widely acknowledged that subsidiaries have unique in-house capabilities that are embedded in two contexts: 1) the internal technology sources including the headquarter ("HQ") and affiliated-units, such as the research and development ("R&D") centres; 2) the external technology sources comprised of local, regional or global entities, such as local universities. This study examines the relationship between subsidiary capability and autonomy and the mediating effects of communication systems, by linking internal and external networks through which the subsidiary both exploits and creates particular technological capabilities, and through which the parent company HQ, exercises its control. Through a synthesis of the international business and innovation management literature review, a set of measures of technological capability, autonomy and communication have been drawn. A capability taxonomy configured for the semiconductor industry by Ernst et al. (1998) was adapted to specifically examine integrated circuit ("IC") design, production and marketing capabilities amongst five different Taiwan-based foreign wholly-owned subsidiaries in the electronics industry (particular in the integrated circuits sector). These are compared using quantitative and qualitative measures on factors such as the types and levels of technological capabilities, the degree of autonomy and the intensity of communication they have developed. The findings demonstrated that the heart of subsidiary technological-capability creating lies in exploiting the parent company's core- competitive assets and capabilities and creating its capability development using local knowledge systems, and regional and global cooperative partners. The extent to which such developments of subsidiary technological capabilities are dispersed throughout and leveraged on the multinational enterprise ("MNE")'s differentiated network, depends on the intensity of internal and external communication systems for assimilating information or knowledge. Moreover, single subsidiaries have different degrees of decision-making autonomy, which influence both the nature of the internal NINE network, and the extent of influence of the internal and external network linkages on the developments of subsidiary technological capabilities. Overall, this research concludes that subsidiary autonomy is a cyclical process between the parent company and subsidiary, which is affected by the development of a subsidiary's technological capability. The capability- creating of a subsidiary is driven by the interactions between internal and external leverages which broaden the level and types of technological capabilities (namely, marketing-, design-and production-related) in terms of the scope of responsibility, in-house capability and the capacity for assimilation and creation of 4new' technology.

A review of modern business literature demonstrates that despite a proliferation of best practice models for managing change, none leads to consistent and sustainable success. In this work, action research within three separate projects leads to a model that facilitates change at a project level. Three main arguments for success are made: individuals and their relationships are more critical to success than technology and structure; an ability to look at problems from a systems point of view provides the key to identify excellent solutions; and making room for individuals to use their uniqueness leads to sustainable change. The final model developed is an innovative, content free support framework for change that guides the change team in creating options and making choices throughout the change process. Its role is to support the application of existing tools and techniques. The framework can lead to consistent and sustainable success because its use ensures congruence with the needs of the individuals and the business.

This thesis is divided into three sections. The first surveys the relationship of landlord and tenant in its legal, economic and political aspects. It shows how inadequate powers of eviction combined with rising rates provided a continuing impulse towards organisation on the part of nineteenth century property owners. It also seeks to account for the failure of organised landlords either to broaden the bases of local taxation so as to embrace non-residential forms of property, or to gain a more summary means of redress against contumacious tenants. The second part shows that attempts at organisation, on the part of working class tenants were more frequent than has hitherto been suspected. It examines the causes of unrest amongst tenants and shows how the unresolved tensions between landlord and tenant in Edwardian Britain influenced the genesis of rent control. The final section is concerned to examine the-wartime rents agitation in relation to the adoption of socialised housing in Britain. It shows how the continued-unrest amongst working class tenants, following the passage of the Rent Act, 1915, frustrated the re-establishment of housing upon an economic footing and thereby brought about a widening of the limited degree of state intervention in housing than had originally been contemplated by the proponents of Reconstruction.

The research work illustrates the setup of a new and unique cross-functional unit called "The Customer Responsiveness Center" or "the CRC". The objective of this center is to improve total service quality management through individual employees and teamwork. The ultimate objectives are employee satisfaction and customer loyalty. Forming the CRC in this way is an innovative approach for a traditionally technology focused organization where the fundamental objective is Total Customer Satisfaction. Before, not much work has been done in the organization to understand total service quality, to explore the power of people, and to demonstrate results from real teamwork. The author accepts this challenge. The Customer Responsiveness Center is a vehicle for promoting Total Service Quality and people involvement. It is crucial to making the company's Total Customer Satisfaction objective possible. The concept that employee satisfaction precedes customer satisfaction is expanded through this literature research. This is a different belief from the common saying: The customer always comes first. There is no doubt in the author's mind that when employees come first, they will develop happy customers. The author proves his belief correct with his own Total Service Quality Management (TSQM) model in the CRC. The Quality and Speed Team (QuST) process initiated by the author creates a positive environment for the CRC team to promote total service quality concepts. "QuST" is an innovative culture development process focusing on Total Quality, Speed of Execution and Teamwork. "QuST" is also a unique process derived from the Total Quality Management concept. The CRC team also attempts to break the traditional business cycle barriers to re-engineer for better results. This includes: making possible the shipment of China manufactured semiconductors to Taiwan; reducing the total logistics and distribution cycle time; and closing down the customer service department in Hong Kong (headquarters) for better synergy and productivity. While promoting the total service quality concept, the CRC team enhanced employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. The team has started the total service quality drive for the Asia Pacific semiconductor products group in Motorola. However, these are the areas that also need additional attention and require further study. Times have changed. We no longer live in a manufacturing environment. Total service quality is critical to all service providers. Customers today demand a total-service- quality package and consider that the service quality component is as critical as if not more important than the physical product. We are literally customer-driven. We are moving into the 21st century. Organizations that fail to master the skill of total service quality management will face difficult times. The CRC TSQM is a change model that can be applied to other industries to benchmark and to master the skills and resources that give an organization competitive advantage in the 21st century.

The objective of the Engineering Doctorate is to demonstrate innovation in the application of knowledge to the engineering business environment. The theme of this portfolio is to understand the mechanisms for the transfer of 'best practice' knowledge into manufacturing industry and its successful application. This topic is of vital importance to the future competitiveness of UK industry. It is widely accepted within the management literature that the pace of change within the business world has increased and will continue to do so at an ever accelerating rate. This has been fuelled by the globalisation of markets, by the increased involvement of huge and developing nations like China and India into international trade and by the possibilities provided by new technologies. In such an environment it will be increasingly difficult for companies with mediocre performance to survive. For example, one study (Strategic Planning Society et at, 1996) ranked 30.1% of UK companies as 'punchbags' and a further 9.5% as 'won't go the distance'. Thus they expect 39.6% of UK industry to experience difficulty in surviving in the future. The best hope for UK manufacturing industry is to raise the performance of these companies to that near to 'best in class' in their particular market. This cannot be achieved by isolated evolution. There isn't time. It requires an input of knowledge developed from companies who have tried different ways of doing things and regained their competitive position. By learning from the successes and failures of others the process of company regeneration can be accelerated. This way companies stand a better chance of survival. The success of the organisational learning process for these companies is dependent upon the process of transferring this knowledge. If the knowledge is transferred effectively it will be used quickly to benefit the company. If it is transferred poorly it may slow down the change process as managers and employees become cynical and turn back to "the way we've always done things". Understanding the best way to transfer 'best practice' knowledge is a key element in understanding how to accelerate the regeneration of UK manufacturing industry and provides the theme for this portfolio. The portfolio's starting point is the definition for innovation provided by the TJK Department of Trade and Industry, "the successful exploitation of new ideas", which allows the demonstration of innovation in the application of knowledge in two ways: * Through innovative approaches to successful transfer and use of knowledge by comparues. * Identification and application of 'Best Practice' techniques to companies where they had not been considered before. Having identified the nature of and opportunities to test 'best practice', the umbrella of tools and techniques known as 'Time Compression' was taken as, an academic and practical framework for the transfer of 'best practice' into four companies. The learning generated by these interventions has been combined with the results of survey research and literature review to develop the theme for the portfolio, the transfer of 'best practice' knowledge into manufacturing industry.

The research attempted to relate quality of falsework erection to the organisation and competence of personnel involved. The study involved field investigation using a sample of fifty four sites throughout England And Wales where different types of falsework arrangements were being erected by a range of organisations and personnel. By the establishment of a rigorous method of evaluating quality of workmanship of falsework construction this was the first study which enabled quality standards to be compared across different types of falsework arrangements. In addition this study, combined with a sociological analysis, enabled an assessment to be made between organisation, competence and quality, which to the author's knowledge, has not been undertaken prior to this study. Subsequent analyses of the data, used the two models of organisation: the economic and occupational orders. These indicated that all sites essentially adopted the same methods and assumptions. Any attempts to formalise the management of the process of control of falsework, along the lines of the procedures outlined in the Code of Practice for Falsework, were limited in extent and their degree of success. The investigation found that the quality of falsework on building sites was generally of a lower standard than on civil engineering sites. This was found to be attributed to the competence of the manual workforce. This study addresses the organisation structure of the industry at large. Although peculiar, in that it leads to a temporary product, the falsework process may be regarded as a microcosm of the overall construction process. The conclusions presented in this thesis have relevance to the current issues of concern to the industry: competence, skill shortages, training and quality (including safety) and the implementation and efficacy of Quality Assurance schemes.

Manufacturing Engineering is concerned with converting a product specification into the most appropriate method of manufacture to produce the product to the correct cost and quality. Lack of integration and 'over the wall' engineering between design and manufacturing engineering adds to the time and cost of product development, and has significant effects on the subsequent cost and quality of the product. Because of the size and complexity of manufacturing engineering within the motor industry, the task is often divided between disparate, isolated, departments that traditionally have their own goals and objectives, supported by different business processes and systems. The adverse effects of the lack of integration between design and manufacturing engineering re-emerge within manufacturing engineering itself. As a part of this research, the author analysed the existing information flows through manufacturing engineering within Rover Group, and showed that the business processes and systems generated a high duplication of effort and data, and reinforced functional demarcation between the departments. The new Rover Integrated Manufacturing Engineering System (RIMES) has been developed to address these issues. RIMES has been developed using TQM techniques and evolutionary delivery, new to Rover, to involve the manufacturing engineering customer in all aspects of business analysis and system development. The resultant system deliverables have therefore more closely met the customer requirements and have consequently been implemented with greater customer support. The subsequent changes to manufacturing engineering culture have been promoted from within manufacturing engineering, with the RIMES system acting as a lever for the change. The research has been primarily concerned with the analysis and development of appropriate solutions in three main areas: integration of design and manufacturing engineering, change control procedures to maintain data integrity, and business processes to improve efficiency of manufacturing engineering and the quality of its output. These are all issues that are important for supporting concurrent engineering but were found not to have been adequately addressed, either in the research literature or in commercial systems, for applications involving large, complex products. The new system provides support for the electronic integration of design and manufacturing engineering information, which is based on a technique developed that combines data 'push' and 'pull' principles, and enables the efficient communication of product specification to manufacturing engineering. It provides a single system and repository of manufacturing engineering knowledge, a common fundamental business process, and a common and consistent way of presenting manufacturing engineering information and reports. Concurrent engineering is promoted through early availability of information for downstream processes and strict change control procedures have been developed to maintain data integrity. The previously disparate departments of process engineering and industrial engineering are now working concurrently from the same data which has improved the accuracy, consistency and understanding of information both internally and in external reporting. The time to market has been reduced because product specification information is provided earlier and simultaneously to all manufacturing engineering functions. The manufacturing engineering process and its output have been redesigned. New working methods introduced through the RIMES system have promoted reorganisation and the elimination of demarcation within manufacturing engineering to further facilitate concurrent engineering. Newly designed multi media forms for communication of process information to manufacturing, developed in consultation with the RIMES user community, has promoted team working on the shop-floor.

The research described in this Executive Summary starts from the premise that the implementation of TQM in Hong Kong is primarily focused on the use of individual tools for improvement. However, since 1991, more interest has developed in the holistic approaches, such as ISO 9000. Information gathered for this research supports the hypothesis that there is a missing quality dimension, namely, that of quality culture, which must obviously be of paramount importance if sustained quality performance is to be achieved. The second hypothesis explored in this research is that quality philosophies developed in the industrialised West can be better understood and appreciated if they can be explained in terms familiar to Chinese workers and managers, i. e., interpreted in terms of Chinese culture. This should lead to better integration of tools, techniques, holistic quality systems, and general philosophies concerning quality. All this should result in better and more effective implementation of TQM in Hong Kong. This study can be divided into two parts, A and B. Section A is mainly concerned with the exploration and understanding of the existing Hong Kong situation in terms of quality management implementation. Section B is concerned with the cultural aspects that were identified as being relevant to quality management. These cover Chinese values, Confucian principles, and how these are related to the principles of TQM. Several behavioural models were studied and the Connor/England model was selected and used to measure the relationship between cultural values and attitudes towards quality behaviour. The work of Professor Michael Bond on Chinese values was combined with the author's own interpretation of Chinese attitudes as expressed in Confucian Principles. This was to better understand quality behaviour intention when viewed from the point of the British Standard 7850 definitions of Total Quality elements. The Fishbein Behavioural model was also used as part of the survey instrument to measure Chinese attitudes in the implementing of TQM. A computer statistical package was used to analyse the survey data collected from local companies. The statistical factor analysis identified the working principles which best support TQM implementation in terms of the roles of both the leaders and the supporting staff of a company. The analysis also identified the role of Confucian Principles in terms of helping junior, middle, and senior management to better understand each others' working principles, and thereby promoting harmony and teamwork.