Through a series of three standalone yet related essays, this thesis theorizes effects of the government administration context in developing countries on situated IT-enabled practices. It develops arguments on the capacity of the institutional logics perspective for explaining complex interactions between the broader social context and IT-enabled practices carried out by situated actors in the public administration of developing countries. We theorize IT-enabled rationalization—a process through which inefficiencies, and dysfunctional institutionalized practices are transformed through IT—as the hybridizing outcomes from the resolutions in practice of often incompatible institutional logics of administration with those introduced by IT. Through a case study of IT modernization initiatives at Ghana’s customs organization, these arguments are developed by identifying historically formed administration logics and the consequences of their interplay with idealtypic public administration logics introduced through IT. We find that rather than forcing out dysfunctional practices and replacing them with IT-driven ones i.e., replacing old logics with new, as is often an implicit goal of IT adoption in such settings, the two sets of incompatible logics are instead comingled in practice through a process identified as blending. This suggests that IT adoption in the public administration of developing countries might enable rationalization, although not independently of countervailing broader institutional context.

This thesis analyses the New Labour government’s extension of public service reform and modernisation to the voluntary sector. It explores the changes that have taken place in the labour process and management practices in the voluntary sector and it locates this within an analysis of wider public service reform. It argues that the reforms of the voluntary sector are part of wider neo-liberal market reforms intended to extend the capitalist labour process to the voluntary and public sectors. The thesis is based on research in a diverse range of complex voluntary organisations, drawing from academic, industry and organisation documents, from interviews with voluntary organisation, trade union and industry and community representatives, and from an employee attitude questionnaire. Voluntary organisation managers were found to be under severe external pressures, through increased competition between organisations, and through contracting, auditing, monitoring and regulatory regimes. These managers responded by introducing Taylorist forms of performance management to meet external targets, to increase efficiency and to lower unit costs. They have been relatively compliant with reform compared to public sector managers. Performance management has a significant impact on employees, bringing reductions in autonomy, pay, job security and employment conditions and increases in workload and managerial control and discipline. The character of the labour process in the voluntary sector is being transformed to become more like the labour process in capitalist enterprises. In contrast to the public sector, trade union organisation and influence is weak and unable to mount effective resistance. The voluntary sector is a model for the delivery of public services through a diverse range of semi-autonomous local providers under a tight regime of government regulation. Public service trade unions will need a co-ordinated and comprehensive strategy to resist market reform and further cuts in public service and welfare provision.

The research considers the use of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) policies as a means to forge a bridge beween the micro scale of individual firm operations and the macro scale of ecological and societal impact(referred to as Kleindorfer's Challenge). Qualitative case study research is undertaken across different economic sectors identified with specific macro-scale challenges that are taken as a more precise and up-to-date definition for sustainability. This research assumes the plaentary boundaries (PB) framework, developed by environmental scientists led by Rockstrom & Steffen et al., and the social foundations (SF) framework, from international development, defined by Raworth & Leach et al. as the basis of the definition used. Eight firms grouped into five case studies are subjected to in-depth investigation into how they relate their own activities to sustainabiity outcomes via their SSCM policy and the barriers they face. To understand the nature of knowledge versus uncertainty within each firm, decision theory is adopted and elaborated in the context of sustainability. In particular, Snowden's Cynefin framework and Keeney's value-focussed decision analysis are adopted as aspects of the dominant logic for each firm. This shapes their decision making abilities when faced with complexities and ambiguities in delivery SSCM in the context of various external pressures (notably from legislative, investor and customer demands). The resulting evidence informs a model of substantive sustainability, whereby firms with substantive impacts are distinguished from those without substantive impacts, in terms of the PB+SF framemworks. This helps firms realise the extent to which they should be concerned about sustainability issues, with some firms having a disconnect between their stated goals and their actual influence, and other firms with substantial impacts receiving insufficient attention from academia and practice.

The problems of the introduction of Operational Research (OR) into developing countries was examined with particular reference to the Nigerian Civil Service. Following preliminary investigations on OR in developing countries a questionnaire was used to interview fifty- nine Nigerian senior civil servants including nine permanent secretaries on the problems of the introduction of OR into government services in Nigeria. The interviews were conducted in thirty-five ministries, and in three public corporations in the Federal government, and in five State governments in Nigeria. This unique information which is the first of its kind from Nigeria was used to identify nine factors essential to the introduction of OR into the civil service in Nigeria. In order to explore the problems of staffing, a psychometric instrument, the 16PF, was used to determine the personality traits which account for success in OR. The instrument was administered to fifty- six British OR scientists in order to construct a personality profile of OR scientists. This study represents the first attempt to understand using scientific method the traits which are responsible for success in OR, and the traits which significantly distinguish OR Scientists from the general adult population, the scientific community, and other occupational groups. The thesis concluded by discussing a general theory on the introduction of Operational Research (OR) into organisations, and by making recommendations on the introduction of OR into the Nigerian Civil Service.

The present research analyses the determinants and the implications of senior management departures in the UK. Based on a sample of the 460 largest UK companies by market capitalisation over 1990-1998, and using regression techniques, this study investigates the event of top management turnover in three empirical chapters. The first one documents the circumstances under which poor firm performance may lead to a CEO job separation. The second chapter explores the organisational consequences of CEO turnover by modelling - for the first time in the UK - Chairman turnover at the time of CEO departure. The last empirical chapter deals with the implications of CEO turnover on investment choices. The most important methodological advancement is the rigorous and comprehensive classification of management departures, which increases significantly the power of the tests considered in the thesis. The provision of additional evidence on the conflicting issue of managerial entrenchment, the modelling of Chairman turnover and the investigation of the role of equity-based compensation in mitigating opportunistic managerial incentives are among the conceptual contributions of the study. The primary findings of the thesis can be summarised as follows. Firstly in terms of top management departures, CEO turnover is linked with poor firm performance although the latter must fall significantly in order to increase the turnover likelihood. This disciplining effect seems to have not become stronger over time and, CEOs do not appear to become entrenched at high ownership levels. Secondly with regard to Chairman turnover, there is evidence that some Chairmen also depart when the CEO turns-over, especially following poor company performance or CEO dismissals. Outside CEO succession, on the other hand, does not appear to be associated with additional increases in the Chairman turnover likelihood. Finally with respect to investment, it appears that CEOs threatened by forced termination, tend to cut down investment prior to their departure in order to increase reported income and “save” their jobs. In contrast, retiring CEOs do not engage in opportunistic behaviour, even if they own a small fraction of the company's equity.

This thesis is concerned with exploring the nature of the Japanese transnational corporation and analysing the real effects of their transnational activities within Japan’s machinery industries. The machinery industries are the most important of Japan’s manufacturing sectors. The sector is also the most open of all Japanese manufacturing industry to the forces of globalisation and has seen the global emergence of Japan’s so-called “national champions”, such as Toyota, Hitachi and Sony. Japan’s transnationals have been pursuing global strategies to compete with their international rivals. In particular, they have been strategically developing their own transnational production networks, consisting of their core keiretsu partners and suppliers, to facilitate the use of global outsourcing. These transnational activities are changing the nature of Japan’s domestic industrial structure. In this respect, there have been concerns that the global expansion of Corporate Japan has had real consequences for domestic Japanese manufacturing. In particular, there have been concerns that the growth in Japanese transnational production will lead to a “hollowing out” of Japanese manufacturing industry (Fujita and Hill 1989; Cowling and Tomlinson, 2000). These important issues form the subject matter of this thesis. We begin by tracing the emergence of Japan’s transnational corporations - within the machinery sector - and the growth in Japanese transnational production. Using a Case Study of the Japanese automobile industry, we then highlight the growth in Japanese transnational production networks, known as the new keiretsu. This new keiretsu provides Japan’s transnational corporations with an inside option to “divide and rule” both their suppliers and their global labour force. We uncover direct evidence of this strategy from interviews and a questionnaire with Managing Directors and Senior Managers of Japanese auto-suppliers, based in the UK. We argue that such activities create interdependent linkages between the Japanese transnationals’ affiliates around the globe. Consequently, the transnationals’ strategic decisions, which determine the level of production, investment and employment at their domestic and foreign affiliates will then have a real effect upon the performance of domestic Japanese manufacturing. We provide both econometric and survey evidence to show that this is indeed the case. Finally, in the light of our conclusions we suggest possible ways forward for Japanese industrial policy.

This Executive Summary describes a four-year Engineering Doctorate programme at the University of Warwick’s, Warwick Manufacturing Group. The objective of the doctorate was to investigate how to “create the conditions for innovation”. The Executive Summary presents three aspects of the work. Firstly, the methodology that was employed, secondly, a set of guidelines that show how companies can create the conditions for innovation, and finally, two innovations that the author had primary responsibility for developing. These innovations are TaxiCall and a business training game entitled “The Business of Innovation”. The conditions for innovation that have been identified are, senior management support and commitment, organisational capacity and structure, processes that facilitate risk and exploration, people who are committed and motivated to innovate, the integration of ideas and people from contexts alien to the business, a deep understanding of customers' expressed and unexpressed needs. TaxiCall is an innovative solution to the problem taxi passengers face when hailing a vehicle. It provides a means for a passenger to speak directly to the driver of the nearest available “for hire” taxi to arrange a journey. The author was responsible for developing the idea for TaxiCall into a defined business proposal. This proposal included strategy development, market analysis, a financial and marketing plan and a technical solution. The proposal received £0.5m to further develop the concept of TaxiCall into a viable business. As a consequence of this further development, £8m investment was made in order to launch TaxiCall as a service branded Zingo into the London market late in 2002. The Business of Innovation is a training game that has been designed to address the issue of why companies, who succeed with one technology, often fail to succeed with the one that follows it. It does this by allowing participants to experience why incumbent companies struggle to successfully manage technological discontinuous innovations. The author used this game with approximately 100 participants of Warwick Manufacturing Group’s MSc and Executive Development programmes. Evidence was gathered concerning its ability to meet its stated objectives with a majority of 86% of participants finding it a useful learning experience. The game has subsequently been adopted by a number of training organisations serving a variety of industry sectors.

The International competitiveness of machine tool manufacturing companies in the UK is in long term relative decline. This is evident in diminishing UK shares of world production and exports, Increasing Import penetration and the higher technical sophistication of Imports over exports. Executives in the Industry tend to explain declining performance by referring to exogenous factors beyond their control, such as adverse currency movements, weak demand and conservatism among users in the domestic market. Rising imports are often explained away as the inevitable consequence of growing specialisation and internationalisation. These claims are not without foundation but they are at a high level of generalisation and do not shed light on the managerial problems of adapting to unprecedented levels of foreign competition and technological change. Most policy prescriptions for restoring competitiveness in the 1980's have highlighted awareness of the international dimension and the contribution of technology in overall strategy development. One strategic option finding increasing interest among executives in machine tool manufacturing companies and receiving substantial encouragement from the UK Government, is that of supplementing indigenous technological capability by increasing the "inward" transfer of foreign technology. This dissertation examines the sourcing of appropriate machine tool technology from overseas via foreign direct Investment, joint ventures and licensing arrangements. The approach is multidisciplinary and focusses on the strategic management of technology at the level of Individual business units, giving due consideration to existing patterns of foreign ownership and collaboration. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding how foreign technology emerges as a strategic option, the conditions under which it is assimilated and the relative merits of the three modes of Inward technology transfer. The research shows that providing a critical mass of Indigenous skills and capital expenditure can be maintained, the inward transfer of foreign technology offers considerable potential for achieving and sustaining a future level of technological capability comparable with that of International best practice. To facilitate effective exploitation of these opportunities, however, the priorities are threefold: firstly, executives must pay greater attention to competitor analysis and monitoring technological developments worldwide; secondly, many companies should use foreign technology to reposition themselves in existing segments and/or redirect their strategies towards growth segments; and finally, there is an urgent need for management/organisatlonal development in machine tool companies to create a balanced Internal environment which Is more receptive to the potential "total" benefits embodied in both internally generated and foreign technology.

The research reported in this thesis has the dual objectives of investigating: 1) the possibility of extending the field of application of visual modelling to decision areas where discrete event simulation is not the appropriate modelling technique; 2) the potential for designing a generalised framework that could form the basis for the development of decision making aids for different problems. The work consisted of the design, development and implementation of a Decision Support System (DSS) for the production planning function of the sponsoring organisation, from which basis it was possible to generalise and isolate the components that form the generator with which other specific applications can be built more effectively. This thesis reflects the action research methodology followed in the project. Some of the chapters are dedicated to the problems associated with the specific application, i.e. the description of the problem and its environment, the issues of managing a multi-disciplinary team with action and research objectives, and the problems of design, implementation and evaluation of a decision making aid in an organisation. The remaining chapters discuss the design principles that were followed in the development of the DSS generator, which is independent of the data base and allows for the possibility of personalised interfaces and a modular structure of models that can grow to match the evolving requirements of different decision makers. From this action research programme I have shown that: 1) It is possible to develop personalized interfaces that can be tuned to the cognitive requirements of different users. 2) The concept of semi-structured decisions can become operational with the proposed new definition of models and searching processes, and this enables a DSS to evolve with the modelling needs of decision makers. This research programme has established design principles associated with those two topics, which should be considered by an analyst who wishes to develop a specific DSS.

The growing importance of introducing unique products to the market has made firms more conscious of organisational knowledge creation. Knowledge creation is recognised to be important in creating and sustaining competitive advantage as well as in meeting organisational goals in modem societies. Multidisciplinary project teams have gained increased popularity owing to their diversity of knowledge resources, drawing upon different organisational functions and professional disciplines. They are viewed as having high potential to innovate due to their heterogeneous nature. Their activities are fundamental to learning within wider organisations, and not just in the form of temporarily disconnected project units. The research empirically investigates the creation of new technical knowledge and develops a conceptual model of the knowledge creation process. It broadens the organisational knowledge creation theory developed by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), into the area of multidisciplinary project teams. This research focuses on three major aspects: the key processes that underlie knowledge creation within multidisciplinary project teams, the interrelationships between these key knowledge creation processes and the factors that influence the processes of multidisciplinary knowledge creation. Empirical evidence was collected from a large property development company, using a qualitative case study approach. Two multidisciplinary project teams, working on infra-structural and residential developments, were selected for the in-depth study. The research reviews existing theories of organisational knowledge creation and team processes. It seeks to contribute to the theory of knowledge creation within multidisciplinary project teams through technological innovation or problem solving, by providing an explorative account supported by empirical evidence. Secondly, it contributes to the development of the knowledge creation theory within multidisciplinary project teams by adopting a social construction perspective and by focusing on its processes and their interrelationship. In addition, factors are identified that affect these processes. The proposed framework provides not only for future research to systematically examine and test knowledge creation processes against different backgrounds, but it also allows management to continuously anticipate and support knowledge creation activities related to the successful management of collaborative team projects within their particular organisations.