This thesis investigates into the capital structure of public companies in the UK. It consists of two empirical chapters. The first chapter extends market timing theory of capital structure as first proposed by Baker and Wurgler (2002) by looking at the effects of several market timing variables on the corporate financing decisions in the UK. The second study examines the effects of credit rating and corporate governance on capital structure. The sample period covers the most recent seven years. Also, I divide the whole sample period into two periods that are before and during the financial crisis in 2008, to control for the potential effects of financial crisis on the empirical relationships that are investigated in this study. Based on the capital structure theories, I find mixed evidences that support and different from the theories, and I observe the influences of financial crisis on the research issues that I aim to investigate, which shows the effect of financial crisis can be a real consideration on the capital structure of UK companies.

The study looks at relationships between service \(concept\), customer \(inputs\) and \(service\) process design (CI&P constructs) in information intensive service (IIS) systems from a service process execution viewpoint. A review of service operations literature hints to several researchable gaps. First, although service design and development has been studied at process level, how the CI&P constructs relate and explain each other and implications therein to operations and operational management decisions is not clear. Extant literature provides unstructured and incomplete picture of these relationships. This study explores the combined influence of different customer inputs to design of service delivery process and service concept. Second, specific features linking service delivery process to the IIS product package and the role of customer inputs are empirically assessed. Considering the recentness of IIS phenomenon and nature of investigation, multiple-embedded case study research design is deemed appropriate for theory building and extension. The study develops six propositions linking different attributes of operations transformational process in design of services. Contributions are presented at three levels; (i) identification of process design features for IIS, (ii) establishment of links between elements of the transformation model for IIS, and (iii) highlighting of the role and implication of information intensity to understanding of service classification and management of service operations. To the practitioner, the study demystifies the fundamental problem of IIS delivery that bases its decisions on marketing considerations, giving little regard to operations management.

This thesis reports on an empirical investigation of buyer-seller partnership initiations and functioning in business markets evidenced in the Chinese shipping industry. This study aims to contribute to understanding of buyer-seller partnerships by providing a holistic description of the phenomenon. While academics and practitioners have demonstrated interest in partnerships, extant studies lack consistency and are often based on a single underlying theory, which results in competing explanations of partnerships and which leaves the understanding of the phenomenon rather fragmented. Moreover, there are only a few dyadic studies that look at both actors’ perspectives on the same partnership simultaneously. Drawing on previous research and the gaps identified, this study addresses the key aspects of buyer-seller partnerships through a dyadic approach. Most partnership studies have been carried out in European and American manufacturing industries. There have been very few studies conducted in industrial services and Asian countries. Thus, the Chinese shipping industry has been chosen for this investigation. A case study research strategy has been carried out using qualitative interviews with the focal supplier company and its customers, along with direct observation and secondary data sources. Based on the conclusions drawn from the findings on partnership initiations and functioning, advancements in understanding partnerships have been made, an integrative model of a partnership has been proposed and a series of guidelines for practitioners have been developed.

The World Bank and other multi-lateral donor organisations are increasingly urging governments in developing world to engage the private sector under the banner of Public Private Partnership to manage their public utility infrastructure and service provision. However, the World Bank’s enthusiasm for this private sector model as a solution to developing country infrastructure and financing problems is not the result of compelling evidence. This argument that the public sector may not be able to achieve post-contractual balance and achieve good supplier balance is tested using data from two case studies in Ghana: telecom and water sector under PPP. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken and documentary sources collected. The case studies provided evidence that the Ghanaian public sector failed to achieve post-contractual balance and good supplier performance. The study concludes that PPP is not delivering the expected good value for money for the public sector and that Ghanaian public officials specifically should be cautious of their optimism that they have the ability to develop balance and obtain good value for money with the private sector partners. This study fills a gap in transaction cost economics literature that does not consider power as relevant in the outcome in business-to-business relationships. It contributes to literature by demonstrating that adverse pre-contractual power relation can act as a constraint on the public sector to develop post-contractual balance with the private sector.

This thesis investigates the internationalisation of South African Early Rapidly Internationalising Small Firms (ERISFs). Although there has been a shift towards incorporating young small firms from knowledge intensive industries within International Business studies, research on such firms from emerging economies is lacking. There is limited empirical evidence on ERISFs from Sub-Saharan African emerging economies, and the applicability of concepts and theoretical models underpinning the internationalisation of such firms. The potential of ERISFs from emerging economies in enriching and extending the theoretical developments within International Business has largely been ignored. As a result, this research seeks to fill this gap by using the resource based view to link the relevant key concepts which underpin the internationalisation of South African ERISFs.

This thesis aims to explore and provide a better understanding of the ways in which religion and spirituality, as social constructs, impact on ethnic entrepreneurship. The choice to focus on religion and spirituality was informed by the gap in the literature as well as the increasing emphasis on the importance of integrating issues related to these sets of values in the wider contemporary business discourse. The research project is grounded in the mixed embeddedness framework and argues that, although very complex, this model focusses too much on opportunity structures, ethnic and social capitals while failing to acknowledge the potential of religious and spiritual values in shaping ethnic firms. In this concern I have used qualitative triangulation to build 11 in-depth case studies of ethnic minority businesses. The findings have shown that religious and spiritual capitals are important in same spheres of the business such as forming social support networks, shaping business decision, motivation and aspirations, employee relations and constructing a positive company culture. Additionally, the evidence suggests that spiritual values are likely to encourage the participation of women in ethnic entrepreneurship. However, their influence is not representative for matters related to accessing and utilising financial capitals.

The permeation of digital technology into all aspects of the business world has created unstoppable momentum in the generation of novel products, services, business processes and business models, marking the prosperity of digital innovation. In order to succeed in the digital age, it is important for companies to understand the underlying logic of the generative power of digital innovation. Evidence is accumulating that this generative power arises from the distributed nature of digital innovation, which is often generated through a process of harvesting distributed innovation opportunities. However, there is limited understanding of how actors proactively appropriate distributed innovation opportunities to generate digital innovation. To this end, in-depth studies were conducted on each of the four stages of the digital innovation process (discovery, development, diffusion and impact). Each study contributes new understandings to the digital innovation literature in terms of how actors take advantage of unique characteristics of digital technology to tap into distributed innovation opportunities in order to conceive a digital innovation, embody it in an outstanding form, promote its adoption, and surpass the original plan and gain extra benefits. The studies together provide a more comprehensive understanding of the appropriation of distributed innovation opportunities in digital innovation. Through the four studies, this thesis highlights the importance of shifting away from the “generativity as a concomitant result” mindset toward investigating the underlying logic of actors’ proactive appropriation of distributed innovation opportunities.

The thesis examines the emotional experience of departmental leadership from the perspectives of heads of department (HoDs) and academic staff across Georgian and English universities. While scholarly interest in the emotional side of educational leadership is growing, cross-cultural research on the emotional dynamics of HoD-staff relationships in academia remains fragmented. To understand the interplay between emotion, higher education (HE) leadership and culture, a sequential mixed-methods design was adopted. An online bilingual questionnaire, pretested through cognitive interviews, was combined with vignette-based semi-structured interviews. In total, 296 individuals responded to the survey from 20 universities, eight in Georgia and 12 in England. Out of those surveyed, 39 participated in individual interviews. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed in SPSS to analyse the survey results while a thematic analysis of the interview data was conducted using NVivo. Triangulating the quantitative and qualitative findings allowed the research problem to be seen from multiple angles, providing complementary rather than confirmatory evidence. The study found that the emotional experience of departmental leadership was shaped by unique contextual features of the comparison academia. The results showed discrepancies between the HoDs’ self-perceptions of their leadership and the way it was perceived by the academic staff. Yet, there was general agreement that the HoD’s ability to walk in others’ shoes and engage the hearts was central to departmental leadership. Apart from highlighting the academic staff’s concerns, the analysis suggested the need to understand the emotional demands of the HoD’s role. The study makes an original contribution to knowledge as it is the first to compare the emotional dimensions of HE leadership in Georgia and England. To date, there is no published research on middle leadership at a Georgian university and this work adds to the limited knowledge base on the former Soviet academia. The study also contributes to cross-cultural research methodology with an innovative research design. The findings carry practical implications that inform departmental leadership selection and development across culturally diverse universities.

The thesis is concerned with the trends, patterns and determinants of outward foreign direct investment from ASEAN. The research consists of three empirical studies. The first study investigates the determinants of ASEAN outward foreign direct investment (FDI) and the extent to which the general motives of outward FDI can explain the phenomenon in the four chosen ASEAN countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia) during the period of 2001-2012. Our results demonstrate that market seeking is the main motivation of outward FDI from ASEAN. We also confirm that host country characteristics play a vital role in investment decisions. Furthermore, after dividing the data into two time-periods, the results indicate that different location determinants and motivations apply over time. The second study aims to explore the choice of outward FDI location made by ASEAN. More importantly this study examines the location choice based on the perspective of regional characteristics and provides explanations in relation to the motivation of FDI. The challenge lies in the pursuit to arrange location-specific decisions into a uniform theoretical pattern. In general, the results support our previous findings that revealed the importance of market characteristics in determining outward FDI from this region. The findings also show that ASEAN outward FDI is mostly intraregional. Among ASEAN, only Singapore is actively engaging in extra-regional investment. Notwithstanding the importance of other variables in context, corruption appears to display an interesting finding. We found out that corruption did not deter investment from ASEAN but rather has a positive impact. The third study attempts to explore the determinants of outward FDI from a firm-level perspective. Using firm-level panel data which cover 9331 firms in ASEAN4, we estimate the model that helps us to derive to the conclusion. Our results suggest that the ability to demonstrate strong financial viability is important for the firm to raise investors’ confidence and obtain financial aid. We also discovered that firm size and firm ownership does not influence outward FDI because most of ASEAN-4 outward FDI is intra-regional and that embedded knowledge is less important due to the familiarity of the market.

Globalization is driving evolution in the organizational model of very large Multi-National Corporations (MNCs). This research is a quantitative case study of one consumer technology MNC, with 64 country business units from all continents, whose role is to maximise sales and profit from the product range. The research question tests for efficiency from an alternative organizational model, where the continental hierarchy is overlaid with a heterarchical structure based on homogenous clusters of country business units. The clusters are based on segmenting the external-selling context on variables chosen by country managers, and then adopt common routines within these clusters in place of continent led processes. The cost of the three key selling processes before and after the adoption of the clusters is measured. The concept of the ‘strategic selling organization’ (Piercy, 2006) has expanded interest in the study of sales-led companies, a significant departure from a product and marketing led strategy. The ‘strategic sales organization’ accepts that product differentiation can be short lived and hence such firms could alternatively build advantage from the way they sell. The literature review suggests that the development of the hybrid model under test could represent a ‘strategic sales organization’ that is located at the junction of higher-order theories in: segmentation analysis for strategic decisions, MNC design evolution from hierarchy to heterarchy, behaviour-based reward mechanisms and the move to a selling orientation from a product orientation, with underlying theoretical roots in contingency theory, knowledge theory, control theory and founded on the shift from the economic to the resource based view of the firm. The results show a lateral network process-based structure running common ‘operating routines’ within clusters is more efficient than a geographical based hierarchy, and countries that have an external selling context most dissimilar to their prevailing continental context gain most from the cluster-based model. Evidence of efficiency of the new model may support a Theoretical Contribution to selling orientation in the field of contingency theory, behavioural control theory linked to sales-led strategy, a strategic basis for segmentation and process-based lateral network organizations in the field of MNC design theories. It is concluded that such a variety of ‘strategic sales organization’ (Piercy, 2006) exists.