The Construct of market orientation has been widely discussed, analysed and refined in recent years, but there remain fundamental disagreements about its value and significance as an explanatory tool in the study of business organisations. In particular, the relationship between market orientation, business philosophy, the business environment and performance has been understood in different ways. This thesis offers a critical view of existing theories of market orientation and seeks to overcome some of the limitations of those theories by investigating, by means of a qualitative research study, the way in which the senior managers of firms in two industrial sectors in Taiwan (food manufacturing and department stores) apply the marketing concept. The emphasis of the present study is on four key research questions: •Is the construct of market orientation, as it has been developed in the (mainly Western) research literature, useful for understanding the actual business practice of the case study Taiwanese firms? •Are there any ways in which the construct of market orientation needs to be revised and/or refined to “fit” the actual business practice of the case study firms? •How are the relationships between market orientation, business philosophy, business environment, and performance best understood in relation to the actual business practice of the case study firms? •What does our research tell us more generally about the validity or non-validity of Western theories and models of market orientation in relation to business practice in a non-Western country, Taiwan? The findings of the research point to the following conclusions in response to each of these four questions: 1. It shows that the construct of market orientation is useful in understanding the actual business practice of Taiwanese case firms, but it does not explain all aspects of that practice. 2. It suggests that the construct of market orientation needs to be revised and/or refined to “fit” the actual business practice of the case study firms. A 3x3 matrix representation of market orientation is suggested (see Table 7.1). This differentiates between the three components of market orientation (customer orientation, competitor orientation, inter-functional co-ordination) and three levels of analysis (cultural, strategic, tactical). The synergy between the resulting nine “cells” is the source of market orientation’s dynamism. 3. It shows that in the case study firms the relationships between market orientation, business philosophy, business environment and performance are exceedingly complex and are characterised by dynamics which vary according to a wide variety of organisational and people factors. 4. It shows that in the case of Taiwanese firms market orientation serves primarily as a mechanism by which firms respond to changes in the business environment in order to achieve balance between an internal and external focus, and between continuity and change. A refined conceptualisation of market orientation, involving the inter-relationships between three components (customer orientation, competitor orientation, inter­functional co-ordination) and three levels of analysis (cultural, strategic, tactical) is proposed as a useful analytical tool to apply to the investigation of market orientation in different organisation settings. In addition, the tendency of Taiwanese firms to employ a market orientation as a mechanism with which to respond to business environment change in order to achieve balance between the imperatives of continuity and change, and between an internal and external organisational focus is highlight as a particularly significant research finding.

This thesis comprises a series of three studies that explore the impact of trade reform on fiscal revenue. Two of the studies use cross-country econometric methods and the third utilizes a partial equilibrium approach to analyse the impact of trade liberalisation on tax revenue and welfare in Jamaica. The first study examines the impact of trade liberalisation on total revenue and trade tax revenue as a share of GDP across countries, explores heterogeneity within the sample (in particular the extent to which a country’s level of development influences variations in the effects of trade liberalisation) and utilises alternative indicators of openness to determine if the findings of the model are sensitive to the indicator of openness used. The study finds that, in the case of the openness index used by Khattry and Rao (2002), international trade tax and total tax revenue as a percent of GDP are likely to rise as an economy becomes less open. In contrast, when trade as a percent of GDP is used as the indicator of openness, the results show a positive relationship between openness, and trade and total tax revenue as a share of GDP. The results also suggest that international trade tax revenue tends to fall over time as a country develops. The second study uses events analysis to examine the same issue. There is weak evidence that trade reform has positive revenue effects in the long-run; however, there may be negative impacts within a year of reform. The third study explores the impact of trade liberalisation under the EU-CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) on Jamaica by simulating different tariff reform scenarios and comparing the results with the end term EPA as negotiated. It finds that small countries can devise appropriate strategies to mitigate potential negative fiscal effects of trade reform such as scheduling tariff reductions for high revenue items later in the reform process. It also finds that there is often a trade-off between revenue and welfare, which makes welfare increasing and revenue enhancing outcomes difficult to achieve.

The impact of burgeoning consumerism and a new ‘world of goods’ has been well established in scholarly research on eighteenth-century England. In spite of this, we still now surprisingly little about the consumer. This thesis seeks to recover the figure of the consumer and establish its position as a key economic and social player on both the domestic and international stage. It argues for a significant shift in conceptual and practical attitudes to the consumer over the course of the eighteenth century. The consumer became a positive and productive economic force, and increasing emphasis was placed on training and cultivating this figure throughout a person’s lifecycle. This thesis focuses on the female consumer of dress. Women of the elite and middling sort were often the agents through which concerns about luxury and commercial corruption were raised. They also regularly engaged in the production of the items they consumed, bringing into question the artificial division placed between production and consumption in scholarly work. In order to tackle the nuanced character of the female consumer of dress, this thesis adopts an interdisciplinary approach, combining traditional archival research with an examination of contemporary literary, visual, and material culture. This approach paints a picture of a skilled and knowledgeable consumer, whose economic and material literacy was trained from childhood, and maintained throughout the lifecycle.

This thesis elaborates a decolonial international political economy (IPE) as a means of examining the condition of market emergence in Indonesia. It presents the term ‘emerging market’ as the contemporary organising grammar which positions Indonesia in relation to international capital flows. This condition of market emergence is further understood in historical colonial perspective as the latest mode of producing Indonesia as an investible site for international capital. My expansion of decolonial IPE is made in this thesis through the analysis of difference-based ‘exclusion’ and ‘translation’, both as vital elements of coloniality and as processes which relate to accumulation and dispossession in an ‘emerging market’ context. I go on to make the case for bringing urban and rural terminable sites of extraction into the same frame of analysis. These are understood similarly here as internal frontiers along which social groups are materially and discursively excluded from the national emerging market project and thus rendered expropriatable. I further analyse the repeated dispossession of these expropriatable groups along with other means of enacting ‘translations’, or enforced alterations in ways of being. These translations are by no means passively accepted and my analysis further demonstrates various means by which these are negotiated and contested. This thesis therefore makes contributions to the literature on decolonial thought and IPE, at the same time as presenting an original examination of Indonesia in its present moment of market emergence.

This thesis examines household consumption behaviour over the life-cycle and the business cycle, using three rich Mexican datasets and several microeconometric techniques. The three chapters study how consumption is affected by: i) retirement; ii) intergenerational transfers; and iii) aggregate dynamics. Chapter I investigates the empirical patterns in consumption around retirement using oportunidades dataset, in particular the existence of a ‘retirement-consumption puzzle’ among older households in Mexico. A detailed analysis of consumption dynamics and patterns in home production allows the chapter to conclude that there is no retirement consumption puzzle, which is consistent with augmented versions of the life-cycle model. In light of these findings, Chapter II estimates the effect of adult child transfers on the household consumption of their elderly parents using the Mexican Health Aging Study (MHAS). The estimates indicate that parents have a positive marginal propensity to consume out of transfers. The results also suggest that parents’ increases in expenditure correlate with permanent transfers rather than temporary transfers. Adding to this line of consumption research, Chapter III exploits the Mexican National Survey of Income and Expenditure (ENIGH) and investigates household consumption growth over the business cycle across income and consumption distributions. Aggregate fluctuations appear to affect household consumption uniformly across the majority of consumption distribution in Mexico. Nevertheless, the evidence also indicates that, compared to the highest income cohort, groups at the very bottom of the consumption and income distributions are more exposed to aggregate dynamics.

The quality and quantity of information disclosed by companies in their annual reports in a particular country depends heavily on the country’s level of economic development, the development of the accounting profession, the legislation in force, and the existence of a sophisticated financial market. In this vein, following the recent changes and reforms of both the Libyan economy and the legislation around financial reporting, government legislation and laws have played a major role in shaping the current financial reporting practices in Libya. This thesis aims to empirically examine the quality as well as the quantity of the information disclosed in the annual reports of Libyan companies. In particular, by using an integrated research design framework, the study seeks to: (i) assess the perceptions of the preparers and users of Libyan Corporate Annual Reports (CARs) regarding the use and usefulness of the information disclosed; and (ii) investigate the comprehensiveness of disclosure among Libyan listed and non-listed firms, and examine the association between a number of corporate governance mechanisms, the ownership structure, and corporate specific characteristics and the corporate disclosure behavior of Libyan listed and non-listed firms. This study consists of two stages. The first stage uses a questionnaire survey as a research instrument. The second stage uses a content analysis of real secondary data collected from companies’ annual reports and analyzed using various regression models. The findings of the questionnaire survey suggest that both preparers and users consider CARs to be the most important source of corporate information for their decision-making process. Furthermore, the delay in publishing CARs and the lack of unified accounting and reporting standards were viewed as the prime factors restricting their use in Libya. Generally speaking, the respondents considered the information disclosed in the annual reports of Libyan firms as adequate. With regard to the factors affecting corporate reporting practices in Libya, as expected, the Libyan Commercial Code (LCC) and Income Tax Law (ITL) were viewed by the vast majority of respondents as the prime factors affecting corporate reporting practices in Libya. In addition, a lack of reporting standards and accepted accounting principles, in line with the lack of knowledge of external users’ needs were perceived as the prime obstacles restricting the extent of disclosure. The findings also indicated that there were statistically significant differences in perceptions among the user groups, and between users and preparers regarding the use and usefulness of CARs in Libya. With regard to the findings of the content analysis of the annual reports of Libyan listed and non-listed companies, the results suggest that, firstly, board size, the frequency of board meetings and the presence of an audit committee have an impact on the level of corporate disclosure. On the other hand, the findings indicate that duality in the position of the CEO and board composition are not related to the extent of disclosure. Secondly, regarding ownership structure variables, no evidence was found that director ownership, foreign ownership, government ownership and institutional ownership were significant in explaining the extent of disclosure. Finally, the results from the content analysis are robust, controlling for a number of potential endogeneity and non-linearity issues.

The literature on corporate governance reveals an emphasis on board characteristics and firm performance. The role of the NED is examined under board roles. The concept NED effectiveness is considered as part of board effectiveness revealing a lack of clarity of what distinguishes NED roles from board roles. The literature suggests that a consideration of board roles and effectiveness ultimately covers the purpose of NEDs. The research examined the roles of NEDs in listed companies in Nigeria. The research method utilised in this study was the semi structured interview method. Forty directors and company secretaries were interviewed for the research. The findings of the research revolves around five constructs namely board effectiveness, convergence or divergence with corporate governance principles, NED effectiveness, NED roles and power. The NED requires power to perform their roles, as a result their effectiveness as individuals and a group is restricted to, the weight of influence they carry and exhibit in board room deliberations. The NED is thus hindered by challenges such as information asymmetry. The findings also reveal that, collaboration and team work is crucial for NED and board effectiveness. The different director functions may create hierarchy in the board room. However, a board climate which encourages organisational, rather than performance hierarchy may increase cohesiveness in the board room. The findings reveal that understanding and team work are crucial for successful completion of board tasks. This is because NED roles are not independent of board functions. The findings reveal that Nigerian NEDs in listed companies apply corporate governance best practices. The Nigerian listed companies have separated the roles of the CEO from that of the chairman. This suggests that listed company boards are most likely independent. However, Nigerian NED’s are faced with the challenge of not having adequate company information, through which they can perform their roles. Interestingly, majority of the participants in this research seemed to agree that information asymmetry was the greatest challenge faced by Nigerian NEDs. However, the EXEC participants did not agree with the idea that, Nigerian NED’s do not receive adequate information to perform their roles. As a result, the research indicates that NED’s play more of a supervisory and supportive role in the board room. Furthermore, it reveals that Nigerian listed companies may comply with local and international best practices. However, the notion of board room independence is not enshrined in listed companies in Nigeria. The research findings also indicate that, the Nigerian institutional environment restricts the practice of good corporate governance. Furthermore, the control and monitoring role of Nigerian NEDs has been restated by the EXECs and the corporate environment. The findings indicate that Nigerian listed boards use private and public company meetings to create a front and influence shareholders and stakeholders’ perceptions of directors and the company. Furthermore Nigerian directors use impression management strategies to influence the different actors in the company. There are rare occasions where, stakeholders control the impression management process and this leads a break in the frame and director accountability. The overall key finding of this research is that the findings five constructs are intertwined and are necessary ingredients for NED and board effectiveness.

Rapid economic development in Oman and other Gulf States has attracted foreign workers who now constitute 87% of the workforce in the Omani private sector. Unemployment rates among Omanis are now a serious socioeconomic problem that impacts the stability of Omani society and which has compelled the government to introduce a policy of job-localisation. However, recent statistics revealed that only about 14.6% of jobs have been omanised (Ministry of Manpower, 2014) indicating limited policy success. This study examines the challenges to the implementation and success of Omanisation in the private sector by exploring the views of officials and managers and, importantly, the often neglected views of employees. It employs a theoretical framework based on three aspects of capital theory: human capital elements, that is, education, T&D, skills, and experience; social capital factors, such as gender inequality, Wasta/nepotism and trust; and organisational capital variables, such as organisational culture, English fluency and HRM policies. A total of 496 questionnaires were completed by employees in three sectors; banking, tourism and auto retailing. Statistical analysis showed that the greatest differences emerged in the areas of gender inequality, training and development and working conditions. Overall, women employees, unmarried employees, lower-income employees, junior employees with little in-company training, and employees with lower educational levels perceived the highest barriers. More specifically, the level of in-company training was the most influential factor showing differences in twelve out of the fourteen human, social and organisational factors included in this study as barriers to the policy. The findings replicate previous research on job-localisation in the Gulf States regarding the impact of the private sector’s stereotypical perceptions of local workers concerning lack of trust in Omanis and views that they are less productive. However, this study contradicts most previous studies as it found no evidence that the educational system or English language skills were barriers to the employment of locals. This reflects the effectiveness of recent government measures to improve the quality of education. In addition, this study found no significant impact from wasta and nepotism, unlike previous studies. This is attributed to the satisfaction of nationals with the measures taken by the government in response to the 2011 uprising. The primary contribution of the study, however, comes from interviews with officials and managers who deal directly with Omanisation. Interviews revealed factors that perpetuate the domination of expatriates in managerial roles and unveiled some sensitive issues that people usually avoid disclosing for fear of upsetting policy makers. These include inter-faith conflict, social distance barriers, organisational silence barriers and institutional structure barriers. Participants also reported suppression of Omani employees’ rights to promotion and career-development. Barriers to Omanisation were found to be higher in the automotive sector indicating that policy implementation is sector-dependent. Policy makers are therefore advised to take this into consideration when designing Omanisation programmes to catalyse Omanisation in some sectors.

As a result of increasing globalisation expatriation in the oil and gas industry has become a common practice. In order to be on the foreground in such a competitive market, it is vital for a corporation like the National Oil Corporation in Libya to make certain that operational international recruitment and expatriate assignments are in place. As a member of OPEC and as an owner of the foremost oil reserves in Africa, the NOC in Libya attracts international investment from a varied array of countries. The focus of this study was on the Libyan oil industry as it is an ideal platform of the influence of globalization and alterations in economic, political and cultural mixing on the current business setting. Libya has a different culture, social and business custom to the west. To achieve business goals and avoid cultural misunderstandings, large organisations such as the NOC in Libya must be culturally aware and have the ability to stimulate creativeness and inspiration through flexible management for this reason the NOC in Libya was selected. This study examines the influence of cross cultural training on European expatriate’s assignment at the National Oil Corporation in Libya. The respondents used for this research were European expatriates working at the NOC in Libya. European expatriates represent one of the largest ethnic groups working at the NOC. In 2015, 542 European expatriates, were employed by the NOC. Europeans expatriates were selected to symbolise the Western culture and Libya has been chosen to symbolise the non-Western culture. As this research centres on one corporation and in-depth data is required, the decision of selecting a case study was an expected choice. The data in this research is of qualitative nature, making direct interviews the selected research design. The findings show that cross cultural training was not offered to the European expatriates working at the NOC in Libya. This, in turn, had a negative influence on their international assignment and on their ability to form positive relations with the local Libyan employees, to achieve the objectives of the international assignment and, consequently, their job performance.

In order to use the limited resources of sales and marketing optimally, and to provide customers with the best services, effective customer segmentation is of prime importance. This thesis deals with methods for analysing and comparing the individual values of customers for SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises), because not all customers bring the same value to the company and not every customer can be treated in the same way. The different segmentation models are judged by different criteria. Which segmentation method allows a company to treat customers in the best possible way based on their value for the company? To answer this question first requires the SME company to determine whether they know the monetary or non-monetary value of their customers. The researcher examined if the size of the company influences the choice of segmentation criteria and method. To determine this, it is necessary to address which companies are SMEs. The main methods are reviewed extensively likewise available software models were evaluated and included in the research, and the advantages and disadvantages are compared. For this research topic, a mixed-method design was chosen. The researcher carried out one-to-one semi-structured expert interviews and, parallel to the qualitative research, quantitative data from a technical retailing company’s database was analysed. The company has data from more than 10,000 customers in the business warehouse and CRM system. The results of this research provide new thoughts to reflect on whether the segmentation methods of the existing literature are useful for SMEs in the B2B business and provide the basis for further research and development in this field. The new segmentation method, identified and confirmed through follow-up interviews in this research, will be of immense value to practitioners. Especially for sales and marketing managers working in this field.