Companies consider product development (PD) their competitive lever to survive in a technology-fuelled and fast-paced environment. Lean Product Development (LPD) is a promising concept currently being adopted by companies focusing on maximising customer value, shortening lead times, and reducing costs in PD. This research initially concentrates on developing a comprehensive LPD framework which subsumes existing concepts and supersedes them by including findings from the wider PD research area. The investigation then leads into understanding the highly-interwoven, yet underinvestigated, character of LPD to pave the way for its implementation into the complex knowledge-based PD environment. The deduced systematic implementation plan, which both provides an appropriate level of detail and accounts for the inherent complexities of LPD, supports companies in their struggle to embrace Lean practices in PD. The LPD framework is developed by employing a content analysis of existing concepts and integrating insights from the wider PD environment. The relationships between the framework’s elements are investigated using the results of a self-administered questionnaire embedded in a cross-sectional research design and complemented by the fruitful discussions found in literature. The insights into the inner workings of the framework are subsequently appropriated to formulate general recommendations and an effective implementation plan.

This thesis aims at providing rigorous micro-foundations for explaining detailed firm and product level trade flows. In this research I investigate the mechanisms by which firms break into foreign markets and the impact of “\(entry\)” on \(growth\), \(further\) \(entry\) and \(exit\), as well as the potential biases when measuring the export growth of firms using annual data. Specifically, I introduce Quarter-Year, Month-Year and Week-Year estimations and examine whether there are certain countries that act as launch pads for Argentinean firms to target exports. My results provide an accurate measure of export growth and have implications for trade policy. I introduce the concept of “trade liberalisation externalities” whereby bilateral trade liberalisation can lead to an expansion of trade to third countries via the process of sequential exporting. This research also deals with the relationship between exporting, importing and product quality.

Floating exchange rate has recently become more volatile after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1973. Impediments to trade introduce price differentials and deviations from the law of one price and even diminish trade transactions. Uncertainty can be an example of an impediment to trade. The central objective of the thesis has been to analyse trade costs and exchange rate volatility and their role in bilateral trade, with particular reference to developed countries and Asia developing countries. This thesis contains three main parts as follows: Chapter Two investigates the purchasing power parity hypothesis by testing the real exchange rates using the Robinson (1994)’s fractional integration approach as well as conventional unit root tests. Chapter Three is a panel data study on the impact of relative trade barriers on bilateral exports using gravity model. In the first step the impact of the technology factor along with geographical factors, institutional factors on bilateral transportation costs is investigated. In the second step, GMM and an instrumental variable approach are used to tackle the econometric problem of endogeneity. Chapter Four and Five investigates the impact of both real and nominal exchange-rate volatility on the UK aggregate and disaggregate bilateral trade flows.

Issues related to food security have long been closely tied to the dynamics of the global political economy. The latest price peak experienced in the commodities market (2007-2008) greatly affected agricultural commodities, creating significant imbalances in production and consumption. This research develops an interdisciplinary approach that links together issues of natural resource governance, development, and transformations in the global political economy to explore the ways in which countries of South America govern commodity booms. In other words, this thesis examines how these global dynamics affect the ways in which food-producing states manage the wealth produced during commodity booms and how this is wealth is subsequently distributed among different sectors of society. In South America, the recent commodity boom has led to an expansion of primary production oriented towards export markets, creating imbalances in their domestic productive structures. This thesis focuses on the production and trade of soybean in three countries of the Southern Cone: Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Following the boom, soybean production has come to dominate the agricultural sectors and overall exports of these countries, with some authors going as far as to dub this rapidly expanding industry the ‘Soybean Republic’. This research engages with cutting edge debates in International Political Economy, with a conceptual focus that draws from human geography and brings in space as both contingent and constituted by the changing productive and trade dynamics. By looking at the development of fixed infrastructure and dynamics of capital mobility, this research explores the patterns of uneven development that emerge from the expansion of the soybean complex, as well as the capacity of the Argentine, Brazilian, and Paraguayan states to govern the distribution of the profits emanating from it.

Given the prominence of international trade in the globalized economy, large undesirable costs arise due to uncertainties in international transactions. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sales of Goods, Vienna, 1980 identifies some of these costs to be a product of separate legal rules on international trade, and recognizes the solution to lie in a unified statement of norms. Judicial experience with the Convention, however, has demonstrated that the existence of a unified statement of norms does not ensure uniform results. While the majority of the literature on the Convention takes a black letter law approach without examining the impact of varying interpretations on the end users of the Convention, this thesis argues that the provisions of the Convention, from the perspective of the parties, must operate to achieve the ends of efficiency. Absent the same, parties drafting a contract would opt out of the application of the default rules by including a provision in the contract governing the contingency. Such an outcome would in turn significantly increase transaction costs associated with contractual negotiating and drafting. This thesis concerns itself with six areas that have raised a great deal of disagreement amongst the scholarly and judicial community namely: The scope and role of the principle of good faith; the issues surrounding the inclusion of standard terms into the contracts of sale; the extent to which the Convention allows for the use of openprice terms; the question of the period within which notice of non-conformity must be provided; the rate at which interest has to be paid on sums in arrears and; the guiding principles for the interpretation of the term 'foreseeability' as contained in article 74. Each chapter of this thesis therefore deals with one of these issues and attempts to resolve it in line with the international character of the Convention - and one that promotes the efficiency of the agreement. For the purposes of this thesis, an efficient rule is defined as one that operates to minimize transaction costs, does not allow or de-incentivizes the potential of parties to act in an opportunistic manner and places liability on the best risk avoider. In reaching such an interpretation of the articles under examination, the thesis gives due regard to the travaux preparatoires, scholarly opinion and judicial pronunciations on the matter.

This thesis examines how high technology new ventures (HTNVs) in the life science industry in Scotland leverage external knowledge to resolve challenges that they face at critical events to enable the firm to grow. The theoretical approach is holistic, drawing on the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation and internationalisation, which are all key drivers of the growth of HTNVs. Reviews of this diverse literature point to the key role of knowledge for the growth of these firms, however, little is known about the processes and routines that enable them to leverage knowledge. Therefore, the construct of absorptive capacity (ACAP) is an appropriate lens to investigate how HTNVs resolve growth challenges by leveraging external knowledge. As this is a complex issue, this exploratory study takes a holistic view, drawing on the interpretivist paradigm, and utilises in-depth case studies to examine key challenges that firms face at critical events, and the knowledge leverage processes associated with these events. A key finding is that HTNVs experiencing rapid growth have to address a number of growth challenges simultaneously in relation to the three key drivers of growth. Therefore, the knowledge processes that support this activity transcend functional boundaries and are interlinked with and interdependent on these simultaneous business processes. With limited internal resources, the demand of these firms for external knowledge to resolve these challenges is acute. The six types of knowledge that firms were found to require are: market, technical, managerial, regulatory, internationalisation and relational knowledge. The firm’s ability to combine different types of knowledge from outwith the firm and from within the firm’s knowledge stocks to find solutions for the challenges they face is important for their growth. The major contribution of this thesis is that the pace of the leverage of knowledge at critical events is maximised when HTNVs have multiple enablers of ACAP in place. This has emerged from combining other findings on key enablers and temporality of ACAP. A new process model of ACAP is proposed, which highlights the connection between the individual- and firm-level ACAP, and emphasises the importance of effective communication within the firm and the effective management of the firm’s knowledge stocks to maximise the firm’s ability to exploit the knowledge it acquires. The model also highlights the importance of social capital to the ACAP process, in particular to the timely acquisition and assimilation of knowledge. This process model significantly enhances the understanding of how knowledge is leveraged through the ACAP process. There are important implications in these findings, amongst which there is evidence that social capital provides the firm with timely access to the knowledge, in particular the links of board members. In dynamic industry environments where there are constant technological advances and market opportunities are short-lived, the ability to assimilate and respond to opportunities and threats quickly is crucial to the firm’s competitive advantage. For the management of HTNVs, understanding how to optimise the use of their Boards of Directors, including venture capital representatives, in order to leverage their experience and connections, can significantly enhance the firm’s competitive advantage. Furthermore, exploiting the firm’s social capital in order to access and assimilate knowledge more effectively could have a significant impact on the growth of the firm. At policy level, it is imperative that small firms are encouraged to invest in the enablers of ACAP, to develop appropriate connections across the value chain that can assist their growth and, in particular, to ensure that they appoint to their Board Non-Executive Directors who are appropriate to the key challenges they are facing.

Product appearance has been considered a significant factor of influence in the consumer behaviour, but its impact alongside other factors like cost, features and intrinsic psychological factors on the decision making has not been in focus. This is especially the case in the Indian urban context where both consumer behaviour and the influencing factors have not been adequately studied. Based on the mixed methods research philosophy, this study employed both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, to empirically study the in-store consumer behaviour of the young urban Indian adults (18-25 years). The product category chosen for this study was both a functional and a fashion accessory: wristwatches. Literature related to the various areas of the cultural, sociological and economical conditions of the Indian consumer context were studied alongside theories of consumer behaviour based on cognitive psychology. Primary data was collected from a combination of 74 questionnaire survey responses, 101 observation episodes and 7 expert interviews. This large amount of data was analysed based on the paradigms of grounded theory coding levels as well as the theoretical foundation of the perceptual cycle model. The findings of the study presented an interesting and new perspective of the Indian consumer filling existing gaps in knowledge. The main finding related to product appearance vis-à-vis other competing factors as ‘stimuli’, was that it has very low influence on the in-store purchase behaviour of the Indian consumer, with limited impact on the final purchase decision, cost factor is the key influencing factor in this decision. However, the other key influencing factors in the ‘exploration’ and ‘schema’ were the socio-psychological factors of peer groups, family influence, conformity and symbolic interaction, each of which were examined independently and together in the perceptual cycle. The finding also augmented the pivotal role of peer and family influences on the decision making. Finally, a new conceptual framework, based on the perceptual cycle model and reasoned action model, in the form of an integrated decision model, amending the deficiencies in both, to include the key factors of emotions, attitudes, beliefs and behavioural intent was developed based on the findings of the study.

The effects of economic and political transition dominated Thailand’s economy since the 1990s; with the great change from economic and trade victory to widespread financial slump, the political crossroads in 1992 and the reform of political democracy, Thailand drew up a preliminary version of a new constitution and pledged significant political and economic improvement. In the context of the reconstitution of the Thai telecommunications policy from the beginning of 1990 to the end of 2001, this study presents the progress of restructuring Thai telecommunications industry and examines key forces determining the policy-making process of its Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). In order to investigate the role of manifold policy factors and the role of the Thai State in ICT policy formulation, the study applies political model of policy process and is based on the conceptual framework of J. P. Singh (1999)’s factors in determining the nature of the telecommunications restructuring in developing country and the State’s role in the decision-making process. While the primary impelling force for restructuring was Thailand’s ambition to become the economic centre of Southeast Asia, a vast number of secondary forces are discovered to have been involved in the restructuring of telecommunications industry and evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) policy. Economic cooperation and a global liberalisation programme enforced by the WTO and the IMF have had an explicit effect on Thailand’s policymaking. Internally, in the collocation of the advanced development of parliamentary democracy and intensifying money politics, business interests became steadily stronger in ICT policymaking through the more direct political manipulation of the situation to gain some advantage at the top levels. There was also a growing impact from public interest groups and the Senate. The diversity of interests in the policy process limited the power of the State to direct policy decisions. In a system in which policy-making was plagued by political infighting among groups seeking to control the social system and the activities from which they derived private benefit, the policy-making function of the State was seriously impaired and the progress of Thai telecommunications reform and its ICT policy underwent a major crisis in consequence. The thesis seeks to answer: how the ICTs policymaking developed during the telecommunications industry reform, and the interplays among the policy forces; and what role the State played in the policy-making process. It argues that the Thai State’s weakness to create a regulatory regime to implement the ICTs policy of telecommunication liberalisation represents essentially a problem of institutional change. The thesis demonstrates that the State role in policymaking was phenomenon, and even facilitated particular group’s interest and idea, and that it was ill-suited implementation for society at large.

No description available.

Goal incongruence, both within organisations and between organisations operating in a network context, has long been acknowledged as an important influence on organisational behaviour. This work presents the findings from an ethnographic study of goal incongruence in a public service network located in the UK. The study develops a conceptual framework for defining and researching the extent and sources of goal incongruence within public service networks. The author defines incongruence as contradiction between goals, draws evidence from organizationally enacted behaviours and recognises distinctions between formal goals and the operative goals of network groups. Empirical evidence is used to evaluate two explanations of goal incongruence: that goal incongruence is produced by the nature of bureaucratic delegation (the hierarchical model) and that it is produced by professional difference (the horizontal model). The findings of the study indicate that bureaucratic delegation is the source of goal incongruence. However, several elements of the hierarchical model are questioned. The evidence does not support the orthodox view that incongruence between formal and operative goals increases as conceptions of desired ends are transmitted downward within hierarchies. The study finds that the operative goals of actors at the apex of the network were most highly incongruent with the formal goals of the network. Professional difference was not a source of goal incongruence. Indeed the study provided evidence that operational staff who exhibited different professional identities co-operated to integrate practice and reduce goal-incongruence. The study concludes that the application of the novel conceptual framework provides a more selective, detailed and convincing account of goal incongruence than those found in the recent literature. The sources of goal incongruence were hierarchical elites putting the resources of the network to their own purposes as social agents and hierarchically imposed systems of organisational obligation and performance control. Finally, the study suggests that evidence for interprofessional integration indicates that the role of peer groups in moderating goal incongruence is under-represented in theoretical and empirical accounts of goal incongruence.