No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The thesis is a study of the Baking Industry in London: its history,decline and late twentieth century renaissance. Part I is a review of the history of the bakeries in London, viewed alongside the history of the food - processing industry in general. Trade directories are employed to show particular geographical and commercial trends,patterns of distribution and the formation of bakery chains. Technical developments are discussed and there is a full account of the structure of the industry as it is today. Part II is concerned with the state of bakeries today; it is based on the results of a survey of London wholesale bakers by means of a questionnaire. The principal areas of investigation were: the firm; the range and methods of production; the building; the workforce; the customers of the bakery; in addition,particular emphasis was given to the question of the location of bakeries. Part III examines the present situation,not only in terms of the bakeries themselves,but also in terms of the market they serve and new emerging forms of distribution. This section makes use of structured interviews with buyers of bread products and with directors of companies engaged in distribution. The concluding chapter addresses firstly the problem of categorising the modern Baking Industry: whether it should be regarded in the same way as any other manufacturing industry or as an adjunct of the Hotel and Catering Industry. Secondly the cultural question is considered: whether the present trends result from the manner in which the Industry has developed or whether the Characteristics of London determine the form which the Industry will take.

This Thesis contributes to understanding of strategic collaborative partnerships between industrial customers and suppliers, within the context of technical change. Automotive manufacturers are facing a plethora of technical change - more than they can handle in traditional ways - and a new basis for competition, set by so-called "lean" manufacturers, from Japan. Lean Production, a demonstrably superior strategy for vehicle design and manufacture, contradicts many of the tenets of the previous best practice: mass production. In order to compete, vehicle assemblers are turning to their suppliers for help. The role of the supplier is thus changing fundamentally: the new challenge is to adopt collaborative strategies and become good "partners". The research was based upon almost 200 interviews in the industry, in ten countries. Five original models of customer-supplier relationships were built and tested exhaustively. Two original models of strategy for component suppliers were identified - operable in two modes - designed for positioning within the industry in the light of the new complex demands from customers. The conclusions of the research are: 1. The business relationship between a vehicle assembler and its components suppliers may be seen as an example of vertical strategic collaboration - partnership between two parties making complementary, dissimilar, contributions, for mutual benefit. Suchp artnershipsm ust be assumedto havea finite life. 2. Whilst all component suppliers will need to adopt lean production methods and approaches, four distinct types of strategy may be identified. 3. Vertical collaboration appears to share many features of horizontal collaboration. The reasons for entering strategic collaboration, identified by research into horizontal collaboration, can be further understood by study of vertical collaboration. 4. Supplier firms form networks within which individual roles vary. Lean supply requires suppliers and their customers to perceive competition in a more comprehensive fashion.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the impact of liberalization on market structure in the European airline industry. The following chapters focus on three interrelated aspects: airlines' pricing behaviour and determinants of demand, differences between European flag carriers and independent airlines in profits and probability of entry in a route and their main determinants, and the effect of different regulatory policies on the productivity of European carriers. Chapter I proposes a model that explains firms' behaviour and shows that, after the liberalization, firms exploit their cost advantages and differentiate their products more, but market structure still depends on access to airport facilities and other ancillary services controlled by the flag carriers. These results differ from American evidence in that I find that the effect of airport presence on prices through lower costs more than offsets the effect through higher perceived quality. Chapter II develops an empirical model of entry, distinguishing between European flag carriers which are highly regulated at the beginning of the eighties, and independent airlines. I find that the latter enjoy sunk cost advantages but get lower variable profits than the former. This means that possible efficiency disadvantages suffered by the flag carriers are more than offset by their higher perceived quality, leading to a situation in which they are less likely to enter a route, but also less likely to exit. Finally, chapter III specifies and estimates a production function for the airline industry, identifying firms' network characteristics and efficiency as the main determinants of their productivity. The results show that the introduction of liberal bilateral agreements by some European governments has given their flag carriers incentives to start adjusting their structure in anticipation of future liberalization in the European market while other European flag carriers have delayed this adjustment.

This thesis analysed the effects of different regulatory frameworks on the post-patent pharmaceutical markets of the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States between 1990 and 1997. Firstly, an extensive search of peer reviewed and 'grey' literature was undertaken to develop an understanding of both the pharmaceutical and wider health policy environments during the period of study. Preference was given to prospective before and after studies with and without control groups, retrospective studies with and without controls, and case studies that were reinforced by similar supporting case studies. A comparative policy analysis of the regulatory frameworks of the three countries linked the actual or expected outcomes to pharmaceutical policies promoting the demand and supply of generic drugs. Secondly, this thesis analysed the effects of the different regulatory frameworks the cost of off-patent medicines. Molecules were selected for the study if they had experienced patent expiration between 1990 and 1997, as well as having experienced entry by two or more generic equivalents over the same time period. Contingency tables were calculated for each pair of variables analysed. The associations between the variables were tested by chi-square and the strength of the relationships was measured by Ganmia. Trends in the pricing and volume of the branded original and generic equivalents were compared. A statistical model was developed as a framework to determine significant factors affecting the market share of the original branded drug after patent expiration. The statistical model was estimated both by ordinary least squares regression and by a fixed-effects estimation. Finally, conclusions were drawn from the comparative analysis of these different regulatory approaches and policy implications are discussed.

This thesis tried to unravel the causes of the technological underdevelopment of the Thai automobile industry by examining the institutions, the actors and their interaction. The principal characteristic of each actor was a product of where it came from, when it developed, and how it adapted to· historical events. Having only evolved slowly, these characteristics have conditioned the behaviour of the actors - the strategies of multinational corporations, the policies of the Thai government and the management structures of Thai firms - during the last 40 years of the 20th century. The minimal intervention of the Thai government helped promote the activities of multinational corporations, and they brought wide-ranging manufacturing know-how to Thailand. On the one hand, the relatively unfettered operation of multinational corporations was a driving force in the quantitative expansion of the automobile industry. On the other hand, this pattern of development was not conducive to the creation of a linkage between the technologically superior foreign [ums and local rums, and the promotion of learning activities in the latter. The situation was also aggravated by the management structure of local firms and their lack of effort to upgrade technology under the environment of the existence of the only weak market pressure. However, the technological underdevelopment cannot be simply attributed to some aspects of one or all of these actors. A case study of the Thai automobile industry suggested we could understand the root causes of the underdevelopment only by examining how the interaction of the actors set a certain path of technological development and how their behaviour was conditioned by their underlying characteristics.

In this thesis a model to describe the diffusion of a cluster of inter-related innovations is put forward. Unlike conventional diffusion approaches, which deal with each innovation independently, this model is based on a system of "aggregated measures of diffusion" (AMDs). Such AMDs assume a common technological base and a learning sequence in adoption, and they are derived from a system of double weighting, with scores attached for a) the complexity of each innovation and b) the time-span since adoption. In addition to diffusion measurement, AMDs can be used to assess technological capability of individual firms, industries, regions or countries. In this role they can replace conventional technology measures, particularly when the object of analysis are "traditional industries" or "catching up regions". In the present application, the diffusion of nine innovations available for use in the clothing industry was tracked. Alternative weighting schemes generated different AMDs, successively taken as the dependent variable in a multiple regression exercise. The variables entered into the model matched broadly the conceptual framework, with proxies of technological competence ("qualified technicians" or "intangible investment") and firm size ("sales" or "employment") displaying greater association with the AMDs. Interestingly, the dummy "country" was not selected as significant. This is in line with previous findings in the thesis, which showed an average initial lag between Portuguese and Italian firms of 4 years, narrowing to 2.5 years as diffusion proceeds. These results suggest that the productivity gap (2.6: I) derives mostly from factors other than differences in the adoption of recent hardware. Future policies to narrow this gap could better consider how to improve the handling of existing hardware (training, skills) and other intangible factors (design, quality, marketing and distribution), than concentrating exclusively on fixed capital formation. If these intangible factors are addressed by public policy, it is possible to believe that the Portuguese clothing industry will have an opportunity to survive and prosper. With regard to Italy, there are signs that some of the traditional factors of competitiveness have suffered recently a process of erosion. With the expected phasing out of the MultiFibre Arrangement, Italian tirms must concentrate further in up-market niches and relocate part of their assembling operations to lower cost regions abroad. The possibility of radical technological change reversing dramatically this industry'S pattern of comparative advantage is not a realistic prospect in the short/medium-term. However. the likelihood of full automation in a longer-term remains, and it is possible to expect that those firms which have gone further in adopting certain LT.-related innovations will have a decisive advantage early next century.