Making Best Practice Stick - How UK firms can increase productivityby adopting leading-edge working practices

A productivity gap has been identified between the UK andits leading international competitors such as the US, France,Germany and Japan. The adoption of leading edge workingpractices, it is argued, can help UK firms close that gap.But the UK currently lags behind its major competitors in this area.1 Even where UKfirms do adopt best practices, such as ISO 9000, Total Quality Management (TQM)and Supply Chain Learning (SCL), they tend to do so less effectively and extensively.2The question is why do UK firms struggle to make best practice stick?As part of its ongoing work, the DTI asked AIM to conduct further research in thisarea. This report provides an overview of the findings of a team of managementscholars selected by AIM to review existing research on the subject.[...]