This paper uses evidence from focus groups in England to consider how consumers think about and, more importantly, distinguish foods by both primary and secondary qualities, using both their own judgement but also advice produced by various organisations acting as ‘knowledge intermediaries’,...

This paper uses evidence from focus groups with consumers in England to consider how consumers understand and evaluate a range of proxies or intermediary organisations that offer assurance about food and consumer products, particularly voluntary certification schemes. This addresses the current...

In this paper the relationship between leverage, performance and a firm’s ownership structure is investigated. It is an exploratory study based on listed firms in China, that is all firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 1999 to 2005. The results of an empirical...

In 2007, the Vietnamese securities market had a total market capitalization of VND 500 trillion (US$31.25 billion), equal to 43.7 per cent of national GDP, double the figure in 2006 and 15 times higher than in 2005. The number of listed companies increased to 249 (138 on the Ho Chi Minh City...