The article argues that management fashions can be interpreted as processes of emerging professionalisation around particular bodies of management expertise. By integrating insights from research on professions and professionalisation, management fashions are analysed as attempts by specific...

Commentators suggest that to survive in developed economies manufacturing firms have to move up the value chain, innovating and creating ever more sophisticated products and services, so they do not have to compete on the basis of cost. While this strategy is proving increasingly popular with...

This paper discusses the theory and evidence behind the logic of business process outsourcing, with a specific focus on human resource outsourcing (HRO). Market analysts project rapid growth in the global market for HRO, from around $30 billion in 2005 to just over $40 billion in 2008. The paper...

Changing the nature of governance arrangements comprises one element in the public service reform programme. New governance forms include arm’s-length agencies, multi-organisational partnerships, hybrids and company structures. In theory, changed governance arrangements offer benefits in terms...

As strategy research has been exploring the dynamic, social and situated nature of the strategy process, so has the role of learning increasingly been recognised as a central feature of strategizing practice. This paper contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of strategizing practice by...

This paper considers the impact that information and communicationtechnology (ICT) has on firms’ choices over organisational form. In particular,the decision over whether to produce in-house or outsource services,and the decision over the location of activity. ICT reduces the transactionand...

When do firms expand abroad? Theory to date suggests that global expansion happens when firm-specific competitive advantages outweigh country-specific difficulties in operating abroad. Differences in culture, in legislation, in administrative practices, and in the overall institutional...

The practice of inviting managers and leaders to make formal presentations telling the story of their experience to others is widespread. In this paper we explore these as one manifestation of the transfer of management practices. We include among those considered, a range of speakers from high...

We investigate the empirical usefulness of a new measure of the degree of competition in a market, proposed by Boone (2000). This measure is based on the reduction in profits that firms experience as a result of cost inefficiencies. We compare this with measurescommonly used by policy makers and...