This report presents a review of the evidence regarding the successful adoption of promising practices in UKorganisations. Promising practices are defined for the purposes of this report as management practices that are newto the organisation (e.g. Total Quality Management, Supply-Chain...

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...

“Overall in the UK we do a lot of networking when trying to innovate, perhaps we don’t do enough to capitalise onit and our general infrastructure is not quite adequate to support it”.(AIM Review on Networking and Innovation, 2003).The major points discussed in the report are:On the...

Improving the competitiveness of the UK economyis a national priority. Recent studies – the PorterReport1 and the Department of Trade and Industry(DTI) Innovation Review2 show that the UKlags behind its major competitors in terms ofproductivity. There is a growing consensus thatclosing the...

This paper investigates how firms in the UK might be encouraged to create more value through strategic innovation.Our approach is an integrative one, drawing on both the extant literature - covering the value chain, innovation andthe low skill/low quality equilibrium debate - and the two...

Improving the UK’s competitive position has become a matter ofnational importance. The DTI Review of UK Manufacturing Policy,published in July 2004, stressed the need for the UK to become ahigh value economy1. Previous studies including the Porter Reportand the DTI Innovation Report2 3 also...

This chapter advocates the good scientific practice of systematic research syntheses in Management and Organizational Science (MOS). A research synthesis is the systematic accumulation, analysis and reflective interpretation of the full body of relevant empirical evidence related to a question....

Business schools face significant challenges in terms of faculty recruitment, retention and development, with datasuggesting that there are worrying shortfalls in terms of numbers of PhD students graduating and taking up facultypositions in UK business schools (Francis, 2005). Add to this...

Clusters are systems of localised economic activity and innovation. This report reviews current evidence on clustersand develops policy recommendations for the UK. It argues that clusters include multiple firms from related sectorsthat are co-located within a web of complex linkages and a...

Many papers have documented wide variations in productivity even in narrowly defined industries. Some have argued that this primarily reflects measurement problems due to, for example, comparing across different products. Others argue this reflects persistent differences in performance due, for...