To what extent can governments supplement private venture capitalists and stimulate the economy by providing money to new entrepreneurs as well as existing enterprises? The UK's National Enterprise Board (NEB) attempted to do just this, and whilst it gained most publicity through its efforts to bail out ailing giants such as British Leyland and Rolls Royce Aerospace, much of its attention was actually directed to smaller ventures. Originally published in 1988 Professor Kramer reports that the NEB's record of success was surprisingly good, and that many flourishing undertakings would not be in business today had it not been for the NEB's efforts. The author goes further, and after discussing the political and economic issues involved in according public aid to private enterprises on a case by case basis, he argues that not only should the UK revive its NEB, but that other countries, notably the United States, could benefit by establishing their own versions of it. Indeed, throughout, the author's perspective as an outsider makes him peculiarly alive to the relevance of the UK example to a whole range of international cases. As the first scholarly, full-length study of the NEB, this book will be of value to those interested in the relationships between venture capitalists generally and the enterprises in which they take equity. It will also interest those studying the relationship between holding companies and their subsidiaries.

This title was first published in 1980: This volume analyzes Japan's industrial organization both from a historical perspective and by looking in details at specific industries such as iron, steel and the automotive industry. Big business, business groups and industrial policy are also discussed. The volume also provides a survey of the literature in Japanese which will help the reader in search of original sources.

This title was first published in 1979.

In The Digital Hand, James W. Cortada combines detailed analysis with narrative history to provide a broad overview of computing's role in sixteen industries, accounting for nearly half of the U.S. economy. Beginning in 1950, when commercial applications of digital technology began to appear, Cortada examines the ways different industries adopted new technologies, as well as the ways their innovative applications influenced other industries and the U.S economy. In addition, to this account of computers' impact on industry, Cortada also demonstrates how industries themselves influenced the nature of digital technology. Managers, economists, and anyone interested in the history of modern business will appreciate this historical analysis of digital technology's many roles and its future possibilities in a wide array of industries. A detailed picture of what the infrastructure of the Information Age really looks like and how we got there, The Digital Hand is a sweeping survey of how computers transformed the American economy.

The book contains selected papers presented at two international Euro-Asia research conferences held in Nantes and Poitiers, France, in 1994 and 1995. These papers are among the most recent empirical works concerned with the analysis of economic transformation and business strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. Various themes are addressed ranging from an assessment of the environment to more specific issues, e.g. business and marketing strategies of firms operating in this region. Countries given particular attention include: China, Japan, South Korea, India, Taiwan and Vietnam. The book represents a comprehensive and up-to-date appraisal of the effects of economic transformation and business strategy of firms operating in one of the world's most dynamic regions.

Throughout the world there is evidence of mounting interest in marine resources and new maritime industries to create jobs, economic growth and to help in the provision of energy and food security. Expanding populations, insecurity of traditional sources of supply and the effects of climate change add urgency to a perceived need to address and overcome the serious challenges of working in the maritime environment. Four promising areas of activity for 'Blue Growth' have been identified at European Union policy level including Aquaculture; Renewable Energy (offshore wind, wave and tide); Seabed Mining; and Blue Biotechnology. Work has started to raise the technological and investment readiness levels (TRLs and IRLs) of these prospective industries drawing on the experience of established maritime industries such as Offshore Oil and Gas; Shipping; Fisheries and Tourism. An accord has to be struck between policy makers and regulators on the one hand, anxious to direct research and business incentives in effective and efficient directions, and developers, investors and businesses on the other, anxious to reduce the risks of such potentially profitable but innovative investments. The EU H2020 MARIBE (Marine Investment for the Blue Economy) funded project was designed to identify the key technical and non-technical challenges facing maritime industries and to place them into the social and economic context of the coastal and ocean economy. MARIBE went on to examine with companies, real projects for the combination of marine industry sectors into multi-use platforms (MUPs). The purpose of this book is to publish the detailed analysis of each prospective and established maritime business sector. Sector experts working to a common template explain what these industries are, how they work, their prospects to create wealth and employment, and where they currently stand in terms of innovation, trends and their lifecycle. The book goes on to describe progress with the changing regulatory and planning regimes in the European Sea Basins including the Caribbean where there are significant European interests. The book includes: * Experienced chapter authors from a truly multidisciplinary team of sector specialisms * First extensive study to compare and contrast traditional Blue Economy with Blue Growth * Complementary to EU and National policies for multi-use of maritime space

This book deals with both the understanding of, and the explanation of, knowledge about the causes, processes, and patterns of convergence innovation. It argues that the process of convergence innovation is a continuous disequilibrium between reference technology and its matching technology, adjusting the optimal balance between the functions of the two technologies. Contributors describe how convergence innovation is a learning process that requires both vertical and horizontal convergence, and case studies explore the different types of convergence innovation such as outside-in and inside-out. Convergence innovation has been taking place mainly by applying IT technologies to vast areas of conventional technologies, so that individuals or firms reap the benefits of the convergence between IT and conventional technologies. Such innovations are made possible by convergence, and they ultimately improve the welfare of human beings as companies solve diverse problems and increase employment. Examples in this book include biochemical companies in Indonesia, who were able to increase their market shares in bio-fertilizer and bio-pesticide products through bio-based technological convergence; and textile machinery firms in South Korea who have been survived by achieving convergence innovation on their core competences. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Asian Journal of Technology Innovation.

Although clusters are regarded as important elements in economic development, the strong focus in the literature on the way clusters function is contrasted with a disregard for their evolutionary development: how clusters actually become clusters, how and why they decline, and how they shift into new fields and transform over time. Although recently new cluster life cycle approaches emerged, both empirical evidence and theoretical contributions on this topic are still limited. This book therefore contributes to broadening our knowledge on the life cycle and evolution of clusters both empirically and theoretically. It contains chapters on inter-firm relations as drivers of cluster transformation, as well as chapters on the heterogeneity of firms and firm capabilities during cluster evolution and on the role of institutions in stimulating the emergence and growth of clusters. Case-studies stem from different industries and technologies, such as biogas, film and television, new media and medical technologies, and from different countries, such as Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and South Korea. All chapters underline that cluster evolution does not only depend on internal dynamics, but that external relations are an integral part of cluster dynamics. This book was previously published as a special issue of European Planning Studies.

First published in 1967, "The Costs of Economic Growth" was based on the central conviction that the official figures for growth in real income were entirely compatable with a decline in human welfare. Twenty-five years later, this work remains the most persuasive and systematic demolition of the religion of growth yet published, its arguments only reinforced by the growing social and environmental problems of the late twentieth century. For this new edition, the text has been revised and updated in the light of recent global perils and environmental degradation.

Originally published in 1952. This book addresses one of the most pressing problems in town planning - the proper place of industry in our towns. The author writes from the standpoint of a town planner who realizes that factories are just as important as houses and schools, and that if industry does not prosper, all our schemes for urban reconstruction must fail through the lack of the necessary resources. In the course of his research he has visited hundreds of factories to get the necessary facts at first hand. Almost as a by-product he describes in simple terms the manufacture of such varied objects (to paraphrase Lewis Carroll) as "ships and needles and silverware; chocolates and glue." Plenty of photographs of industrial buildings in Britain and abroad are included, which show how great an architectural transformation is possible, and that an industrial area can become one of the showplaces of a town.

First published in 1889, this facsimile edition makes available an important historical work on Japanese industry. It is a comprehensive survey of the state of Japanese industry at the end of the nineteenth century, covering agriculture and forestry, mining, the arts, textiles, paper, trade and commerce, including the foreign trade of Japan since the opening of the country by Commodore Perry in 1854.

The experience of Hong Kong's innovative and creative industries and the challenges they face serves as an important case study for other Chinese and Asian cities that are actively developing their innovative and creative industries in the era of globalization. The return of sovereignty over Hong Kong back to China in 1997 has led to both collaboration and competition between the two places in innovative and creative sectors for the Greater China and Asian Regions. Hong Kong has remained unique in spite of the integration, but she has to strike a delicate balance between being simultaneously a Chinese and an international city. This book looks at different innovative and creative industries, such as international art and culture exhibition, innovative technology, digital entertainment, TV and movies, as well as government policy for innovative and creative industries, particularly the changing competitive landscape brought about by the latest Great Bay Area development. Drawing insights from cultural history, innovation economics, cultural policy studies, and cultural geography, this book explores the opportunities and challenges of Hong Kong's innovative and creative industries, in particular after the change of sovereignty in 1997. It demonstrates that the city's legacy, and heavy government input in capital, do not guarantee their sustainable development. This is a book not only for policymakers or academics interested in innovative and creative industries but also to students contemplating a career in these areas in Hong Kong, the Greater China and the Asian Region.

Originally published in 1972, The University and British Industry examines the lively and controversial relationship between British industry and the university. The book looks at the impact of industry on the development of British universities from the 1850s to the 1970s, and with contribution from the universities to industry through scientific research and the supply of graduate skills. The book argues that the close involvement of the universities and industry has been one of the chief beneficial forces shaping the British universities movement in the last hundred years. It gives an account of the changes which took place within the universities to make them more suitable for industries purposes, describing for example the early rise of the English civic universities, strongly financed by, and closely supporting industry. The book also considers how, during the two world wars, industry became highly reliant on the universities for the war technology, and how, despite the depression between the wars, university research and graduate employment embraced the widening opportunities of the new industries. The book also discusses the expansion of the university in the sixties and points out that industrial motives have merged with those of social justice, posing dilemmas for present and future relations between universities and industry.

This volume, first published in 1994, is the first collection of original research on the relationships between industrial property and economic development. The contributors, all specialists in their field, highlight the emerging conflicts between the users and the providers of industrial premises; conflicts that may undermine economic potential. The need for flexibility in the use and provision of industrial premises is explored in three contexts: the transformation of the urban fringe; the development of hi-tech premises; and the redevelopment of old or derelict premises.

The purpose of this book, first published in 1982, is to probe the nature of the state in India and the role played by it in the evolution of the social economy, particularly in the growth of industry. In fact, the problematic of the state and its relationship with socio-economic progression or regression is a dialectic process. What this book does is attempt to unravel this dialectic, by following the theory and method of Maxism.

Supply Chain Management and Cost Management are important developments helping companies to respond to increased global competition and demanding customer needs. Within the 23 chapters of the book, more than 35 authors provide insights into new concepts for cost control in supply chains. The frameworks presented are illustrated with case studies from the automotive, textile, white goods, and transportation industry as well as from retailing. Academics will benefit from the wide range of approaches presented, while practitioners will learn from the examples how their own company and the supply chains which they compete in, can be brought to lower costs and better performance.

The structure and regulation of consumption and demand has recently become of great interest to sociologists and economists alike, and at the same time there is growing interest in trying to understand the patterns and drivers of technological innovation. This book, newly available in paperback, brings together a range of sociologists and economists to study the role of demand and consumption in the innovative process. The book starts with a broad conceptual overview of ways that the sociological and economics literatures address issues of innovation, demand and consumption. It goes on to offer different approaches to the economics of demand and innovation through an evolutionary framework, before reviewing how consumption fits into evolutionary models of economic development. Food consumption is then looked at as an example of innovation by demand, including an examination of the dynamic nature of socially-constituted consumption routines. The book includes a number of illuminating case studies, including an analysis of how black Americans use consumption to express collective identity, and a number of demand-innovation relationships within matrices or chains of producers and users or other actors, including service industries such as security, and the environmental performance of companies. The involvement of consumers in innovation is looked at, including an analysis of how consumer needs may be incorporated in the design of high-tech products. The final chapter argues for the need to build an economic sociology of demand that goes from micro-individual through to macro-structural features. This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 9, Industry, innovation and infrastructure -- .

This book examines Soviet agriculture in post-1945 Hungary. It demonstrates how the agrarian lobby, a development following the 1956 revolution, led to contact with the West which allowed for the creation of an effective agricultural system. The author argues that this 'Hungarian agricultural miracle,' a hybrid of American technology and Soviet structures, was fundamental to the success of Hungarian collectivization.

This study examines how Puerto Rico's industrial development process has shaped and been shaped by the state, relations with Washington, and Puerto Rican society, especially in light of the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s. Sherrie Baver posits that Puerto Rico's extreme integration into the U.S. political economy was an unintended consequence of the development model, and that its result has been a state whose tasks, such as securing an environment for private capital accumulation and income redistribution, have become increasingly regulated by the federal government, challenging Puerto Rico's commonwealth status. Recommended for scholars of Latin American Politics and Third World Development.

What does luxury value mean? What constitutes luxury, and what does not? While previous research has focused on luxury as a global business and how companies have generated, communicated and monetized luxury, this book draws on empirical research to examine how consumers understand and interact with it. It identifies the components of luxury value, as seen by consumers, and the most influential factors that shape these perceptions. Drawing on a range of disciplinary approaches, the author investigates how consumer segments differ in their perception of luxury products, and how different generations understand value. A comprehensive overview of consumer perceptions of luxury, this book is a must-read for those students and researchers interested in luxury studies.

Category management is one of the biggest contributors of commercial value in the area of procurement and supply chain. With a proven track record of successful delivery since the early 1990s, it helps organisations gather and analyse key data about their procurement spend before subsequently creating and delivering value-adding strategies that change the value proposition from supply chains. The aim of category management is to find long-term breakthrough strategies that help lift an organisation's commercial performance to a new level. Because of its strategic long-term orientation and complex execution, category management has long been the preserve of commercial consulting companies - in effect a 'black box' toolkit shrouded in expensive methodologies. This practical handbook lifts the lid on category management by providing readers with a step-by-step process and established toolkit that allows them a 'do-it-yourself' approach. Each activity is presented as a simple tool or technique for practitioners to apply to their own organisations. To support each activity, easy-to- use templates and checklists have been provided, together with simple but practical hints and tips for implementation. This handbook is a 'must read' for all procurement and supplychain managers looking to find significant improvements in their organisations. Its practical approach cuts through long-winded consultant-speak and provides an easy-to-use practical toolkit for everyday application.

This book describes why, for the past twenty-five years, Japanese productivity has been growing more rapidly than productivity in the U.S. Unlike other books on the subject of the Japanese success in manufacturing, it looks at what actually happens in factories. The author brings his experience of working at the Yanagicho Works of the Toshiba Corporation, in Kawasaki City. Like so many Japanese factories, this one is highly productive, efficient, and flexible. While the factory is ordinary looking on the outside, its workers are anything but ordinary as they constantly strive to improve the way they work and the quality of the products they produce. The key to this is the continuous creation and application of knowledge throughout the factory, from workers on the shop floor, to research and development engineers, to top management. Fruin explains how Japanese culture and religion prepare workers for their role in this process of creating and disseminating knowledge.

Major changes are taking place in the Chinese countryside as China rushes to modernizes and urbanizes its rural fabric. The transformation is improving the quality of life of rural inhabitants, but also brings about challenges as people strive to adjust. This book systematically examines the impact of change on the daily lives and activities of the residents of Sichuan Province, in China's South-west. It examines the themes of infrastructure, transport modes and preferences, sanitation, water conservation, earthquake and flood disaster preparedness, and the impact these have on villager behavior and quality of life. This book is an essential reference guide for graduate students and practitioners in the fields of rural planning, renewal, and construction.

This book examines the uneven economy in Asia, showing how the pace of economic transformation affects prosperity and the emerging middle class. Using the Lewis turning point and the long run cycle of the rise and fall of nations as a framework, it demonstrates how demographic trends, digitization rates and consumer preferences creates business opportunities in a disruptive and uncertain world. This includes moves toward promoting Eurasian integration, restructuring of state-owned enterprises, green economy, and the digital economies - ecommerce, fintech and sharing economy. Vanity capital, longevity and leisure economies are also discussed. The author explains what drives creative disruption, technical innovation and their effect on manufacturing, consumers, businesses, and sustainability. It is essential reading for students, academics, executives, and business persons wanting in-depth coverage of the economic landscape in Asia.

The 2008 global financial crisis, together with the experience of de-industrialization across Western Europe over the last three decades, has focussed attention on financial regulation and industrial policy. Industry and finance policies have largely been discussed separately, and this book argues that the two should be considered together, in both analysis and policy formulation that deals with critical questions of how finance has intervened in industrial restructuring and how it might better serve the real economy. Moreover, policy debates have paid relatively little attention to the heterogeneous economic structures and growth trajectories of European economies, and the interconnectedness and interdependencies of growth paths that present specific challenges to policy and highlight the need for cooperation across the region. This book brings together leading scholars and policy makers to contribute to policy debates in three ways. First, it includes current discussions of banking policy, regulation, and reform to reassert the need for financial institutions that will back up and finance an industrial policy to revive the European economy. Second, it reviews the role of industrial and investment policy in supporting innovation, creating jobs, and generating sustainable economic growth. Third, it advances alternative policy proposals aimed at generating sustainable economic growth and employment in Europe. Part I analyses the nature of growth, industrial, and economic restructuring in relation to finance in the lead up to the crisis, at regional, national, and sector levels. Part II presents alternative and progressive policy proposals for growth and employment in Europe in light of the analysis presented in Part I.