Colin M. Mason and Richard T. Harrison
Changes in the macroeconomy, combined with changesin bank lending practices, have created a more difficult financingenvironment for small businesses in the UK in the 1990s…
Abstract
Changes in the macroeconomy, combined with changes in bank lending practices, have created a more difficult financing environment for small businesses in the UK in the 1990s. Notes increasing encouragement for small businesses to seek venture capital as an alternative, but points out evidence both of a lack of venture capital for firms seeking less than £500,000 and a belief that small firms are unwilling to seek venture capital. Challenges these views and points out the advantages to the banks of an informal venture capital market. Considers ways for banks to encourage such activity.
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Richard Harrison and Colin Mason
Concern about the equity gap in the UK has existed for more than 60 years. Despite various government measures and institutional responses (e.g. the development of a venture…
Abstract
Concern about the equity gap in the UK has existed for more than 60 years. Despite various government measures and institutional responses (e.g. the development of a venture capital industry) an equity gap still persists. Current debate has recognized the role of the informal venture capital market as a source of risk capital for SMEs. Argues that this market is both inefficient and underdeveloped, due largely to information deficiencies which hinder contact between potential investors and entrepreneurs seeking finance. Against this background, identifies the role of business angel networks (BANs) as a key means of stimulating the flow of informational venture capital in the UK. In particular, a government scheme to provide pump‐priming assistance to establish five local BAN demonstration projects is shown to have achieved impressive results. However, with the recent emergence of a number of private sector BANs, the continued role of government is now being questioned. Further demonstrates that public sector BANs, operating on a local scale, are filling a different market niche from that of private sector BANs, which operate predominantly on a national scale. Concludes that the top priority for policy is to ensure that all parts of the UK are served by local BANs. An appropriate way forward might be to build on experimental networking arrangements between local, public sector BANs and national, privately operated BANs.
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Reproduces the main texts of hitherto unpublished reminiscences of the style and influence, as a teacher, of Allyn Abbott Young (1876‐1929) by 17 of his distinguished students…
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Reproduces the main texts of hitherto unpublished reminiscences of the style and influence, as a teacher, of Allyn Abbott Young (1876‐1929) by 17 of his distinguished students. They include Bertil Ohlin, Nicholas Kaldor, James Angell, Lauchlin Currie, Colin Clark, Howard Ellis, Frank Fetter, Earl Hamilton, and Melvin Knight (brother of Frank Knight who, with Edward Chamberlin, was perhaps Young’s most famous PhD student). There has recently been a revival of interest in Young’s influence on US monetary thought and in his theory of economic growth based on endogenous increasing returns. These recollections of his students (addressed to Young’s biographer, Charles Blitch) shed light on why Young has, at least until recently, been renowned more for his massive erudition than for his published writings.
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Colin C. Williams and Jan Windebank
This paper argues that by shackling the future of work to a vision of full employment, alternative futures are closed off. At present, employment creation is seen as the sole…
Abstract
This paper argues that by shackling the future of work to a vision of full employment, alternative futures are closed off. At present, employment creation is seen as the sole route out of poverty. Here, however, we reveal that a complementary additional pathway is to help people to help themselves and each other. To show this, evidence from a survey of 400 households in deprived neighbourhoods of Southampton and Sheffield is reported. This reveals that besides creating job opportunities, measures that directly empower people to improve their circumstances could be a useful complementary initiative to combat social exclusion and open up new futures for work that are currently closed off.
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Jorge Villagrasa, Alejandro Escribá-Esteve, Colin Donaldson and Esther Sánchez-Peinado
In this paper we propose to study the differences among family and non-family-firms in relation to its financial strength, and therefore its potential position to resist in front…
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper we propose to study the differences among family and non-family-firms in relation to its financial strength, and therefore its potential position to resist in front of financial crisis and receive financial support or conditions by public or private institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
We used multiple hierarchical regressions on a sample of 137 Spanish medium-sized firms (SMEs).
Findings
We observe that the perspectives and idiosyncratic characteristics of family-firms (strongly influenced by their socioemotional wealth) will affect the way these companies invest and operate in the market, which would be more related to efficiency because of their higher willingness to continue the legacy of the business and their weak risk-bearing attributes.
Research limitations/implications
Our study adopts a measure of familiness with a dummy variable, and not as a continuous variable as proposed by recent research. Therefore, our results although relevant and significant for the family firm literature, must be viewed carefully. Additional research could also retest some prior studies to depict differences caused by “real” family firm involvement.
Practical implications
Under a non-munificent environment, the financial strength maintained by firms will be highly relevant since this context could likely stress and influence their immediate future and viability, overcoming and blurring any other characteristic present in the firm or its managers.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the family firm literature by offering insights into the nuanced dynamics between family and non-family firms during economic downturns, specifically examining their financial strength when different strategic options are pursued and when firms are managed by different type of managers.
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Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover…
Abstract
Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.
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Huthaifa AL-Khazraji, Colin Cole and William Guo
The purpose of this study is to propose a new dynamic model of a production-inventory control system. The objective of the new model is to maximise the flexibility of the system…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to propose a new dynamic model of a production-inventory control system. The objective of the new model is to maximise the flexibility of the system so that it can be used by decision makers to design inventory systems that adopt various strategies that provide a balance between reducing the bullwhip effect and improving the responsiveness of inventory performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed production-inventory control system is modelled and analysed via control theory and simulations. The production-inventory feedback control system is modelled through continuous time differential equations. The simulation experiments design is conducted by using the state-space model of the system. The Automatic Pipeline Inventory and Order-Based Production Control System (APIOBPCS) model is used as a benchmark production-inventory control system.
Findings
The results showed that the Two Automatic Pipelines, Inventory and Order-Based Production Control System (2APIOBPCS) model outperforms APIOBPCS in terms of reducing the bullwhip effect. However, the 2APIOBPCS model has a negative impact on Customer Service Level. Therefore, with careful parameter setting, it is possible to design control decisions to be suitably responsive while generating smooth order patterns and obtain the best trade-off of the two objectives.
Research limitations/implications
This research is limited to the dynamics of single-echelon production-inventory control systems with zero desired inventory level.
Originality/value
This present model is an extension and improvement to Towill’s (1982) and John et al.’s (1994) work, since it presents a new dynamic model of a production-inventory control system which utilises an additional flow of information to improve the efficiency of order rate decisions.
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Colin Hemmings, Lisa Underwood and Nick Bouras
Three separate focus groups were conducted to compare the views of service users, carers and specialist health professionals on community services for adults with psychosis and…
Abstract
Three separate focus groups were conducted to compare the views of service users, carers and specialist health professionals on community services for adults with psychosis and learning disabilities. Participants were asked which staff, treatments or interventions and methods of working or style of service organisation make a significant contribution to helping people with psychosis and learning disabilities. Although there were few direct contradictions or conflicts between the three groups, the priorities of service users, carers and professionals often differed. Development of community services for adults with psychosis and learning disabilities should incorporate the views of service users and their carers as well as clinicians.
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Martin Croteau, Kenneth A. Grant, Claudio Rojas and Hadeer Abdelhamid
Canada has lagged in access to capital for high-potential, growth-oriented new ventures, but has made considerable strides in the past decade. This study aims to examine the…
Abstract
Purpose
Canada has lagged in access to capital for high-potential, growth-oriented new ventures, but has made considerable strides in the past decade. This study aims to examine the evolving state of the market for risk capital in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing a critical assessment of government policy from the perspective of angel investors and diverse communities of entrepreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
A thematic analysis was conducted of seven COVID-19 roundtable discussions hosted by the National Angel Capital Organization that included 51 global and national-level business and political leaders. The analysis extracted the most salient details from the discussions, distilling them into timely and actionable insights for policymakers.
Findings
The analysis suggests that the government’s economic policy response to the COVID-19 crisis fails to address the sudden liquidity problems faced by new ventures. Entrepreneurs and angel investors have remained resilient, rallied as a community and demonstrated an extraordinary level of trust. Traditionally under-represented communities of entrepreneurs are more affected by the crisis than others.
Practical implications
The findings and recommendations are of relevance to policymakers interested in post-COVID-19 economic policies to address the unique challenges faced by start-ups and ensure their full contribution to economic recovery.
Originality/value
The paper presents several policy recommendations and proposes a novel framework to describe the impacts of the pandemic on different categories of start-ups.
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Joanna Mason, E. Lianne Visser, Lindsey Garner-Knapp and Tamara Mulherin
This opening chapter introduces key debates in relation to informality in policymaking, laying the theoretical and conceptual groundwork for the individual empirical chapters…
Abstract
This opening chapter introduces key debates in relation to informality in policymaking, laying the theoretical and conceptual groundwork for the individual empirical chapters, beginning with a provocation for how informality can alternatively be understood. Through illustrating where gaps in understanding within current literature exist for how informality acquires meaning, and the physical and material relevance for how it manifests across contexts, this chapter introduces the three thematic clusters that thread through the book’s chapters: boundaries, knowledge mastery and networks. In doing so, it briefly positions each chapter in relation to these flexible and overlapping categories, drawing attention to how each chapter presents a different understanding of informality. Key to this chapter is our contention that while informality escapes definition, without binary or fixed conceptualisations of this concept we are better able to take in its fluidity and envisage how it is interwoven in everyday policy work and its human and non-human enactment. Underpinning this contention is a key contribution of this work, a proposition for a re-conceptualising of informality and formality as in|formality. Methodologically, this chapter argues that informality is better ‘shown’ than ‘told’ – and that this can be achieved through interpretive and socio-material approaches woven through disciplines that foreground narrative, ethnographic and creative approaches to research.