Search results

Explores the findings of a recent survey which suggests that British managers have the wrong priorities when setting targets for quality management. Compares British business with Japanese in respect of customer service.

Two of the primary growth strategies for Major League Soccer (MLS) have been team expansion and the construction of soccer-specific stadiums. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between these factors and game-specific MLS spectator attendance.

Two multiple regression models, one using multi-level mixed effects linear regression and another using interval regression, were developed to explain the variation in attendance utilizing the two factors of interest along with other control factors that have been identified as attendance determinants in previous literature. Game-specific data were collected for five MLS seasons, 2007-2011.

The two regression models explained approximately 40 percent of the variation in spectator attendance and the results showed that expansion teams and soccer-specific stadiums were significantly related to attendance. However, the effect of soccer-specific stadiums was minimized due to the extreme success of the Seattle Sounders in drawing about twice as many fans as the next highest drawing franchise, yet playing in an American football stadium.

While many of the standard factors such as the presence of holidays and novelty players, competition from other professional teams, and day of week, competition from other professional teams; team quality failed to show significance. Expansion teams drew better than incumbent teams and the impact from soccer-specific stadia is weak given the success of the Seattle franchise (and possibly negative when excluding Seattle). Censoring of the dependent variable had a discernible impact on many of the attendance factors.

These findings may be useful to managers of MLS and their teams along with other professional teams and/or leagues that are investigating the use of either team expansion or the construction of new facilities to increase spectator attendance.

This is the first study to investigate the relationship between expansion and new stadium construction in MLS over multiple years. The results indicate that MLS’s decision to use team expansion and the construction of soccer-specific stadiums has been beneficial with respect to spectator attendance.

Attempts to consider how a founder has reduced equivocality in relation to support networks and reducing risks, especially in an international environment. Presents the case studies of five Danish and Australian born global companies. Considers different global models and their limitations. Presents the findings of recent surveys in this area. Concludes that internationalization has not been the primary objective in the founding process and gives direction for further research.

Considers the relationships between ISO 9000, TQM and business performance. It argues that the correlation between ISO 9000 and success is still weak, and that many organizations still have difficulty reconciling the apparent conflict between the “compliance” philosophy of ISO 9000, and the strong innovative demands of TQM. A way of reconciling these apparent conflicts is suggested, which entails the use of a third package of management tools to provide performance‐driven quality. This additional package harnesses the output of TQ initiatives to the continuous improvement of delivered quality of goods and services, and to the development of new customer‐pleasing products ‐ the elements that are missing from ISO 9000. A specific example of the ISO 9000/ TQM conflicts, and of successful use of a particular third package ‐ all within the same company ‐ is provided.

Considers the relationships between ISO 9000, TQM and business performance. Argues that the correlation between ISO 9000 and success is still weak, and that many organizations still have difficulty reconciling the apparent conflict between the “compliance” philosophy of ISO 9000, and the strong innovative demands of TQM. Suggests a way of reconciling these apparent conflicts, which entails the use of a third package of management tools, introduced through a programme of empowered training, to provide performance‐driven quality. This additional package harnesses the output of TQ initiatives to the continuous improvement of delivered quality of goods and services, and to the development of new customer‐pleasing products ‐ the elements that are missing from ISO 9000. Provides a specific example of the ISO 9000/TQM conflicts, and of successful use of a particular third package ‐ all within the same company.

Bubbly oil may be defined as oil in which discrete bubbles of air or gas are entrained, and are separated from each other by relatively thick films of oil.

Knowledge of how social movements move, diffuse, and expand collective action events is central to movement scholarship and activist practice. Our purpose is to extend sociological knowledge about how movements (sometimes) diffuse and amplify insurgent actions, that is, how movements move. We extend movement diffusion theory by drawing a conceptual analogue with military theory and practice applied to the case of the organized and highly disciplined nonviolent Nashville civil rights movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We emphasize emplacement in a base-mission extension model whereby a movement base is built in a community establishing a social movement school for inculcating discipline and performative training in cadre who engage in insurgent operations extended from that base to outlying events and campaigns. Our data are drawn from secondary sources and semi-structured interviews conducted with participants of the Nashville civil rights movement. The analytic strategy employs a variant of the “extended case method,” where extension is constituted by movement agents following paths from base to outlying campaigns or events. Evidence shows that the Nashville movement established an exemplary local movement base that led to important changes in that city but also spawned traveling movement cadre who moved movement actions in an extensive series of pathways linking the Nashville base to events and campaigns across the southern theater of the civil rights movement. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

In the light of a resurgence of “evolutionary” research, sets out to raise some of the philosophical issues associated with an evolutionary conception of economics. Considers Tony Lawson′s work on transcendental realism as a point of departure in the building of an argument which promotes the adoption of a pluralist and holistic conception of economics. Suggests that, while Lawson′s transcendental realism has largely been developed independently of evolutionary economics, with the modifications outlined it may provide a suitable starting point for the formulation of philosophical foundations of evolutionary economics. Augments Lawson′s argument by the suggested adoption of an organic framework and the notion of types as the means of providing a base for the pluralist outlook of evolutionary economics.