The relationship between rurality, skills and productivity in the East Midlands: final report

This report sets out the findings of research into the relationship between rurality, skills and productivity in the East Midlands. The report has been prepared by the Enterprise Research and Development Unit (ERDU) at the University of Lincoln on behalf of the East Midlands Development Agency (emda)

Rurality, productivity and skills in the East Midlands: final report

This report sets out the findings of research into the relationship between rurality, skills and productivity in the East Midlands. The report has been prepared by the Enterprise Research and Development Unit (ERDU) at the University of Lincoln on behalf of the East Midlands Development Agency (emda)

A Balancing-Process Approach to Firm Internationalization

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this paper develops a balancing-process approach to explain the motivations and location choices of foreign direct investment (FDI). In this approach, FDI is viewed as a means to balance a firm's portfolio of resources and capabilities through utilizing foreign strategic factor markets with the ultimate goal of achieving growth and sustainable competitive advantage. This approach joins exploitative and explorative FDI in a single framework and helps explain why a firm can conduct both types of FDI simultaneously.

Mapping Big Data into Knowledge Space with Cognitive Cyber-Infrastructure

Big data research has attracted great attention in science, technology, industry and society. It is developing with the evolving scientific paradigm, the fourth industrial revolution, and the transformational innovation of technologies. However, its nature and fundamental challenge have not been recognized, and its own methodology has not been formed. This paper explores and answers the following questions: What is big data? What are the basic methods for representing, managing and analyzing big data? What is the relationship between big data and knowledge? Can we find a mapping from big data into knowledge space? What kind of infrastructure is required to support not only big data management and analysis but also knowledge discovery, sharing and management? What is the relationship between big data and science paradigm? What is the nature and fundamental challenge of big data computing? A multi-dimensional perspective is presented toward a methodology of big data computing.Comment: 59 page

Some results from a system dynamics model of construction sector competitiveness

Despite government-led good practice initiatives aimed to improve competitiveness in the U.K. construction sector, fluctuations in growth-driven demand, investment and constant regulatory revisions make it very difficult for an enterprise to plan strategically and remain competitive over a timescale exceeding 2 to 3 years. Research has been carried out to understand the historical evolution and changing face of the construction sector and the dynamic capabilities needed for an enterprise to secure a more sustainable competitive future. A dynamic model of a typical contracting firm has been created based upon extensive knowledge capture arising from fieldwork in collaborating firms together with a detailed review of the literature. A construct called the competitive index is used to model contract allocation in a stylised market. The simulations presented enable contracting enterprises to reflect strategically with a view to remaining competitive over a much longer time horizon of between 15 and 20 years. The rehearsal of strategy through simulated scenarios helps to minimise unexpected behaviour and offers insights about how endogenous behaviour can shape the future of the enterprise. To date, work on construction competitiveness has been either of a static nature or set predominantly at the level of the project. This study offers a new perspective by providing a dynamic tool to analyse competitiveness. It creates a new paradigm to support enhanced construction sector performance

What are the barriers to investing in social enterprises? An investigation into the attitudes and experiences of social entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom

The ongoing global economic crisis and the restrictions that this is having on government expenditure has meant that current UK policy is being directed at trying to end the grant dependency that currently exists in the third sector. One of the key focuses of this policy initiative has been to try to increase the third sector’s access to both debt finance from lending institutions and equity finance from venture capital investors. However, this policy intervention presupposes that the lack of private sector investment in the third sector is a ‘supply-side’ problem caused by limited funds. This ignores the structural problems in the social enterprise sector related to governance and a lack of organisational capacity. Indeed, as of 2011 the ethical investment sector in the UK was worth approximately £9 billion and was spread across 90 ethical investment funds responsible to 700,000 investors. Additionally, social investment (i.e. those funds targeted specifically at third sector organisations) was worth £165 million as of 2011. This suggests that the lack of private sector investment in social enterprises in the UK is not a ‘supply’ side problem but is instead related to the ‘investment readiness’ of social enterprise

Asian Foreign Direct Investment in Lower Silesia and Migration Movements in the Region

Rozdział z: The Quandaries and Foreign Development, ed. D. Mierzejewski, “Contemporary Asian Studies Series

Exploring the linkages between investment and employment in Moldova: A time-series analysis

After a prolonged period of economic decline during the 1990s, the Moldovan economy has been characterized by consumption-led growth, largely based on remittances. Due to the presence of excess labour in agriculture and under-utilized capacity in manufacturing, employment declined from 2000, with rural areas suffering the most. This paper presents an analysis of investment, economic growth and employment and it sheds some lights on employment-generating growth strategies using a vector autoregressive (VAR) approach.employment / economic growth / Moldova / VAR analysis/ Granger causality

Investing in value: a perspective on digital preservation

No abstract available