Profiling business support provision for small, medium and micro-sized enterprises in London’s fashion sector

The primary aim of this paper is to build a profile of the business support landscape that exists for fashion SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and MSEs (micro-sized enterprises) in London. In the face of multiple challenges, fashion sector SME/MSEs benefit from the services provided by business support organisations. We have identified 21 fashion support organisations that exist in London. They can be broadly divided into two types of business support organisations: fashion incubators and partial-support organisations, both of which play an equally important role in the sector

Entrepreneurship, innovation and the triple helix model: evidence from Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire

This paper focuses on how regions become entrepreneurial and the extent to which the actors in the triple helix model are dominant at particular stages in development. It uses the case studies of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire in the UK to explore this theme. Both can now be described as ‘regional triple helix spaces’ (Etzkowitz 2008), and form two points of the Golden Triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London universities. As entrepreneurial regions, however, they differ in a number of respects. This is not surprising given their differing geo-historical contexts. However, by comparing the two similar counties but which have their own distinctive features we are able to explore different dynamics which lead to the inception, implementation, consolidation and renewal (Etzkowitz and Klofsten 2005) of regions characterised by very high levels of technology-based entrepreneurship

Internal report cluster 1: Urban freight innovations and solutions for sustainable deliveries (1/4)

Technical report about sustainable urban freight solutions, part 1 of

Capital account regulations and the trading system: a compatibility review

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Center Task Force Reports, a publication series that began publishing in 2009 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. Spanish version produced by the Center for the Study of State and Society, Buenos Aires. Portuguese version coordinated by Daniela Magalhaes Prates, a contributing author of the report, in collaboration with Ana Trivellato (translator), and Maria Inês Amorozo (graphic designer).This report is the product of the Pardee Center Task Force on Regulating Capital Flows for Long-Run Development and builds on the Task Force´s first report published in March 2012. The Pardee Center Task Force was convened initially in September 2011 as consensus was emerging that the global financial crisis has re-confirmed the need to regulate cross-border finance. The March 2012 report argues that international financial institutions – and in particular the International Monetary Fund – need to support measures that would allow capital account regulations (CARs) to become a standard and effective part of the macroeconomic policy toolkit. Yet some policymakers and academics expressed concern that many nations — and especially developing countries — may not have the flexibility to adequately deploy such regulations because of trade and investment treaties they are party to. In June 2012, the Pardee Center, with the Center for the Study of State and Society (CEDES) in Argentina and Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University, convened a second Task Force workshop in Buenos Aires specifically to review agreements at the WTO and various Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) for the extent to which the trading regime is compatible with the ability to deploy effective capital account regulations. This report presents the findings of that review, and highlights a number of potential incompatibilities found between the trade and investment treaties and the ability to deploy CARs. It also highlights an alarming lack of policy space to use CARs under a variety of FTAs and BITs—especially those involving the United States. Like the first report, it was written by an international group of experts whose goal is to help inform discussions and decisions by policymakers at the IMF and elsewhere that will have implications for the economic health and development trajectories for countries around the world

Knowledge management and communities of practice in the private sector: lessons for modernising the National Health Service in England and Wales

The National Health Service (NHS) in England and Wales has embarked upon a radical and farreaching programme of change and reform. However, to date the results of organizational quality and service improvement initiatives in the public sector have been mixed, if not to say disappointing, with anticipated gains often failing to materialize or to be sustained in the longer term. This paper draws on the authors' recent extensive research into one of the principal methodologies for bringing about the sought after step change in the quality of health care in England and Wales. It explores how private sector knowledge management (KM) concepts and practices might contribute to the further development of public sector quality improvement initiatives in general and to the reform of the NHS in particular. Our analysis suggests there have been a number of problems and challenges in practice, not least a considerable naïvety around the issue of knowledge transfer and 'knowledge into practice' within health care organizations. We suggest four broad areas for possible development which also have important implications for other public sector organizations