Exploring key economic sectors and groups of sectors in Scotland; 1998, 2004, 2007

Different methods and criteria exist for determining ‘key’ economic sectors. The Scottish Government identifies a number of ‘key’ sectors, although it is not clear which metrics it used to choose these. It is likely that these sectors are considered to be ‘key’ in delivering the Scottish Government’s policy priorities. This differs from a more formally defined economic approach to determining key sectors. However, even within the economics literature, there are different ways of thinking about which sectors are ‘key’. This short paper presents one approach to determining individual and groups of ‘key’ sectors. We will explain why these approaches are not necessarily equivalent, and what value is added in moving from considering sectors individually to analysing the impact of sectors in groups. We begin with a non-technical overview of the methods we employ, before discussing the database used in this analysis. We then present the results of applying this method for Scotland for three time periods: 1998, 2004, and 2007. We mainly focus on sectoral output, but we also include one set of results which look at key employment sectors. In the discussion of our results we concentrate on two things. First, we are interested in which sectors are identified as important in Scotland in each time period. Second, we investigate how those sectors have changed between 1998, 2004 and 2007

Small employment growth businesses and accounting support in the northern region of England.

Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN048702 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Innovation needs and outcomes in food micro firms

In the context of the prolonged rural crisis affecting both the UK and many other Western regions, the adding of value to agricultural products at, or near the locality of, the farmgate represents a potentially rich form of rural development. One common method for adding value to such products is through the small-scale production of high quality food products that command price premiums in the marketplace, through the targeting of niche consumer demands. Despite a growing interest in this form of value adding, formal understanding of the mechanics of how the businesses that produce these products operate remains limited. This thesis attempts to contribute towards this understanding by taking innovation as a central point of analysis. It aims to contribute both towards our theoretical understanding of micro food firm dynamics and, practically, towards the development of effective policy tools to support food micro firm supply chains. This is achieved through the development of a broad conceptual framework developed through a multidisciplinary literature review. Through this framework, a longitudinal study of six micro food firms is undertaken along with a comprehensive postal survey of Welsh food businesses. The empirical data is subsequently co-analysed and related back to the existing theoretical understanding of the research issues. The thesis concludes by drawing upon a number of central issues that influence the development of food micro firms. Among the findings of the research are that the aims and objectives of microfirm entrepreneurs are central to the development of the firm. Moreover, these are failing to be understood by both policymakers and mainstream food industry interests. In a broader context, the thesis argues that small scale quality food systems must learn to exist under the shadow of conventional interests, and follow development paths that are able to resist mainstream appropriation. Only the development of systems that effectively bridge the two production ethics in a form that ensures the integrity of small scale activities can enable the alternative values encompassed within many microfirm entrepreneurs to cease being alternative.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse