A. F. Craig & Co. Ltd. of Paisley c.1950-1970: A strategy-focussed narrative

Scottish heavy industry declined in c.1950-1970, suffering inter alia from severe shortages of fuel, raw materials and skilled labour. Among a great number of heavy engineering firms closed in the 1980s was 114-year old A. F. Craig & Co. Ltd. of Paisley, a manufacturer of textile machinery, oil refinery equipment and sugar machinery. The firm survived economic recessions and two World Wars but not the period c.1950-1970. To understand how A. F. Craig reacted to its difficulties strategically, we explored its last years to investigate whether new strategies emerged in the firm and, if they did, their influence on the firm. Investigating archival data for the firm, we found that it adopted exploitative strategies without including explorative strategies in technological search and international diversification. The impact of these strategies was not effective enough to lead the firm out of its increasing difficulties

The impact of failure experience in product development on exploration, knowledge usage, and financial performance of the firm

This thesis addressed three questions regarding learning from failure: 1) How does firms’ failure experience influence their search activities? 2) How does firms’ failure experience affect their performance? and 3) How does firms’ exploration and exploitation influence the impact of failure on performance? Based on the theoretical lens of learning from failure, absorptive capacity, and exploration and exploitation, the series of longitudinal quantitative studies in this thesis revealed that firms’ failure experience negatively affects exploratory search, positively influences R&D performance, and exhibits a mixed blessing on firms’ financial performance. Boundary conditions of the relationships were discussed

Organizational improvisation, architectural "piggybacking," and masonic networking in the International Settlement, Shanghai:building an Anglican cathedral, 1864-1869

This study provides a business history of the construction project to build a large Anglican church in colonial Shanghai in the 1860s. Employing three theoretical lenses, it focusses on the project’s management, setting it in its social, political, economic and architectural contexts. As well as analysing the project’s progress in detail, the paper discloses circumstances that were being faced more generally by resident British and international traders in Shanghai at this unsettled time. It also identifies forces which would in due course influence the long process of change leading to the eventual transformation both of Shanghai and of China itself, enhancing our understanding of the region’s economic history

The impact of failure experience in product development on knowledge usage and financial performance of the firm

We focus on the relationships between failure experience in product development and two aspects of R&D intensive firms, knowledge usage and financial performance. We hypothesize a positive relationship between failure experience and knowledge usage, as well as a curve linear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between failure experience and financial performance. We further propose that exploration in product development positively moderates the impact of failure experience on knowledge usage and negatively moderates the impact of failure experience on firm financial performance. A longitudinal study on 165 firms in the global pharmaceutical industry from 1990 to 2008 generally supports the hypotheses

Comprehending the relationship between a company and its accountants, 1894-1967: Evaluating and accommodating Foucauldian and other perspectives

This article analyses the relationship between a Scottish manufacturing company and the accountancy firm which provided it with professional services across its existence (1894–1967). It examines the professional roles fulfilled by the accountants, the work done and the fee income derived from it, in the context of the company’s history. It emphasises the importance of the services provided by accountancy firms for unlisted companies in understanding the development of professional accountancy in the United Kingdom. The material presented is used to test three different explanations of the UK accountancy profession’s rise which relate to the auditing function and has implications for historical methodology and epistemologies. The explanations explored may be categorised as economic rationalist, Foucauldian and jurisdictional points of view

Dynamic capabilities: New ideas, microfoundations, and criticism

In this special issue, we have collected 13 articles that offer new vantage points for research on dynamic capabilities. We offer a selection of thought-provoking papers that advance current thinking on dynamic capabilities and provide directions for new inquiries using the dynamic capability framework. The microfoundations of dynamic capabilities have increasingly received interest. This special issue offers a range of conceptual methodological approaches to deepen our understanding of the issues surrounding the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities

Excessive transcription-replication conflicts are a vulnerability of BRCA1-mutant cancers

BRCA1 mutations are associated with increased breast and ovarian cancer risk. BRCA1-mutant tumors are high-grade, recurrent, and often become resistant to standard therapies. Herein, we performed a targeted CRISPR-Cas9 screen and identified MEPCE, a methylphosphate capping enzyme, as a synthetic lethal interactor of BRCA1. Mechanistically, we demonstrate that depletion of MEPCE in a BRCA1-deficient setting led to dysregulated RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) promoter-proximal pausing, R-loop accumulation, and replication stress, contributing to transcription-replication collisions. These collisions compromise genomic integrity resulting in loss of viability of BRCA1-deficient cells. We also extend these findings to another RNAPII-regulating factor, PAF1. This study identifies a new class of synthetic lethal partners of BRCA1 that exploit the RNAPII pausing regulation and highlight the untapped potential of transcription-replication collision-inducing factors as unique potential therapeutic targets for treating cancers associated with BRCA1 mutations

The impact of failure experience in product development on knowledge usage and financial performance of the firm

We focus on the relationships between failure experience in product development and two aspects of R&D intensive firms, knowledge usage and financial performance. We hypothesize a positive relationship between failure experience and knowledge usage, as well as a curve linear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between failure experience and financial performance. We further propose that exploration in product development positively moderates the impact of failure experience on knowledge usage and negatively moderates the impact of failure experience on firm financial performance. A longitudinal study on 165 firms in the global pharmaceutical industry from 1990 to 2008 generally supports the hypotheses