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The U.K. capital market has observed a remarkable growth in the use of lease financing as a tool of financial management. It must be recognised, however, that its profitable use by Industry is dependent upon an easily applicable and theoretically acceptable method of evaluation within corporate capital budgeting procedures. Increasingly, analysts have come to acknowledge the need to integrate corporate investment and financing decisions insofar as concerns the acquisition of industrial plant and equipment. However, traditional methods of lease evaluation fail to examine its integrative nature, and in consequence, they neglect the critical interdependencies which encompass the simultaneous decision process. Extant lease evaluation models also fail to consider the consequences of the earnings generated by the "Residual Capital Balances". That is, the working capital freed when leasing is strategically used to relax what otherwise would be an unacceptable shortage of funds. Such earnings are a fundamental part of an integrated lease cash-flow profile under certain circumstances: namely, the use of leasing as part of a "Planned Financing Mix", as opposed to its use as an emergency or "spill-over" financing when no residual capital occurs. On the basis of extensive empirical study into the circumstances under which U.K. financial management had recourse to leasing, a hypothesis was developed to explain the role of leasing in corporate financial planning and debt management. The research proceeds to establish models for the evaluation of leasing under "spill-over" conditions (where all otherwise available sources of finance are, or appear to be, exhausted) and "Planned Financing" conditions (when the use of leasing in quantitative terns is formally envisaged as part of the corporate financing policy). In this way it is possible to determine the risks implicit in the haphazard use of leasing together with the benefits available to its planned use.

Purpose/objectives: In an international and globalised world with unlimited boundaries, the field of project management has expanded into a multinational environment. International engineering projects have increasingly become common practice, however, also more challenging due to their international nature. Relevant project management literature has been systematically reviewed and a gap in knowledge has been identified. Whilst the challenges of managing projects in an international environment have been researched extensively, the involvement of local personnel and their specific contributions has not been studied to date. This research will focus on the criticality of involving local personnel when executing international projects in the engineering sector and will identify the contribution of local project team members to the success of such projects. The aim of this research was to explore and identify the contributions of local personnel when managing engineering related projects in an international environment, thereby contributing to knowledge and practice in the field of international project management. Design/methodology/approach: In-depth, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with experienced international project managers as well as local coordinators with a leading role within the local project office. These interviews have been recorded, transcribed and analysed using an inductive approach. Based on the identified categories and the grand themes of international project management identified during the literature review, the findings have been presented. Findings: The findings represent a significant contribution both for knowledge as well as business practice. In-depth interviews and the subsequent analysis have resulted in the clear finding, that the involvement of local personnel is critical to the success of an international engineering project. In addition, numerous specific contributions have been identified by the respondents and have been categorised in order to develop a theoretical framework of contributions. Framework: Based on the findings of this research, a theoretical framework that identifies the contributions of local personnel has been developed. This framework summarises the specific contributions of the local coordinator as well as local engineers. Additionally, potential project organisational structures have been presented to show the possible implementation of the framework and maximise the contribution of local personnel.

Purpose/objectives: This research deals with the development of a consensus construction to understand and to optimize factors affecting service technicians response time in corrective maintenance processes for stationary equipment, i.e. equipment that can generally not be re-located for maintenance and repair, in different business areas, i.e. elevator, mining equipment and IT hardware. In this context, the goal of this research is to identify competitive objectives with respect to corrective maintenance, factors that are perceived to influence service technicians in this process as well as perceived improvement opportunities. Based on this, a consensus construction to be utilized in the researched community has been developed in order to optimize the according response times. The construct may also be used as a baseline for further research in this context. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical part of the research conducted has been targeted with an abductive, qualitative, multiple case study approach. The need for this research has been identified through an in-depth and iterative literature review and the methodology chosen, i.e. multiple case study research, has been justified. The empirical part to contribute to closing the research gap has thereby been divided into four parts: 1. Preparation of research and pilot 2. Case studies and result documentation 3. Analysis, interpretation and consensus construction development 4. Conclusions, limitations, outlook and recommendations Findings: The findings represent a significant contribution both for knowledge as well as business practice. In addition to the identification of further gaps in research, the literature review thereby isolated a specific need with regards to understanding and improving factors affecting service technicians in stationary equipment corrective maintenance response time. In this con-text, numerous concepts, such as PSS, servitization, competitive objectives/priorities, correc-tive maintenance, response time reduction, etc. have been reviewed, put into context, dis-played in a structured way and contributed to by this research. Furthermore, a set of 57 per-ceived factors influencing the corrective maintenance process and 87 perceived improvement opportunities has been identified. The consensus construction structures and prioritizes these, gives action recommendations and makes the findings available for application in business practice in the community studied. Last but not least, the research conducted has risen the awareness for the importance of this topic.

This research project, which is limited to German SMEs, deals with the development of a holistic early warning system (EWS) integrating both a quality management system (QMS) and controlling (CO). Most of the concepts designed to identify company risks/crises are focused either on quantitative (operative) or qualitative (strategic) factors. Several authors point out the need for a more holistic approach including both quantitative and qualitative factors. This research, therefore, sought to explore controlling and quality management tools for EWSs in the food production industry, which are appropriate for recognizing risk factors of company failure, outlined by interview and literature review. Concepts and relations were generated with the help of turnaround-, controlling-, and quality management-experts and then confirmed/refined and analyzed by considering how they can be implemented in practice through the application of case study research. This research makes a contribution in the following areas: identification of requirements for an EWS; the exploration of appropriate QM and CO tools for EWS; the proposal of a holistic approach. The EWS, developed during this work, enables companies in the food production industry to tailor the framework for the specific needs of the company. Such a comprehensive, systematic approach (CO + QM) is currently unknown, both in research and also practice. Therefore, the work represents a new, innovative and implementable practical model.

Purpose/objectives: The research deals with establishing a best practice model in SRM for manufacturing companies in the European transportation industry. The objective of the thesis is to identify schools of thought in SRM, to highlight the causal factors for supply disruptions and to outline how supply disruptions can be anticipated, managed and prevented. The identified best practices shall be categorized and utilized to establish a best practice model for the respective sector. The purpose is to show how supply chain resilience can be accomplished in global and complex supply chains by means of proactive SRM. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical part of the research has been conducted with a qualitative and multiple approach over a period of more than two years. The paper examines best practice elements through a systematic literature review combined with semi-structured interviews involving senior managers in SRM in the European transportation industry. Two case studies have been included for confirming or disconfirming the best practice elements. The empirical part has been divided into four phases: (1) verifying or falsifying the appropriateness of the research questions, (2) best practice identification and categorization, (3) confirmation or disconfirmation of best practices in SRM, and (4) refining best practice elements. Findings: The findings represent a significant contribution on how to deal with complex and global supply networks. They will help researchers and practitioners faced with the task of setting up supplier relationships. Furthermore, the findings can be applied when establishing an overall best practice framework and SRM model. Research limitations/implications: The research focuses on establishing a best practice SRM model for multinational manufacturing companies in the European transportation industry. The model has not yet been implemented. Therefore, implementation and application to other industries will have to be the subject of further research.

TQM has become a competitive strategy for organisations and has been widely implemented throughout the world. Over the previous three decades, there has been a dramatic growth globally in the implementation of total quality management (TQM) in many organisations with the aim of improving the quality of their products and services, and meeting customers‘ needs. Although the literature in the field relates the success of many organisations in the implementation of TQM, it also refers to the fact that there have been some failures or shortcomings and barriers to the implementation of TQM. These failures or barriers to adoption and implementation are due not only to a lack of top management commitment or weak understanding of total quality management, but also encompass organisational cultural factors. The purpose of this research is to assess the level of TQM implementation, and to explore the influence of organisational culture on TQM implementation in Libyan banks. In addition, this research identifies the main obstacles that affect the implementation of TQM in Libyan banks. This study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to achieve the objectives of the research. A questionnaire was designed to determining the level of TQM implementation in Libyan banks, and to identify the causal relationships between factors, in order to explore the influence of organisational culture on TQM implementation. Complimentary semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers and supervisors to gain a greater understanding of some additional issues with regard to TQM practice and organisational culture. The results of data analysis show that the level of TQM implementation in Libyan banks was low. The competing value framework (CVF) as proposed and tested by Denison and Spreitzer (1991) was used to explore the influence of organisational culture types on TQM implementation factors in Libyan banks. The findings showed that group culture and developmental culture had a positive influence on all TQM implementation factors. In addition, hierarchical culture and rational culture did not have any influence on TQM implementation factors in this context. Moreover, the study revealed that some of the obstacles that affected the achievement of a high level of TQM implementation in Libyan banks were: a lack of top management commitment; a lack of training programmes relating to quality management; and a weak focus on customer expectations and satisfaction. The findings of this study make an original contribution to the academic and practical knowledge of TQM. It is the first exploratory study to have assessed TQM implementation, and to have investigated the influence of organisational culture types on TQM implementation in Libyan banks. Besides presenting some recommendations for Libyan banks, the research offers suggestions for further research in this area.