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Many pioneers of economics blended empirical work effortlessly with their theoretical work, though critics alleged that theory became increasingly divorced from empirics after 1945. Yet many LSE academics—from Ronald Coase and Edith Penrose to Geoffrey Owen and John Sutton—consistently rooted their work in the founders’ aims of studying ‘the concrete facts of industrial life’, generating and testing important ideas in industrial economics. A distinctive LSE initiative in 1978 was the foundation of the Business History Unit, a wellspring of later developments in the subject of business history within the UK and internationally. The core staff and the Unit’s students and diaspora at home and abroad contributed to the analysis of entrepreneurship, technical innovation and comparative business development.

Relationships between commercial actors have existed for thousands of years as highlighted by Hadjikhani and LaPlaca (2013) and Hadjikhani in the final chapter of this volume. However, research on relationships between business actors, often summarised under headings such as industrial marketing or B2B, has a more recent origin. In the words of Hadjikhani and LaPlaca (2013: 294), relationship research ‘existed in society but had little scientific identity or inquiry’. This is even truer for research on wider relationship systems, that is, business networks. However, as will be demonstrated in the present volume, the situation in the beginning of the twenty-first century is quite different. Research on business networks is lively and manifested by a large number of publications. A search for ‘business networks’ in the databases SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI and A&HCI for all years until 2015 (with the restriction that the journals publishing the papers should be classified in the Subject Category ‘Business & Economics’ in all 156 journals) resulted in 553 hits, with the first papers published in 1992. Publications then did not accelerate until the early twenty-first century with an all-time high in 2012 of 70 hits, and somewhat lower figures in the following years. However, it should be noted that the 2015 figures merely refer to the first part of the year (Fig. 2.1) and will increase.

Tony Lowe spent a good deal of time considering how management control systems might be better designed to enable enterprises to adapt to a dynamic external environment (Lowe, Journal of Management Studies, 8(1):1–12,1971b; Lowe and McInnes, Journal of Management Studies, 8(2):213–227, 1971). One strand of research considered how the structure of management control systems influence the ability of the firm to gather relevant information about its environment. A second strand examined the implications of the law of requisite variety (LORV). Tony Lowe’s systems and cybernetic work had some influence over a period of time, as evidenced by the production of systems-based accounting texts, but longer-term impacts have been limited. Our aim is to examine how more recent research reflects and might be seen to extend Tony Lowe’s work.

This chapter looks at some of the rational principles of economic philosophy covering consideration of the “other”, which we call the “alteritas” principle; cooperation and facilitation (as service); money as “encapsulated” freedom of choice; business as a non-privative activity; and the uncertainty and indeterminacy of economic activity, all of which can be used in the design of practical codes of business ethics and codes of conduct.

In this article, we consider the mainsprings of John Nevile’s many contributions to economics. John has repeatedly argued that because ’economic actions, institutions and policies affect people’, they have an ethical dimension (Hawtrey and Nevile, 1986: 1), and he has stressed the importance of understanding the value judgements on which economics rests. His policy suggestions are aimed at improving social justice and the well-being of the most vulnerable. Apart from his deep knowledge of economic theory, his Christian faith provides an important foundation for his analysis, particularly of policy.

It seems clear that simplicity in taxation has considerable potential advantages, but there are important reasons why tax systems become complex. In a paper presented at the Conference of the Tax Research Network (TRN) in 2014, the present authors reviewed progress towards simplification in Australia, New Zealand, Turkey and the UK, finding that attempts towards greater simplicity in taxation had not been very successful (Budak et al., 2014). One of the main reasons is that attempts to simplify tax systems are only likely to be successful and enduring if they take account of the reasons why taxation is complex. It may then be possible to find the right balance between simplicity and the aims of a tax system in terms of efficiency, equity and so on, as well as taking account of the complex environment in which tax systems have to operate. Such factors will change over time, and so the appropriate balance between simplicity and complexity is also likely to change. In addition, the situation is likely to differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

One crucial, recurring challenge for business managers involves taking the right action when pressured to change from resource investment in a business relationship to the pausing or termination of such, which, in some situations may dissolve the relationship completely. In that ongoing quest, a substantial part of the information necessary for the managers’ choice of path of action stems from the past, current and potential future in the specific business relationship. However, to rely solely on the available information in the relationship is, in most situations, insufficient to select appropriate managerial action. The notion that business relationships are better understood as part of business networks is well established (see, e.g., Ford et al. 2002; Hakansson and Snehota 1995), consequently suggesting that further information, potentially vital for the choice of managerial action, can be sourced within the immediate surrounding business network.

List Figures List Tables Foreword Claudio Cecchi (PhD, Director of Eurosapienza, Research Center on European International and Development Studies) Preface: Italy in the European context: What has changed pending Horizon 2020 Donatella Strangio and Giuseppe Sancetta PART I: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICIES 1. The Italian Monetary policy in perspective: lessons from monetary history of Italy before the EMU Mauro Rota and Donatella Strangio 2. Immigration policies in the EU: failure or success? Evidences from Italy Elena Ambrosetti and Angela Paparusso 3. Income inequality in Italy: tendencies and policy implications Maurizio Franzini and Michele Raitano 4. Digital inequality in Italy and Europe Debora Di Gioacchino, Adriana Lotti and Simone Tedeschi PART II: BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENT 5. Fashion firms and counterfeiting: causes and actions Alberto Pastore and Ludovica Cesareo 6. A bottom up approach to unlevered risk in a financial and managerial perspective Antonio Renzi, Giuseppe Sancetta and Beatrice Orlando 7. European Economic Development and the Environment Luca Mocarelli 8. The multiple effects of energy efficiency on Green Economy Maurizio Boccacci Mariani 9. Climate change and reproductive intentions in Europe Alessandra De Rose and Maria Rita Testa Index

Professor Kaldor has been a long standing critic of the application of neo-classical modes of thought to the analysis of economic growth and development. In recent years, in particular, he has followed the line of Myrdal [1] in attacking the predictions of neo-classical theory that regional (national) growth rate differences will tend to narrow with trade and the free mobility of the factors of production. The essence of the argument is that once a region gains a growth advantage it will tend to sustain that advantage through the process of increasing returns that growth itself induces—the so-called Verdoorn effect [2]. The fullest statement of Kaldor’s views at the regional level is contained in a lecture to the Scottish Economic Society published in 1970 [3]. Unfortunately the model he presents is purely verbal and lacks the rigour and precision that one normally associates with Kaldor. The purpose here is to attempt to formalize the model in order to clarify its structure,1 and to consider such questions as: the role of the Verdoorn effect in contributing to regional growth rate differences; whether regional growth rate differences will tend to narrow or diverge through time; and how policies of regional ‘devaluation’ can raise a region’s growth rate.2

This chapter provides an overview of the recent trends and developments in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-Australian trade and investment. GCC-Australian trade and investment has increased significantly over the last two decades. However, a closer look at the recent trends shows that so far Australian-GCC trade and investment remain highly concentrated in a few countries and in a narrow range of sectors. Opportunities therefore exist for Australian businesses to expand and diversify more broadly across all GCC states in more sectors of the economy.

Entrepreneurship is an emerging research area among academics because it is generally acknowledged that fostering entrepreneurial activity is associated with greater economic growth (Weeks and Seiler, 2001). From a gender perspective, the rising phenomenon of women becoming entrepreneurs not only encourages economic development but also empowers women (Gill and Ganesh, 2007). Stimulating local economic growth through female entrepreneurship is now a major item on the economic agendas of most countries in transition (Radovic-Markovic, 2008). In many countries, however, the role of female entrepreneurs was unrecognized until ten years ago. In the first place, their potential role in reducing female unemployment had been unknown. Female entrepreneurs contribute to the diversity of entrepreneurship in the economic process (Verheul and Thurik, 2001). Furthermore, female-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can assist in fighting the trafficking of women, which is of great concern in many countries that are in a transitional state (Aidis et al., 2007). In addition, the impact of female entrepreneurs on a country’s competitiveness, productivity and growth potentials was not known, and therefore, women did not get enough support from society to reach their entrepreneurial and managerial potential (Radovic-Markovic, 2011a). This statement can be supported by the fact that only five of the Fortune 500 industrial and service companies had female CEOs in the early 1990s (Feminist Majority Foundation, 1991), and of the highest paid officers and directors of the 1,300 largest industrial and service-oriented companies, women accounted for less than 0.5% (Dodge and Gilroy, 1995). The numbers have improved, but at the end of the 1990s, one survey found that only 11% of Fortune 500 board members were women (Mann, 1999). On the other side of the coin, however, often a modest family budget does not afford the ability to generate funds or savings, which most women use to start new businesses (Radovic-Markovic, 2012). In addition, in most transition and developing countries, barriers to gender entrepreneurship development still exist.

This chapter provides the necessary background and context for the study. Australia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have a long history of trade and investment activities between them. Trade and investment have evolved gradually over the years. However, the acceleration of globalisation and the resulting changes taking place in the structure of the world economy have led many small economies such as Australia and the GCC states to engage strategically with their trading partners in order to remain an integral part of the global economy. Australia and GCC started to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA) in 200J with negotiations slowing down for a number of years. Recently, Australia has shown a strong determination to conclude a successful FTA with the GCC. Such a prospect raises a number of interesting questions regarding the potential benefits of a successful Australia-GCC FTA which is the subject of this research.

This chapter reports the results of a survey of Australian businesses currently doing business in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The main purpose of the survey was to gain a better understanding of the challenges which Australian businesses face when engaged in international business activities such as exporting, importing and investing in GCC countries. The research assesses how the removal of internal and external trade barriers would likely benefit businesses. The findings suggest that the main benefits are likely to accrue to export businesses while the effects on import and investment are likely to be minimal. Export revenues are likely to increase by an estimated 20% under the scenario where there is a free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and GCC.

This chapter summarises the main findings of the study and provides a number of recommendations to both businesses and policy makers so that the likely benefits of an eventual Australian-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) free trade agreement (FTA) can be optimised. The most common difficulties faced by Australian businesses are in the form of non-tariff barriers and local business practices which are deeply rooted in institutions, culture and history. For this reason, the study argues that in order for Australian businesses to fully realise the potential benefits of an eventual FTA, special considerations should be given to institutional reforms in the GCC as an integral part of the FTA framework. A FTA can serve as an effective mechanism for addressing institutional voids in smoothing the conduct of businesses between the two regions. The study also offers some practical recommendations to businesses in expanding into some of the growth sectors in the GCC in a post FTA era.

This chapter provides an overview of the recent trends and emerging patterns in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) consumer market and business environment. The chapter starts by assessing the potential consumer market size of the GCC by analysing emerging demographic trends. Then, the chapter provides an overview of emerging economic sectors with future growth opportunities. This is followed by an analysis of the international competitiveness of the GCC and its member states.

The financial crisis revealed severe weaknesses in the governance, regulation and stability of banks. The considerable economic impact of the crisis on the businesses of many individual banks is today well documented and so is its effect on systemic risk and the increased threat to the stability of the financial system as a whole. The content of this book is mainly driven by the challenges banks and other financial institutions are facing in the aftermath of the financial crisis. A number of governance related topics, and responsibilities within and outside the financial system have been, and are, discussed alongside the re-regulation of the banking industry through a gradual implementation of the proposed and continuously updated Basel III standards. The institutions that constitute the financial system infrastructure are not only preparing for possible worst-case scenarios but also for a stable, healthy and sustainable banking industry. The title of this book — Governance, Regulation and Bank Stability — intends to capture the important challenges that lie ahead, in the search for a sounder banking industry: challenges that not only comprise the probability of default for systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), but also promote efficiency in everyday banking operations.

The narratives in this chapter perhaps demonstrate the greatest variety in terms of work presented in this book. Included are the growers — those who produce items of need; those who make and repair; and those who transport. In this chapter we cover the spectrum of tangible work since the taming of the land and time (the farmers and the horolo-gist) to new occupations (software engineer). The occupations depicted represent both the rise of new kinds of work and the decline of some others. We have included two similar jobs (that of farming), yet each offers a unique insight into the world of agriculture and its associated challenges and stresses.

Management control is about the process of steering organisations through the environments in which they operate, to achieve both short-term and longer-term goals. These goals will differ from organisation to organisation because their stakeholder demands will be resolved in different ways, in part dependent on the relative power of different stakeholder groups in each context, and also on the past history and trajectory of the organisation. However, the longer-term goals will almost inevitably include the survival of the enterprise itself, as this generally is in the interests of most stakeholder groups, most of the time. \ud In addition, the environment in which organisations operate is itself constantly changing and may be very difficult to predict. Thus, the context within which organisation is being steered is highly uncertain and may change, sometimes quite quickly and radically. It is a moot point as to whether the rate of environmental change, or the degree of uncertainty which organisation now have to face, has increased in recent years. We certainly seem to perceive it as increasing, although this may be partly due to the future being less predictable than the past. It is always difficult to try and look back and envisage how previous situations we face looked at the time, without having our perception coloured by the way events actually turned out, and the consequences for ourselves.

Being aware of the need to support economic growth for local companies the European Union (EU) has been intensifying its global efforts to enhance trade relations. As of July 2011 a free trade agreement (FTA) between the EU and the Republic of Korea (hereafter South Korea or Korea) commenced (EC, 2012). This agreement is considered as ‘the most ambitious trade deal ever concluded by the EU’ (EC, 2013) and its first with an Asian country, aiming incrementally to eliminate import duties as well as non-tariff barriers and provide an extensive liberalization of trade in services (EC, 2009). Additionally liberalization of investment, both in majority of the service and non-service sectors, is covered by this agreement, reflecting a more inclusive approach to recent trade negotiations by the EU with economic partners. In this way the EU aims to open newly industrialized economies, especially in Asia, and its attractive growth potential to European companies.

This volume gathers a forum that integrates the extensive set of disciplinary dimensions to which the interdisciplinary concept of the global city can help to tackle the policy challenges of today's globalising metropolises.

How managers reason, judge, and decide where to internationalize their businesses — for example, what new market to enter or where to (re)locate production — has been a central question in the literature on internationalization of firms since the early 1970s. As argued in the research review below, the disciplines of international business and economic geography offer various streams of research, all of which focus on different elements of this complex assessment and thereby also propose different explanations for firms’ decisions related to geographical space and context. In this paper, space and context will be used interchangeably. A similar jigsaw exists regarding the question of how a firm’s local geographical context influences the above-mentioned decisions. Despite 40 years of research, this complexity in decision making has not been adequately mirrored in the prevailing research streams dealing with various aspects relating to a firm’s international expansion in geographic space. We still grope about in the dark. We still lack studies that attempt to provide a holistic view on what is important for managers making these decisions. For example, when managers decide to establish a subsidiary in the United States, Asia, or Europe, what do they prioritize? What are they consciously and/or unconsciously considering in this decision-making process and why?

Firms cooperating in various arrangements with other private and public sector actors, for example, other business firms, organizations, state agencies, or universities, are generally believed to reap benefits from such cooperation. Regional strategic networks (RSNs) financed from public or private sources serve as tools to support regional development by promoting such cooperation. They are intended to strengthen the competitive advantage of participating firms and organizations and thereby the region in which they operate. With this in mind, efforts have been made to create relationships between firms in order to obtain synergy to support innovation, new businesses, and job opportunities. As defined by Jarillo (1988), strategic networks are purposefully designed cooperation ventures, mainly between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a definition that also describes RSNs. Strategic networks are considered to embody opportunities for member companies to coordinate resources, reduce uncertainty, increase capacity, and obtain greater flexibility (Child and Faulkner 1998).

New Institutionalist Economics (NIE) offers a seminal contribution to the wider debate on governance. NIE arose as the result of a growing interest among rational choice theorists in explanations for the emergence and change of institutions, specifically the link between individual agency and structural transformation. It presented a theory of institutions in order to extend neoclassical economics, which presumed that a complete set of smoothly functioning markets exists but did not refer to institutions to explain their existence and working. New institutionalism was a reaction against the ‘hyper-individualism’ of classical economic theory. Its principal offering is that institutions are the rules of the game in society, or more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction. Among its principal architects, Douglass North (1990) emphasised that institutions reduce uncertainty in human exchange, which arises in the first place because human beings have incomplete information and limited mental capacity by which to process information. Institutions help to manage the demands and costs transacting.

For a long period of time, the regulation of banking activities was top-down and highly centralized. Major decisions were in principle determined independently by regulators, with little involvement by bank management. After deregulation, which occurred in the 1980s in most European countries, regulations were relaxed and even abolished in many areas. The overall aim was to open up for decentralized decision-making in a competitive environment. Conservative regulation should be replaced with good management and sound risk appetite in banks by creating a competitive arena, directed towards both customers as well as investors. However, not all bank regulations were removed. On the contrary, at the end of the 1980s the first Basle Capital Accord, Basle I, was launched by the Bank for International Settlement (BIS).

Seizing the opportunity often takes the key role in innovation, change and long-term success in business. The opportunity is, in that respect, something valuable occurring in the market which can be discovered and put to use by a company with the capability to do so. For a company, this means being active in the market and employing the entrepreneurial function to realize the opportunity and to change its operations accordingly. We argue that certain opportunity development can only be achieved through ongoing business relationships. Opportunity development means change in business relationships. Continuous change in ongoing business relationships is thus fundamental for opportunity development. But opportunity development is also contingent on input from the wider network of business relationships. Without change induced by the network connection, the ongoing business relationship risks stagnation and becoming routine, making opportunity development impossible. Against this background, the purpose of this chapter is to expand on the continuous opportunity development process in ongoing business relationships. More specifically, the aim is to explore the links between connection and change that provide the basis for opportunity development for the ongoing business relationship.

One of the most formidable challenges in creating and managing business in China is cross-cultural negotiation with Chinese businesspeople (Ghauri and Fang, 2001; Stone, 2001). The Chinese are described as the world’s toughest negotiators (Mann, 1989). In the words of Lucian W. Pye (1986, p. 74), ‘for centuries they [the Chinese] have known few peers in the subtle art of negotiating. When measured against the effort and skill the Chinese bring to the bargaining table, American executives fall short.’ A survey in the late 1990s among 127 Western companies doing business with China shows that Western business executives considered knowledge and skills about negotiation in China to be the most important factor for success in trading relationships with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (Martin and Larsen, 1999).

‘… the Learned give up the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.

The phenomenon of leadership has been the subject of a considerable body of literature in the humanities and certain branches of the social sciences. Traditions of inquiry into leadership have been particularly prominent in philosophy, politics, anthropology, psychology, sociology and history. Moreover, insights from all these traditions have been integrated into studies of management and organizational behaviour that have been of both an academic and popular nature. A particularly comprehensive and useful survey of these studies is provided by Bass (1990).

This chapter surveys the role of second-best analysis in the evolution of normative public economics. In fact, most of the current issues and research in public economics involve second-best type analysis — in other words, policy analysis in economies in which, for various reasons, a first-best optimum cannot be achieved.1

The declared aim of this chapter is to bring together insights from the work of economists and management theorists on questions of the organisation of the firm. Each approach has much to offer the other. Economists interested in the organisation of international business have tended to focus on questions of the boundaries of the organisation; that is, of its exlemlll structure. The analysis of transaction costs has been used, for example, to explicate the decision to export, to license or to manufacture overseas, and also the participation in gv s and alliances (Buckley and Casson, 1976, 1985; Buckley and Glaister, 1994). However, a good deal of attention in the management literature is applied to the debate about internal organisation. Writers on management have promoted new structures and new approaches to organisation, using ideas from many sources. These include studies of Japanese business (Pascale and Athos, 1981), of successful American businesses (Peters and Waterman, 1982) and the analysis of quality management (Deming, 1986). This contribution is an attempt to apply insights from the transaction cost approach to questions of internal organisation of the kind addressed in this management literature.

One principal problem in interpreting the impact of the New Economic Model (NEM) policies upon poverty in Honduras, a problem shared by the accompanying case studies in this volume, is that of identifying the point at which the NEM became operational (or even whether the economic policies adopted could be construed as conforming to a ‘typical’ NEM). Some (Noe Pino, 1990; Noe Pino and Hernandez, 1990, p. 56) talk in terms of policy after 1985 being formulated within NEM terms of reference. Others, such as the World Bank (1994a, p. 7), identify the changeover point as 3 March 1990, the date when the Honduran Congress approved the Ley de Ordenamiento Estructural (Decreto No.18–90), a law more popularly referred to as ‘el paquetazo’. While 1990 clearly marks an important change in economic policy (and will be used as the starting point for the NEM), there were some important changes in policy during the 1980s and these will need to be analysed.

In the 1980s the central banks of the Nordic countries began to deregu- late their financial markets. Within the space of a few years, several of the existing regulations were abolished that had for long restricted banks' lending volumes, interest rate setting and foreign exchange. For the banks a door was opened to a new world; the changed environment offered exciting business opportunities. The demand for new loans seemed almost infinite, but simultaneously the competition between banks, and between banks and other financial institutions, was strength- ened. Therefore, many banks reorganised and decentralised their busi- ness. Competitiveness and market (customer) orientation became buzz words and were considered by many banks to be strategical key factors for success. Branches became profit centres and, within certain limits, the authority to make credit decisions was often delegated to the local branch manager. The new world, however, was also a world of which most of the banks had no real experience and, apparently, very limited understanding. Today it is obvious that the majority failed to realise the magnitude of the underlying credit risk exposure when expanding the loan portfolio.

Development theorizing in economics is old but so-called ‘development economics’ is not. Economists from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards have been writing books on the subject even when the discipline of economics had not emerged as a distinct body of thought or as a self-contained mode of reasoning.

My purpose is to reflect on some of the lessons of the past in the study of human resource management, particularly as it relates to the themes of change and innovation, before turning to present and future concerns in this field. At first, I considered making observations only about the last ten years but find that my own involvement over the period makes objectivity impossible. So I have gone back a little further and would like to offer a very personal historical overview of the various principal developments in the study of human resources that have brought us to our present point. I stress “personal”, since another academic would give a quite different, equally legitimate and, to his mind, far superior account.

The major theme of this Tokyo Round Table Conference is: ‘Economic Institutions in a Dynamic Society: Search for a New Frontier’. Specific aspects of this broad subject-matter will be dealt with in the four subsequent sessions. Therefore I may be permitted to focus on a somewat general issue related to the major theme of our conference, incidentally recalling the most outstanding contributions to our discipline by Gunnar Myrdal who departed from us just four months ago. I think it is only proper to pay tribute to him on this occasion by highlighting, in particular, his concern with institutional economics. Please note that I make a distinction between ‘economics of institutions’ and ‘institutional economics’ as I shall presently explain.

Up to and during the Second World War Hayek was known only as a technical economist concerned with the rather specialised areas of monetary theory, the theory of the trade cycle and the theory of capital. While some of his work in those fields did have policy implications he was not concerned with economic policy as such, and only after the publication of the polemical The Road to Serfdom did he begin the long and arduous task of integrating economic theory and economic policy into a general theory of society. The economic writings of the 1930s are, however, important not only because of their place in Hayek’s intellectual system but also because they loom large in the fierce debates over the economy that characterised that era. The Austrian theory of the business cycle, of which Hayek was the leading expositor, was at one time the dominant explanation of the cause of industrial fluctuations and naturally the theory had some policy implications, albeit of a fairly negative kind, as to how such fluctuations might be avoided, or at least their worst effects mitigated. Indeed, Hayek’s own university at the time, the London School of Economics, was associated with a particular policy for coping with the Great Depression, from 1929 to 1933, a policy of non-intervention that largely derived from Austrian teaching.

This volume is the product of a conference held in 1982 under the title ‘Economics and Work Organization’. A quick perusal of the papers included might leave a non-economist somewhat baffled: what do any of them have to do with the organization of work? There is little or nothing about the costs and benefits of different ways of scheduling work flows or factory organization or autonomous work groups, etc. These are the sorts of questions which industrial engineers, industrial psychologists or industrial sociologists might expect to be encompassed by an ‘Economics of Work Organization’. However, the papers in this volume are largely conceptual in nature. They focus on economic concepts which may be appropriate in analysing work organization (widely defined) rather than measuring in detail the economic consequences of given forms of work organization. Hence the conjunction (and) rather than the preposition (of) in the conference title. Modern economists are still in the early stages of addressing themselves to questions of work organization. As a consequence of this they are still grappling with very general questions such as the appropriate framework within which to examine work organization and the development of concepts adequate for this ‘new’ field of enquiry.