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Identifying the factors that influence Irish high-tech enterprises to choose one regional location over other Irish regions
Get PDFThe purpose of this current study is to identify the regional factors that influence the location choice of high-tech enterprises, establish the reasons why existing high-tech companies set up their enterprises where they do and to determine what factors would influence an entrepreneur/owner manager to move from their original set-up location. For the purposes of this research, the methodology employed used a quantitative method, underpinned by a positivist research philosophy. Quantitative research was used to gather data and information relating to the factors that influence the location choice of high technology businesses. This method was employed using an online survey. From a sample of 300 enterprises, 134 were selected for this research. These 134 enterprises were selected as they met all aspects of the research criteria. They all operated in the high-tech industry, were wholly-owned Irish enterprises based in Ireland, non-subsidiary and were founded between 2002 and 2005. The result was 86 replies yielding a response rate of 64%. The information gathered included general information about the respondents’ businesses, the factors that influence the location choice of high-tech enterprises and the factors that prevent them from locating in a region. In addition, the perceptions of high-tech enterprises regarding Ireland’s South East region as a location choice were also obtained. A number of key findings materialised from this study. Firstly, it was found that the largest sector in Ireland is the software development industry (54%) and that the majority of respondents are located in the Dublin region (47%). It was also discovered that aspects of the founder’s background influenced the choice of location for the businesses. Furthermore, the current research findings showed that most founders set up in a location well-known to them and they had either set up where they lived in their youth (23%) or in a locality where they worked prior to starting their own business (23%). In relation to this finding, many founders had deep-seated attachments to family and friends or owned a house in the vicinity (32%) and these acted as factors influencing the businesses to remain in their current location. Additional findings show that the availability of skilled labour, transport infrastructure, telecommunications infrastructure, airport access and the costs of running the business are very important factors to the founders when deciding where to locate their businesses. Interestingly, the findings show that factors discussed in the literature review such as proximity to educational facilities were deemed to be insignificant by the respondents (41%). This is contrary to researchers such as Saxenian (1985), Scott (1988) and Holstein (1992), who highlighted the importance of educational institutions. With regard to locating the businesses in the South-East region of Ireland, the majority of the respondents said they would not choose to locate in the region (77%). The main reason stated for this is the lack of available skilled labour (50%). The transport infrastructure in the region was considered inadequate, as was the lack of an international airport. Moreover, the respondents rated the region as bad in relation to customer proximity. On the other hand, the majority of the respondents rated the South-East region as excellent as regards its attractiveness (23%). From the beginning, this current study’s aim was to identify the regional factors that influence the location choice of high-tech enterprises, establish the reasons why existing high-tech companies set up their enterprises where they are and to determine what factors would influence an entrepreneur/owner manager to move from their original set-up location. Therefore, this current research contributes to the expanding literature on high technology enterprises and their location choice and, in particular, to regional development, entrepreneurial regions and enterprise development. The research findings from this current study indicate that there are a number of specific factors which determine why high-technology firms choose to locate where they do and also that there are recurring factors, which prevent them from choosing specific locations. Additionally, this research also has implications for policy makers, entrepreneurs and academics
An Italian Journey: The IAEVG General Assembly Conference 2007
Get PDFThis is article is a review of the IAEVG General Assembly Conference held in Padua, Italy in September 2007
A Study of Subjective Understandings of Racism in Contemporary Irish Society
Get PDFThis thesis aims to study subjective understandings of racism in contemporary Irish society. This aim was achieved by combining a close examination of the available literature with fieldwork. The literature reviewed in chapters one and two, helped develop an understanding of ‘race’-related terminology by examining the origins and development of racism. It covered a broad time period from ancient societies’ understanding of the concept of racism to contemporary interpretations of the term. The literature review provided a solid foundation to identify and explore subjective understandings of racism in contemporary Irish society.
Chapter three sets out the research methodologies applied to conduct the fieldwork, which was carried out in two phases. The first phase consisted of conducting focus group interviews with participants in order to ascertain which issues participants regarded as of paramount importance. The issues identified as being significant were then included on the question schedule. The question schedule was then used in the second phase of fieldwork. The second phase consisted of conducting individual interviews.
The analysis process applied to the data gathered through the fieldwork is also discussed in chapter three. As previously stated, the data gathered from the focus group interviews was used to formulate the question schedule for the individual interviews. The question schedule was then used in the individual interviews to probe interviewees as to their subjective understandings regarding various aspects of racism. Therefore it was the data gathered from the individual interviews that constitutes the primary data in this research.
The data gathered from the individual interviews was set out in chapter four. The data was structured as follows; first the question, (as it appeared on the question schedule) was set out; this was followed with a table setting out the general and dominant themes, which arose in answer to the question. Finally, the examples of the participant’s answers were provided to illustrate the themes, which arose in answer to each particular question. On completion of the analysis process, the findings which emerged from the data were set out and discussed to provide a clear picture of subjective understandings of racism in contemporary Irish society
An assessment of the impact of family learning programmes on parents' learning through their involvement in their children's learning
Get PDFThis study investigates the learning of parents attending family learning programmes in Co. Clare. The programmes encourage parents to support their children’s learning by understanding how the role of parents, the home environment and ordinary everyday interactions play an important part in the development of children’s learning. As family learning programmes in Ireland are funded through adult education it is also hoped that parents’ own learning will develop as a result. Internationally studies agree that ‘family learning works’, but little has been done to determine whether these findings are replicated in Ireland and what and how parents learn from the family learning programmes.
Literature was examined from both children’s and adults’ learning perspectives. The recognition of the role of parents in children’s learning through emergent literacy, the work of Deforges, the social practice view of adult learning and the impact of this on social capital, as well as recent research into family learning in the UK, formed the theoretical base.
The study took place in two areas of Co. Clare with twenty-two parents from two family learning programmes. The data was collected through questionnaires, three focus group discussions, six semi-structured interviews, evaluations and a follow up on progression a year later. The findings were analysed in the light of the concepts identified in the literature review.
The results indicate that family learning programmes in Co. Clare did make an impact. It showed that parents developed a better understanding of their
’s learning and became more confident in themselves and in people around them. This encouraged greater curiosity and interest in further learning, employment and integration within the community.
This has implications for policy and for the provision of funds to build on the number of family learning programmes already being delivered
Heterarchy and the Subaltern of Subsidiary Strategy : Deconstructing subsidiary managers' stories
No full textIt is now twenty years since Gunnar Hedlund’s seminal contribution ‘The Hypermodern MNC – A Heterarchy?‘ in which he identified an emerging form of organising the multinational corporation (MNC); one associated with multi‐centred, differentiated internal structures, strategic roles for foreign subsidiaries, integration achieved primarily through normative control and flexibility in organisational tasks and governance mechanisms. On the back of this contribution, an academic discourse on subsidiary strategy has encouraged subsidiary managers to create and protect their subsidiary’s futures, to strategise. But subsidiary strategy‐making is rarely an overt process, and as a result does not lend itself to being easily researched. Much of what constitutes subsidiary strategy is privately held by the subsidiary management team and can only be evidenced by its outcomes‐ be they positive (for example gaining a new activity) or negative (such as suffering a divestment). Compounding this difficulty is the ongoing repositioning of strategy away from strategic planning, with its established methods of research, towards more nebulous definitions of strategy, which serves to complicate the research process. In response to these challenges, and the ground‐breaking contribution of Hedlund’s concept of the heterarchical MNC; this dissertation reports on the deconstruction of the stories some subsidiary managers told about their businesses, in doing so it reveals insights into strategising in subsidiaries and ultimately the efficacy of the concept of the heterarchical MNC. Eight stories about subsidiary management were elicited from managers of eight different subsidiaries. These stories, artefacts of thick description, are essentially a form of microstoria analysis that allows for a consideration of the strategic sensemaking activities of subsidiary managers. These voices and personal stories are then deconstructed to unpack latent hierarchical categories and themes. A secondary contribution of this research process is the substantiating and specification of the storytelling method, an emergent method of studying organisations. The idiosyncratic, arbitrary and inchoate deconstruction ultimately speaks compellingly to the issue of heterarchy. A reflection on narrative voice and focalisation highlights the loci of interest of the subsidiary managers, which unsurprisingly was found to be resolutely subsidiary focused. This is well understood within the traditional discourse on the management of MNCs, evidenced by the voluminous literature on control and its prescribed solution to this ‘problem’, suggested from agency theory‐ supervision and normative control. This is also prescribed as the most desirable method for achieving integration in Hedlund’s heterarchical MNC. The second lens points up the stories as retrospective sensemaking narratives that the subsidiary managers have told many times before. Through their successive retelling these stories become abridged and as a result start to more closely resemble fictionalised accounts, becoming coherent narratives with a beginning, middle and end, and a well fettled plot, all at a cost of their naïvety, rawness and perhaps authenticity. The third lens, drawing on the idea of intertextuality, unpacks the role that the literature on subsidiary strategy plays in the subsidiaries managers’ sensemaking about their own context. Through a nexus of interactions between managers, academics, and consultants a model, a one best way of subsidiary management has become reified as a panacea for subsidiary management. The model overpowers the stories of the subsidiary managers, silencing more contextual, individualised sensemakings as they attempt to find a path to fortify their subsidiaries. The outcomes for the various subsidiaries suggest that at times the subsidiaries are well served by the dominant model, but at other times are less so. Mandate expansion has become a classic narrative in the mould of the hero’s quest, with the mandate as a throwaway mcguffan, a plot device that legitimises the story of the chase. The final lens unpacks the partial metaphor of MNC as a hierarchical family; an uncomfortable exercise in revealing how little has changed. The metaphor laid bare suggests that subsidiaries still have the potential to be powerless, subservient, continually chasing the acceptance of their HQs in the continual contest for survival in the harsh social world of the MNC. Subsidiary managers still obsess about their relationship with their headquarters, for the sword of Damocles is forever above their heads. But of course all this is reflected in the real and somewhat forgotten etymology of the term subsidiary, which originates in the notion to serve. For many a subsidiary manager, we are still along way from realisation of heterarchy
Impact Analysis of Large-Scale Lean Manufacturing Initiatives Upon Manufacturing Process Innovation in Irish Companies
Get PDFLean manufacturing is a strategic tool that is used to reduce waste and to generally improve the efficiency and competitiveness of many companies and organisations. Many industries that have implemented lean manufacturing have achieved improved performance over time. This dissertation focuses on two medical device companies based in the South of Ireland and their views on the many issues involved in implementing lean in their respective companies.
The purpose of this dissertation is to determine the extent to which the main principles of lean manufacturing have been and/or still being carried out in both companies. Also this dissertation aims to establish some of the main issues involved in the execution of those principles over time in each of the processes. In general this dissertation aims to provide a theoretical guide to understanding key concepts of lean manufacturing and the practical issues that occur in the implementation of the methodology in both companies. Semi-structured interviews were carried out in both companies in order to extract the key findings and lessons learned from the implementation of the lean process. The respondents in each company were chosen for their experience and expertise in lean manufacturing and production areas.
The research findings indicate that both companies have made some great improvements in terms of the value streams of their respective plants and also in the reduction of waste and inventory. One of the main benefits that both companies have seen in implementing lean initiatives is continuous improvement that delivers sustained value to customers and stakeholders and provides a platform for future business growth.
In conclusion, lean manufacturing is considered a strategic tool to help improve the competitive position of an organisation. Although there have been several barriers and obstacles to get by, it can be seen that lean has been a huge success in both organisations involved in this study and the future hopes of each company include lean initiatives to help both plants compete more strongly in their individual markets
Confessions of a Movie-Fan: Introspection into a Consumer's Experiential Consumption of "Pride & Prejudice"
No full textAs people enjoy movies for various reasons, this paper is taking an existential-phenomenological perspective to discuss the consumption of movies as a holistic personal lived experience. By using subjective personal introspection, the author provides hereby insights into his personal lived consumption experiences with the recently released movie Pride & Prejudice. Although the introspective data suggest that a complex tapestry of interconnected factors contributes to a consumer’s movie enjoyment, this study found a consumer’s personal engagement with the movie narrative and its characters to be of particular importance. This personal engagement not only allows for a momentary escape from reality into the imaginative movie world, but is even further enhanced through intertextuality, by which the consumer connects the movie to one’s personal life experiences
On a Family of Generalized Pascal Triangles defined by Exponential Riordan Arrays
Get PDFWe introduce a family of number triangles defined by exponential Riordan arrays, which generalize Pascal’s triangle. We characterize the row sums and central coeffi- cients of these triangles, and define and study a set of generalized Catalan numbers. We establish links to the Hermite, Laguerre and Bessel polynomials, as well as links to the Narayana and Lah numbers
A Distributed Transaction and Accounting Model for Digital Ecosystem Composed Systems
Get PDFThis paper addresses two known issues for dynamically
composed services in digital ecosystems. The first
issue is that of efficient distributed transaction management.
The conventional view of transactions is unsuitable as the local
autonomy of the participants is vital for the involvement of
SMEs. The second issue is that of charging for such distributed
transactions, where there will often be dynamically created
services whose composition is not known in advance and might
involve parts of different transactions. The paper provides solutions
for both of these issues, which can be combined to provide
for a unified approach to transaction management and
accounting of dynamically composed services in digital ecosystems