Management Decision: Volume 35 Issue 1

The Granada takeover of Forte: a managerial perspective

Richard Teare, Gavin Eccles, Jorge Costa, Hadyn Ingram, Tim Knowles

Reviews the acquisition of Forte plc, the longest established UK hotel company, by Granada plc. The Granada Group, a television and leisure conglomerate, launched a £3.3 billion…

Target marketing and segmentation: valid and useful tools for marketing

Dennis J. Cahill

Discusses Wright’s recent attack on targeting and segmentation theory. Proposes that, although Wright has some valid criticisms about specific applications of the concepts…

The critical operating cycle

Steven S. Byers, John C. Groth, Marilyn K. Wiley

Focuses on the operating cycle. Provides a conceptual and practical understanding of issues and relationships of importance to all managers, such as invested capital, flowing…

Developments in business networks in East Asia

René Kienzle, Mark Shadur

Examines three forms of business networking that have been identified within South East Asia: Japanese business networking, Korean business networking and Chinese family business…

Market orientation is free: the real costs of becoming market‐led

Lloyd C. Harris, Nigel F. Piercy

Management is urged by many theorists from different disciplines to be market‐ or customer‐oriented. This advocacy comes from marketing, total quality management, business process…

The Virtual Neural Business System: a vision for IT support for the network form organization

Graham Winch, Hans Gyllstrom, François Sauer, Susanne Seror‐Märklin

One of the consequences of trends in business worldwide has been the emergence of the “network form” organization ‐ alliances of independent operating units bound together by a…

Marketing professional associations

Aubrey Wilson

Worldwide professional, trade, research and other associations are losing membership because of increasing economic stringency and the failure to demonstrate the benefits they can…

The use of expert systems in business transformation

Elayne Coakes, Kim Merchant, Brian Lehaney

Expert systems have become the more acceptable face of the much mooted “artificial intelligence” of the 1980s. A survey of UK organizations was undertaken in order to determine…

Management strategy in UK insurance broking

Graham King, Clive Smallman, Michael van Weegen

Notes that the insurance broking industry is unattractive and subject to long‐term change. Cites factors contributing to this such as industry saturation, low entry barriers and…

Theories of international trade, foreign direct investment and firm internationalization: a critique

Robert E. Morgan, Constantine S. Katsikeas

It has been suggested that there is a lack of consensus regarding the conceptual domain of cross‐national studies. That said, the theoretical focus of such scholarly activities…