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Reports on research into the relationship between European defence manufacturing firms and their experience of cross‐border strategic alliances. The research takes in 135 cross‐border strategic alliances involving UK and European defence manufacturing firms, ranging from firms heavily dependent on defence contracts to firms whose defence interests make up less than 10 per cent of overall business. These firms manufacture telecommunications, transport, information, lethal platforms and components for the operation of these platforms for military organisations. A main aim is to ascertain the extent of participation in strategic alliances, the types of alliances being used and the major problems experienced by the partners.

Following on from the thawing‐out of the cold war and the revolutions of Eastern Europe, the threat of lower armament levels provided opportunities for the rationalisation of European defence and its military‐industrial complexes. Coupled with the continuing threat of reduced defence expenditures and increasing competition, defence companies have reacted to the changes with a number of strategic moves involving mergers and acquisitions, market nicheing and diversification, in addition to lay‐offs and plant closures. More recently, moves towards a single European defence industry have been discussed among the major contributing member countries and their industry leaders. The integration of a defence aerospace industry seems well placed to succeed, given French co‐operation, and this should produce a formidable, global competitor. East and Central Europe’s contribution to the equation is questionable, although the early signs are that west European defence companies are establishing firm footholds in the region against strong US competition.

The government agency at the centre of the study is concerned with public welfare. Its appraisal system is based on a “performance management system”, the purpose being to ensure that employees work in the most effective way possible to deliver the agency’s business. Individuals are assessed on how well they have met the behaviour characteristics for selected competencies. A survey of middle management shows that whilst the agency attempts to use its appraisal system as part of a performance management system, the model is to some extent faulted. All the elements of the system are present but they do not necessarily link together as intended. The role of appraisal and the cultural expectation of appraisal are well managed by the performance management system, although the link to competence is weakened by the difficulties middle managers have in relating competence to training and performance. The link to change and learning is shown to be single loop and change that is effected tends to be of a minor nature.

The aim of this paper is to discuss a unique and significant article about advertising that was published in Dublin in 1910.

The article, entitled “The advertising problem” (reproduced in its entirety in the Appendix) is analysed and contextualised.

It is demonstrated that at least some early Irish advertising practitioners had a reflexive understanding of the tools of marketing and advertising as used then in Ireland and abroad, and that their own use of such tools served not only manufacturers and other clients, but also the ideological project of an Irish-Ireland.

This analysis has a particular value in rebutting clearly any possible assumption that advertising and marketing practices in Ireland in the early twentieth century were simply “quaint”.

The proper matching of industry structure to strategy is expected to have a positive impact upon organisational performance. This relationship has not been fully examined in the defence industry. The central aim of this paper is to link the competitive performance of small, high technology defence firms to their ability to adapt to industry structure changes. With this in mind a study was conducted to extend Porter's (1980) framework of the strategic management of industry structural change. The study draws upon the experiences of 40 small, high technology defence firms in the UK. Firms in the sample range from 5 to 200 employees, and £50,000 to £10m sales turnover. The study broadens the findings of exploratory research undertaken in the buying department of two large defence firms. A questionnaire was designed to identify macro level phenomena and detail hypotheses generated by the case studies. The empirical analysis of the creation and sustaining of competitive advantages will focus on strategic determinants, and inter‐organisational variables that influence the performance of small firms in tendering for defence sub‐contracts.

The paper seeks to address the European Union's emerging role in the management of international security challenges and its implications for collaboration in armaments procurement. While the former is about integrating member governments at policy level, the latter concerns organising states' defence industries into a cohesive and competitive supply base.

Theoretical frameworks include historic‐comparative analysis and the bureaucratic politics model. Independent variable comprises state actors and interest groups, while the dependent variable comprises the outcomes in terms of defence policy and armaments collaboration decisions. European armaments integration is considered, contrasting liberal inter‐governmentalism and neo‐functionalism theory. Case study data are derived from official EU document sources.

In general, national governments tend to protect important industrial actors irrespective of ownership. Bringing market and defence issues closer challenges the traditional separation between “low” and “high” politics. The collaboration in armaments acquisition is ad hoc and somewhat piecemeal in nature. Structures have evolved in an attempt to integrate the armaments process with spill‐over effect at policy level fostering armaments integration, helped by a more favourably structured and organised defence industry symptomatic of neo‐functionalism. Co‐ordination of European defence policy and armaments procurement through EDA should, in theory, lead to longer‐term co‐ordination, co‐operation and integration between the member states. The latter may see it in their interests to integrate as they come to recognize that EU institutions lack the capabilities to make policies realistic.

European armaments procurement and integration is not well researched; nor are the theoretical issues well understood. An explanation (model) of European armaments procurement integration is developed, along with an identification of key facilitators.

Helped by somewhat limited inward investment from the West and a programme of wide‐scale privatization, reform in the Czech Republic appears to be proceeding relatively successfully. Emerging from the pressures of a long and complex history of political, geophysical and economic change and more recent Soviet domination, the Republic has given maximum priority to the speedy development of a free market economy. The subsequent drastic reduction of state intervention, however, is questionable and some argue that the pace of reform should be matched by an appropriate public sector infrastructure.

Explores the problems of manager development within the context of the move from a command to a free economy. Places particular emphasis on issues concerned with the education of manager educators and trainers, with reference to the Czech Republic. Proposes models of development for both large and small businesses and addresses their scope and limitations.

Competitive success as a nation requires balancing commercial innovativeness and social welfare, which results in a sound basis for socio‐economic development. All potential resources – including entrepreneurial activity and innovations – can be utilized as promoters of competitiveness and welfare. Thus, useful lessons for general national competitiveness can be learned from benchmarking individual innovations and perhaps even more so, from those less glamorized technologies such as human language technologies (HLT). Finnish researchers are considered to be at the leading edge of developments in a number of ICT fields. The main responsibility for the utilization of knowledge is seen, necessarily, to rest with the public sector, while the legislative framework is considered to favour entrepreneurship and innovation. Aims to discuss the issues.

National competitiveness and HLT benchmarking pose a number of interesting questions and issues both macro and micro levels. For example: the extent to which benchmark performance in HLT is consistent with national competitiveness; link between robustness of research effort in any particular language community and effectiveness of technology transfer to market; and fostering and funding of entrepreneurial activity in HLT in the successful (benchmarked) countries and the fit with national vision and innovation policy. For the first two areas, relationships between HLT benchmark and comparative national competitiveness of top countries are examined through comparison of their respective primitive dimensions. Data sources include official and quasi‐official public documents. The final stage is explored using a case study approach and comparative assessment against extant entrepreneurship literature.

There appears to be no direct link between robustness of the HLT research effort in any particular language community and actual effectiveness of technology transfer to market. None the less, success in the Finnish HLT benchmark appears to correlate with the country's international competitiveness standing and “social innovation policy” paradigm. Its knowledge society model has clearly resulted in a sound basis for its socio‐economic development, where all potential resources – including its entrepreneurial base – and innovations, can be utilized as promoters of competitiveness and welfare. Within this entrepreneurial base, HLT SMEs tend to seek scale economies through internationalise at the early stages of development.

The paper shows that Finland is well placed to meet the challenges and to capitalise on the economic and social opportunities, given its strength in ICT/HLT innovation policy country's open self‐criticism of the latter.

Presents the initial findings of an ongoing study into the motives and uses of the joint venture by British investors in the Czech Republic. Observes that, despite the many opportunities presented of doing business in Eastern Europe, the British have been slow to invest; the UK does not feature in the top seven investors in the Czech Republic. Points out that it is a widely held belief that the joint venture is the most common mode of entry used by Western firms when investing in Central and Eastern Europe. Contends that there is a clear match between the needs of market‐seeking or cost advantage‐seeking Western firms on the one hand and the technological needs of the Eastern Europeans on the other. However, suggests from the study data that UK investors have chosen to own their foreign operations wholly rather than work with local partners. Examines the different modes of entry, the sector and the function of investment used by British firms. Notes the predominance of service activities.