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The March 2000 Budget in the UK introduced tax incentives to encourage employee shareholding. The theory is that if employees feel that they have a stake in the enterprise or organisation in which they work, they will be more motivated and committed, with positive outcomes in terms of productivity and organisational performance. This theory has received support from research currently being conducted within the School of Management and Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, which has found significant positive links between “progressive” human resource practices that promote participation and involvement on the one hand, and corporate performance and organisational outcomes on the other. This is in line with other recent research in the UK and internationally. The question both for business and government is how to engender such participation and involvement and, specifically, whether this can be brought about through employee shareholding, when such individual shareholdings, taken separately, are insignificant in terms of the overall share capital of the corporation. By pooling the voting rights – although not necessarily the actual ownership – of their shares, an employee shareholder trust could represent a significant voice. However, some mechanism is needed to translate individual employee shareholding stakes into a collective voice that can deliver results, both in terms of representing the interests of employees and in convincing employees that their shareholding gives them a stake in the enterprise. Such a move could have important beneficial effects for corporate performance and hence economic growth. It could also have significant welfare effects in terms of enriching the experience of working life.

This paper identifies five types of insolvency in English football: clubs that have failed to cope with relegation; failed to pay monies due to the UK government; seen 'soft debts' become 'hard debts'; lost the ownership of their stadium; or have been 'repeat offenders'. As the second of a three-phase research project, the paper concludes with an indication of the final phase research and implications of the findings so far for other professional sports.

Hisbah is one of the distinguished institutions that had emerged since the early days of the Islamic empire. Based on its cardinal duty to enjoin good and prohibit evil, over time, its functions gradually expanded, and its responsibilities increasingly grew. In light of the contemporary trend in establishing institutional framework for consumer protection, entrusting an agency with multifarious tasks may not be the best and effective way in handling consumer protection issues. Thus, this chapter attempts to explore the new paradigm of hisbah as a consumer protection institution in Malaysia with a special reference to the Islamic consumer credit industry. While utilising the doctrinal legal research methodology, relevant sources of law have been examined and analysed. This research finds that the classical hisbah institution provides a good reference point in establishing regulatory agency and dispute management body. Nevertheless, some modifications are required to remain relevant especially in terms of specialisation of role and function. Likewise, it is viewed that adjustment of the hisbah institution is also necessary regarding the characteristic of the muhtasib (ombudsman).

The relationship between industrial policy and exploratory innovation is imperfect.

The authors use Chinese high-tech enterprise identification policy (HTEP) as a natural experimental group to test policy impacts, spillover effects and mechanisms of action.

First, HTEP promotes exploratory innovation. In addition, HTEP has a greater impact on non-exploratory innovation. Second, HTEP has spillover effects in two phases: HTEP (2008) and the 2016 policy reform. HTEP affects exploratory innovation in nearby non-high-tech firms, and the policy effect decreases monotonically with increasing distance from the treatment group. Third, HTEP affects innovation capacity through financing constraints, technical personnel flow and knowledge flow, which explains not only policy effects but also spillover effects. Fourth, the analysis of policy heterogeneity shows that the 2016 policy reforms reinforce the positive effect of HTEP (2008). By deducting the effects of other policies, the HTEP effect is found to be less volatile. In terms of the continuity of policy identification, continuous uninterrupted identification has a crucial impact on the improvement of firms’ innovation capacity compared to repeated certification and certification expiration. Finally, HTEP has a crowding-out effect in state-owned enterprises and large firms’ innovation.

This paper contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, the authors enrich the literature on industrial policy through exploratory innovation research. While previous studies have focused on R&D investment and patents (Dai and Wang, 2019), exploratory innovation helps firms break away from the inherent knowledge mindset and achieve sustainable innovation. Second, few studies have explored the characteristics of industrial policies. In this paper, the authors subdivide the sample into repeated certification, continuous certification and certification expiration according to high-tech enterprise identification. In addition, the authors compare the differences in policy implementation effects between the 2016 policy reform and the 2008 policy to provide new directions for business managers and policy makers. Third, innovation factors guided by industrial policies may cluster in specific regions, which in turn manifest externalities. This is when the policy spillover effect is worth considering. This paper fills a gap in the industrial policy literature by examining the spillover effects. Finally, this paper also explores the mechanisms of policy effects from three perspectives: financing constraints, technician mobility and knowledge mobility, which can affect not only the innovation of beneficiary firms directly but also indirectly the innovation of neighboring non-beneficiary firms.

This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on competitive balance in the “big five” European football leagues, namely, the English Premier League, French Ligue 1, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A and Spanish La Liga.

This paper uses recognised measures of competitive balance to measure levels of concentration (within-season competitive balance) and dominance (between-season competitive balance) in the selected leagues over 22 seasons between 1995/96 and 2016/17.

French Ligue 1 emerged as the most balanced league in terms of both concentration and dominance measures. The analysis also points to a statistically significant decline in competitive balance in all leagues apart from Serie A (Italy).

The findings of this study are of concern for the league organisers. Competition intensity is a key component of a sport league, and a league that is dominated by one or a select few clubs is less attractive within the marketplace. This paper presents challenges at the league governance level for the five leagues examined.

The purpose of this study was to explore the couple relationship context within the venture creation process over time. Conservation of Resources and Family FIRO theories were the theoretical foundation, and constructs from these theories were integrated to develop the analytical framework. The sample consisted of couple-level data from 94 start-up businesses at Time 1 with information from entrepreneur and spouse; there were 78 businesses at Time 2. Analysis of spousal resources invested in the newly created businesses indicated that direct and indirect spousal involvement in the business, spousal moral commitment, spousal perception of entrepreneur's business self-efficacy, business communication quality, and emotional support from the spouse were enabling resources during the venture creation process. Work overload and work and family conflict were constraining resources during this process. Couples in a very strong relationship reported significantly more enabling resources and fewer constraining resources than couples not in a very strong relationship.

This chapter explores the importance of place in the creation of new enterprise and wealth.

The chapter deploys a case study of the Liverpool city-region and provides a critical review of the conditions for small enterprise in the locality, with attention paid to enterprise in low income communities.

The argument here suggests that place and public investment are important contributory factors to help understand how enterprise can contribute to wealth creation.

Further work is required to comprehend the wider aspects of enterprise in the context of place and particularly its relevance to low income communities.

Policy makers may acknowledge how enterprise as a tool of wealth creation can reinforce local dynamics of social and economic exclusion and that the nuance of place needs to be taken into account.

Small enterprises have a wider potential beyond their economic role to impact local communities.

There are some studies in entrepreneurship that consider the propinquity between enterprise, place and wealth creation although placing this in the context of local economic decline and low income communities is a relatively under researched and misunderstood domain.