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The purpose of this paper is to conceive the concept of inter-industry creative collaboration; a unique kind of cooperation between business partners from diverse industries. It investigates the motivations that encourage their creation and identifies a method to evaluate consumers’ attitudes towards this kind of partnership. The study analyses consumer-based brand equity and links them to inter-industry creative collaborations within the luxury fashion industry.

Research was conducted using a comparative case design, which was qualitative in nature. Four cases were selected purposively. The data were obtained using semi-structured interviews with industry informants and consumer focus groups. Transcripts were thematically analysed according to common categories identified in the literature to enable cross-case conclusions to be drawn.

The research proposes the existence of a direct relationship between the consumer-based brand equity effects and consumers’ attitudes towards inter-industry creative collaborations. This research not only proves the existence of the stated relationship but also generates a theoretical framework that specifically analyses inter-industry creative collaboration involving luxury fashion brands.

The usage of convenience sampling limited consumer participants to individuals who considered themselves luxury fashion consumers. In addition, the findings are limited to London, UK and cannot be generalised outside the examined cases. That said, the research provides a useful starting point for further empirical research to test the validity and reliability of the model outside of the stated cases.

The proposed theoretical framework serves as a practical guide for luxury managers to assess the planning and execution of inter-industry creative collaborations conducted by their brands.

The research makes a contribution to brand management literature by creating a connection between four topics of academic research: motivations of inter-industry creative collaborations; consumer-based brand equity; consumers’ attitudes towards inter-industry creative collaborations; and the creative and emotional elements of luxury fashion.

International specialisation in production via the development of international trade and factor movements is the basis of much of the developed world′s prosperity. This article is concerned with the forces that drive specialisation in manufacturing in the developed countries, and particularly the role played by regional economic integration in the European Community. A distinction is drawn between specialisation that takes place within (intra) and between (inter) industries with emphasis here on the latter. Specifically, the analysis seeks to explain differences in the sectoral composition of industry between pairs of countries using regression analysis. Factor endowments, per capita incomes and country size are found to influence industrial similarity. Membership of the EC and participation in the EC‐EFTA free trade areas are associated with increased inter‐industry specialisation. Movement towards a European Economic Space could accentuate this phenomenon, with important adjustment implications.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate inter-industry labor mobility, paying special attention to workers who move into high-tech (HT) sectors or knowledge-intensive business services (KIBSs). This study inquires whether skilled workers are mobile and whether the characteristics of mobile workers support the effective transfer of knowledge across industries.

Census data representing 7 percent of Finnish residents were used. The micro-econometric estimation method with correction of sample selection bias was applied.

The results show that young workers are the most mobile, whereas mobility decreased for those with previous work experience, higher education and higher income level. These findings indicate that the highly skilled workers are not necessarily the most mobile, a trend that may weaken the effectiveness of knowledge spillover. However, on average, highly educated workers move into KIBS sectors more often than to other sectors, and HT sectors attract workers who have higher incomes, which may indicate that their skills are highly valued. As a result, knowledge spillovers may emerge. The knowledge spillovers resulting from job mobility are concentrated in large growth centers that have universities.

This study provides a new and topical viewpoint to the mobility literature by focussing on skilled workers and their movement toward the HT and KIBS sectors.

This paper examines the role of the bargaining regime in bringing about inter‐industry wage differentials in the Belgian private sector. Empirical findings, based on the 1995 Structure of Earnings Survey, emphasise that sectors offering high/low wages are similar for workers covered by different bargaining regimes, even when controlling for individual characteristics, working conditions and firm size. Moreover, results show that, ceteris paribus, the dispersion of inter‐industry wage differentials is higher when wages are collectively renegotiated at the firm level, and workers covered by a company collective agreement (CA) earn 5.1 per cent more than their opposite numbers whose wages are solely covered by national and/or sectoral CAs.

This paper aims to investigate how alliances and acquisitions matter for the adaptation of firms facing industry convergence. Building on the disruptive innovation perspective, this study theorizes that during industry convergence, as firms' inter-industry alliance (acquisition) experience increases, those that have more intra-industry alliance (acquisition) experience will exhibit higher survival chances than those that do not.

A longitudinal panel data set of 147 firms' alliances, acquisitions and exit data was constructed in the context of convergence between the US telecommunications equipment and computer networking industries from 1989 to 2003. The survival analysis method was used to test hypotheses. Firms' patent and product-market portfolio data reveal a steady rise in the extent of convergence between the two industries within the period of the study.

The results suggest that both hypotheses gain support, having only inter-industry alliance experience negatively affects firm survival and the survival-enhancing impact of combined inter- and intra-industry acquisition experience is weaker than the impact of combined inter- and intra-industry alliance experience.

This paper contributes to the industry convergence literature and disruptive innovation research by furnishing evidence that the combination of inter- and intra-industry alliance (acquisition) experience can be a valuable source of survival-enhancing benefits during industry convergence that has pernicious influences on firms.

Using panel data of 11324 firms in China from 1996 to 1999, the study finds that FDI tends to generate positive technology spillovers to domestic firms within the same industry, but adversely affect productivity of domestic firms in other industries. It is also found that both the positive and the adverse effects are more significant at the local than the national level. Evidence from China thus suggests that FDI technology spillovers are in favor of domestic firms within the same industry rather than domestic firms in other industries, and are most likely to affect domestic firms within the same locality. The finding has significant implications for the study of the interaction between MNEs and local firms in emerging markets.

The study of markets encompasses a number of disciplines – including anthropology, economics, history, and sociology – and a larger number of theoretical frameworks (see Plattner, 1989; Reddy, 1984; Smelser & Swedberg, 1994). Despite this disciplinary and theoretical diversity, scholarship on markets tends toward either realist or constructionist accounts (Dobbin, 1994; Dowd & Dobbin, forthcoming).¹ Realist accounts treat markets as extant arenas that mostly (or should) conform to a singular ideal-type. Realists thus take the existence of markets as given and examine factors that supposedly shape all markets in a similar fashion. When explaining market outcomes, they tout such factors as competition, demand, and technology; moreover, they can treat the impact of these factors as little influenced by context. Constructionist accounts treat markets as emergent arenas that result in a remarkable variety of types. They problematize the existence of markets and examine how contextual factors contribute to this variety. When explaining market outcomes, some show that social relations and/or cultural assumptions found in a particular setting can qualify the impact of competition (Uzzi, 1997), demand (Peiss, 1998), and technology (Fischer, 1992). Constructionists thus stress the contingent, rather than universal, processes that shape markets.

The objective of this research is to provide practitioners with inter-industry applicable rules and guidelines for the Lean Six Sigma (LSS) project definition phase. This research resulted in 13 inter-industry generic project definitions that are divided by four performance dimensions: quality, dependability, speed and cost efficiency.

A total of 312 previously executed LSS improvement projects in a broad variety of industries at black belt or master black belt level are analyzed. All these projects have followed the LSS methodology and are characterized by the use of critical to quality (CTQ) measurements and the structured improvement method of define, measure, analyse, improve and control for operations improvement.

This research resulted in 13 inter-industry generic project definitions that are divided by four performance dimensions: quality, dependability, speed and cost efficiency. Three factors that have stood out in this research are; the difficulty to capture the performance dimension flexibility in LSS project definitions, the strong focus on internal organizational benefits in defining CTQs for LSS project definitions and the unclear alignment of LSS project definitions to existing strategic objectives of the company.

This research established useable generic LSS project definitions including generic CTQ’s measures, applicable to multiple industries. These generic LSS project definitions provide useful guidance in the initial LSS project phase, helping to decompose strategic focal points into clear and measurable project objectives.

In the run‐up to the 1992 single‐market deadline, there were concerns that inter‐industry adjustment pressures among EU member countries would increase. Such expectations were due partly to a perceived reversal of the post‐Second World War growth in intra‐industry trade (IIT). Finds that average IIT levels continued to rise during the implementation of the single market. It is argued that the concept of marginal IIT(MIIT) is of greater relevance to adjustment than “static” IIT. Some evidence is shown to support this proposition, and a comprehensive set of intra‐EU MIIT indices is calculated for the 1980s. Since average MIIT levels in the 1988‐92 period were higher than in the early 1980s, this analysis also supports the conclusion that, on average, adjustment to the single market was no more disruptive than that experienced during earlier stages of European integration. It also appears that the forces for inter‐industry adjustment are stronger in traditional, declining industries, whereas the expansion of relatively advanced industries tends to be more evenly shared by the EU member countries.