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The purpose of this paper is to explore current levels of lead benchmarking implementation and lead performance indicators among Malaysian organizations. Comparing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with large companies, it identifies what benefits and difficulties are present during benchmarking implementation.

Descriptive analyses, one-way ANOVAs between and within groups, and parametric and non-parametric tests are used to compare responses obtained from small, medium and large Malaysian manufacturing organizations.

Findings suggest that larger organizations have a more progressive approach to lead benchmarking. Strategy and employee development are dominant lead performance indicators of continuous improvement. Large companies experience fewer challenges when implementing benchmarking projects. Perceptions of key benchmarking implementation barriers shift from mere lack of resources toward lack of knowledge and training, information sharing, commitment and trust.

The sample is specific in nature (Malaysian manufacturing organizations); results should be interpreted accordingly.

Little is known about lead benchmarking practices in Malaysia, particularly within the contexts of SMEs. The outcomes of this study provide a basis for further improvement and valuable knowledge for top management of manufacturing organizations to refine strategies and advance quality management approaches.

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

The purpose of this study is to examine the similarities and differences in the strategic orientation and innovation patterns of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and large companies and to investigate their implications for market performance.

Miles and Snow's strategic typology is applied to 592 new products to determine their companies' strategic orientations. Data collected over a two‐year period by 62 companies in the Italian yogurt industry are analyzed.

The results show that, while large firms operate with a “prospector” orientation, SMEs have a “defender” or “reactor” orientation. Only a small number of SMEs can innovate successfully, and an ex post facto investigation reveals that these firms follow an “open innovation model”.

The findings fill a gap in the literature by clarifying the similarities and differences in the strategic orientations, innovation patterns and performance of SMEs and large companies in a dynamic industry environment. The study also provides insights for managers in new food product development who are concerned about low rates of innovation and high rates of failure.

This chapter investigates how small- and medium-sized enterprises and large firms decide the sourcing strategies to explore and exploit. This study adopts a qualitative methodology and reports on the insights derived from interviews with 35 companies and 2 experts. A series of propositions are derived, and these propositions are used to propose a height–distance view of exploration and exploitation. The implications for theory and managerial practice are presented in the concluding remarks.

Extending the work of Bayou (2001), we empirically investigate the relationship between firm size and resource productivity to assess whether the productivity of resources (value in use) and their underlying value at sale (value in sale) vary with firm’s size.

We use seemingly unrelated regression of revenues and equity values on assets and employees for a large sample over a wide time period and across all industries. We compare companies that are growing, declining, or continuing in size relative to their industry.

With some variability on growth, we find that smaller companies hold more productive resources based on their capacity to generate more revenues per unit of resources (assets) relative to large companies. Further, as predicted, a firm’s workforce has productive value in use, but limited value after a firm’s sale as measured by equity values.

Collectively, our findings suggest that firm size matters in influencing resource productivity, and a workforce has productive value in use, but low value in sale.

Since the UK Companies Act 1981, different reporting standards have developed for different classes of company to reduce the reporting burden on non-listed companies. There are now different regimes for listed, large private, medium-sized, small and micro companies. This strategy raises the issue of whether earnings quality across the different classes of company is comparable. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The paper uses the smoothness of earnings to measure reporting quality across the different types of companies from 2006 to 2013, based on 514,000 observations. Smoothness is an indicator of poor quality.

The authors find that listed companies have the highest earnings quality, closely followed by small and micro companies. In contrast, large private and medium-sized companies have much lower earnings quality. Overall, the authors find companies which switch between reporting regimes have lower earnings quality. The authors also find that earnings quality is not affected by the small company exemption from audit.

Companies filing abbreviated accounts are excluded since they do not file an income statement. The recent revisions to UK GAAP (FRS 102 and FRS 105) are not examined due to insufficient data.

The Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) strategy of reducing the financial reporting and auditing obligations for small companies seems not to have significantly affected earnings quality. However, the FRC may need to review the reporting requirements of large private and medium-sized companies and also the option of companies to switch between reporting regimes; in these settings earnings quality appears to be weaker.

The paper studies the effect of earnings quality across the different reporting regimes in the UK. Novel and important features of the study are that the sample covers a wide variety of small and micro companies which have not been analyzed previously; the results are disaggregated by year, for assurance that the results are not driven by a single rogue year; and the authors also address the small company exemption from audit, and the flexibility of non-listed companies to switch between regimes.

This paper aims to analyze the websites of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large companies in various industries in Thailand using an automated evaluation tool and explores the association between website quality and business success.

The data of 357 listed companies, both SMEs and large firms, are collected from the Stock Exchange of Thailand and SEOptimer. Non-parametric statistics are used for data analysis owing to the nonnormality of data.

Company market values are associated with large companies’ website quality, especially usability, social, security and overall quality. There are differences in the website quality and company market values of large companies in several industries. SMEs generally have lower website quality and company market values than large companies.

This study has fewer numbers of SMEs in each category, which could limit statistical power.

This work is one of few studies assessing internal attributes of websites and links them with the success of companies in various sizes and industries.

In this study, entrepreneurial internationalization in renewable energy industry as a high-tech and emerging industry was explored. The focus of this study is on firm level factors to understand how and why these companies entered the international markets and what are their challenges and difficulties in this process. To answer these questions, two main streams of literature were used: international entrepreneurship (IE) and sustainable entrepreneurship.

Case study methodology is selected for this research. Because this subject is new and empirical researches in renewable energy industry are scarce, a method to gather research and in-depth data was adopted. Following suggestions by Eisenhardt (1989), a multiple-case design method was used with nine cases of entrepreneurial companies in renewable energy industry from Spain.

Results show that in renewable energy industry firms, resources and capabilities such as need for funding and rapid commercialization are key factors that encourage companies to enter the international market. However, having access to the technological knowledge cannot be a compelling reason for internationalization of renewable energy companies from Spain. Moreover, the interaction between the large and small firms is an important factor that facilitates the process of internationalization.

In this study, the focus was only on firm level factors, whereas other levels of analysis such as entrepreneur, environment, policy scheme and industrial factors need further attention in future studies. Moreover, this study is only limited to Spanish companies, and future studies can be replicated in other context.

Findings of the study have significant theoretical and empirical implications. First of all, it explains the entrepreneurial internationalization by taking advantage of sustainable entrepreneurship literature. In addition, empirical results of this study are significantly important for entrepreneurs to implement effective internationalization strategy to survive. Findings of this study can help policy makers for designing a supportive scheme for further development of this industry in the international markets.

This paper explores the entrepreneurial internationalization of renewable energy companies as an emerging industry by taking advantage of two streams of literature: international entrepreneurship and sustainable entrepreneurship. The results show the phenomenon of early internationalization in pre-commercialization phase. These findings put emphasis on interaction between large and small firms in process of internationalization in this specific industry.

The newly developed market‐oriented system in Hungary requires new values, different abilities, and more sensitivity to a wide variety of issues on the part of corporate leadership. The nature of these values and abilities will more than likely vary depending on the industry. The purpose of this study was to examine the view of business ethics and social responsibility among Hungarian managers in both the business and non‐business sectors. The results indicate differences between the examined groups and diverse opinions among participants within each group.