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The purpose of this paper is twofold. First and most importantly, the paper aims to explain how Pilkington is able to revolutionize the flat glass industry. The modified design envelope model is applied to demonstrate the technological competence and especially strategic thinking concerning to understanding of the markets and positioning the product. Second, the paper demonstrates the entrepreneurship within a large‐scale manufacturing firm.

The paper applies a longitudinal, historical, and contextual approach. The paper uses multiple case study method and multiple data sources. This is done because creation of an innovation does not take place in vacuum, it is context bound.

The float glass fulfills the requirements of two industries: the plate and sheet glasses. Within both industries, short‐sighted competitors concentrate on technologies applicable only in other industry. Pilkington positions the float glass first clearly in the plate glass industry and after further development introduces the technology to sheet glass industry as a total surprise. Based on the case, the paper argues that positioning should be part of the corporate strategy.

In addition to complex systematic technologies, the example shows that the design envelope model is applicable also for simple non‐assembled products like flat glass. The model is useful for companies to build scenarios for responses if new unexpected innovations will be introduced in its own or related industries.

This paper offers a novel insight to the old but still viable case of dominant design. In addition, the thorough case description allows reader to go deeply into a classic example of process innovation.

Pilkington Brothers is by any token a highly successful manufacturing company. From its centre in St Helens, Lancashire, this 150‐year old glass company has in the past few decades expanded very rapidly. It is now a large and complex international business. Pilkington have plants in Canada, Australia, India, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, New Zealand, and Sweden. The company is a technological pace‐setter. Glass manufacturers the world over use Pilkington‐developed processes on licence. Although still essentially glass‐producers, Pilkington have by expansion, acquisition and merger, diversified into optical glass, fibreglass, and toughened vehicle‐glass, for example. What is more, this family firm seems to have managed the process of ‘going public’ with a great deal of skill. It survived the bitter and damaging strike of 1970 emerging two years later with improved profitability. Future prospects are to all appearances excellent. Pilkington always enjoyed, and still enjoys, amongst their own employees at every level and widely amongst the British public, a high reputation as employers who treat their employees with decency and consideration, and as pioneers of modern management techniques. The strike, by common consent, certainly tarnished that image, but it still persists strongly, especially in St Helens. Certainly, senior managers of the company strive honestly and vigorously to restore and to maintain the company's reputation.

Lesley Bernstein investigates the Pilkington dispute and finds a disturbing situation, boding ill for the future. Eric Wigham, Labour correspondent of The Times for 23 years, advises strike‐troubled management to use combat measures of the last century.

At its Deeside plant in North Wales, Pilkington Micronics produces 0.4‐4mm glass panels for use in LCD and emissive displays for watches, calculators and laptop computers. The material for these panels is cut to size, ground and packed at Deeside. Describes the automation of the packing operations on three purpose‐built machines designed and developed by the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Research Institute (AMTRI). It was found that dedicated two‐axis electric drive gantry loaders most efficiently perform the process of stacking the glass sheets interleaved with special non‐contaminating paper. AMTRI was able to use experience with the first machine, which uses three gantries, to simplify the design of the second and third machines that use just one gantry each. The result is easier, with faster set‐ups, while maintaining the capability to meet the maximum cycle time set by Pilkington Micronics.

This paper describes the methods used by the Pilkington Group Technical Communications Centre to ensure that all staff in the Pilkington Organization have clearly defined and easily accessible means of obtaining technical information. As far as we are aware we are the first organization to try to formalize the concept of ‘Technological Gate Keepers’, who have been shown by Professor T. J. Allen to be the major means by which information flows within the organization. A ‘Gate Keeper’ is a person who is usually consulted by his colleagues for information; this consultation takes place as a first step in obtaining information and in spite of any other avenues open to the enquirer.

TWO manually operated DEA Swift co‐ordinate measuring machines (CMM), each equipped with Tutor M measuring software, have been installed directly in the production machine shop of Pilkington Optronics Ltd., St Asaph. The CMMs are being used as flexible measuring gauges by Pilkington's machine setter/operators under a programme whereby selfcertification of component accuracy is gradually superseding conventional QC inspection.

A training programme for supervisors at the float‐glass manufacturing subsidiary of UK glassmaker Pilkington boosted supervisors’ skills, increased quality and cut costs. Savings resulting from just one of the programme’s 44 projects have more than paid for the programme as a whole. Total savings from all the projects outstripped the costs of the training programme many times over. Explores the programme in detail.

Many tools exist to chart the progress of an organisation in its quest to become a learning organization or achieve organizational learning. Aims to expand a tool already developed to include learning organization conditions as they occur through dialogue between individuals within an organisation with an emphasis on social learning theory.

Literature relating to creating learning organizations as well as undertaking organizational learning is reviewed and critiqued. An argument for a tool in identifying learning activity functions as they take place through dialogue is presented along with the argument for expanding the tool to incorporate learning organization conditions that have been identified within the literature. The tool this work expands is the DISCOUNT scheme as developed by Pilkington. The paper closes with a discussion on justifying the use of the scheme and the future work that is to be undertaken.

Demonstrates that a tool can be expanded to take into account learning organization and organizational learning conditions and how they could be identified.

Individuals who use the tool need a number of hours practice to become familiar with the scheme and its structure.

A tool has been expanded to look at learning activities as they take place within an organisation. By identifying these activities, more successful approaches to learning may be encouraged by looking at an individual's behaviour, personal and cognitive factors and the environment as is stated to apply when viewed through social learning theory.

This paper offers a practical tool that can be used on dialogue and other speech acts to look at learning activities within organizations with a specific focus on organizations wanting to improve organizational learning or try to create learning organizations.

The article's aim is to refine prospects for theorising in public sector accounting (PSA) research in order to capture the methodological benefits promised by its multi-disciplinarity.

The study primarily employs a bibliometric analysis of research outputs invoking New Public Management (NPM). Applying a content analysis to Hood (1991), as the most cited NPM source, bibliographic methods and citation/co-citation analysis for the period 1991 to 2018 are mobilised to identify the disciplinary evolution of the NPM knowledge base from a structural and longitudinal perspective.

The analysis exhibits disciplinary branching of NPM over time and its imprints on post-1990 PSA research. Given the discourse about origins of NPM-based accounting research, there are research domains behind the obvious that indicate disciplinary fragmentations. For instance, novelty of PSA research is found in public value accounting, continuity is evidenced by transcending contextual antecedents. Interestingly, these domains are loosely coupled. Exploring the role of disciplinary imprints designates prospects for post-NPM PSA research that acknowledges multi-disciplinarity and branching in order to deploy insularity as a building block for its inquiries.

Criteria for assessing the limitations and credibility of an explorative inquiry are used, especially on how the proposal to develop cumulative knowledge from post-1990 PSA research can be further developed.

A matrix suggesting a method of ordering disciplinary references enables positioning of research inquiries within PSA research.

By extending common taxonomies of PSA intellectual heritages, the study proposes the ‘inquiry-heritage’ matrix as a typology that displays patterns of theorisation for positioning an inquiry within PSA disciplinary groundings.