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Utilising data from 18 in‐depth case studies, this study seeks to explore training, development and human resource development (HRD) practices in European call centres. It aims to argue that the complexity and diversity of training, development and HRD practices is best understood by studying the multilayered contexts within which call centres operate. Call centres operate as open systems and training, development and HRD practices are influenced by environmental, strategic, organisational and temporal conditions.

The study utilised a range of research methods, including in‐depth interviews with multiple stakeholders, documentary analysis and observation. The study was conducted over a two‐year period.

The results indicate that normative models of HRD are not particularly valuable and that training, development and HRD in call centres is emergent and highly complex.

This study represents one of the first studies to investigate training and development and HRD practices and systems in European call centres.

Argues that convergent trends in environmental evolution have led to convergent swings towards structural changes in the European retailing market. However, substantial differences continue to survive, each country preserving its specificities, the fruits of its history and culture. The single European market is not therefore uniform and, compared with the manufacturing industry, remains localized.

Much attention, both within the popular media and the academic milieu, is devoted to presenting a very positive image of the Internet in terms of its usefulness and its importance within the business environment of the 1990s. The above statements convey that any company can ill afford not to have a presence on the Internet. The objective of this paper is to establish whether a strategic intention exists for companies being on the Internet or whether there is an element of ‘keeping up with the Jones's’. This has been achieved by undertaking investigative research in order to establish the reason why companies, who already have a presence on the Internet, have selected to be there. The research will concentrate on clothing retailers operating within the UK marketplace. In all, it is hoped that this research will go some way to offering a more focused view on the use of the Internet and its potential as part of a viable strategy for clothing retail marketing.

The increasing demand for highly differentiated products in today’s enterprise economies has emphasized the small firms’ comparative advantage over larger firms. Business mortality rates, however, remained very high among more vulnerable start‐up businesses still in their earliest stage of business development. The challenges experienced by agribusiness entrepreneurs and their counterparts from other industries in their start‐up years are analyzed using case‐study research techniques. Results indicate that highly differentiated start‐up conditions between industries and among firms usually resulted in varied survival strategies. Notable differences include pricing policies dependent on market structures, more consultative management styles, inadequate start‐up resources, and preferences for brand new equipment.

This paper aims to explore how internationally oriented niche firms define and choose their markets and customers and how they position their products, and thereby add to the limited research knowledge regarding niche marketing.

The paper presents exploratory research based on structured in‐depth interviews of key informants in five firms.

Niche firms do not seem to follow the STP‐process. The selection of customers and markets is the result of tradition, chance or the firm's production philosophy, and the firms make few attempts to position their products. The firms rely on resource‐based advantages, high‐quality products and personal relationships when competing in the market.

The selected methodology makes these results alone unfit for generalising to a larger population. Improved theoretical models are needed for generating more knowledge about niche firms and their efforts in crafting marketing strategies, possibly by extending relationship marketing theory.

A niche firm's marketing strategy should be based on a customer‐valued competitive advantage and differentiation should be applied in terms of both intangible and actual use criteria. Niche firms should strive for long‐term, personal relationships and customer commitment. Also, there seems to be some room for following one's own personal convictions and ideas when crafting a marketing strategy, even though this approach certainly is not in line with the structured marketing strategy process suggested in textbooks.

This study offers exploratory findings on how export‐oriented niche firms define and choose their markets and customers, and how they position their products. The standard STP‐process as proposed in general textbooks is not appropriate for international niche firms.

The purpose of this paper is to explore new banks ' market niche position choices at the time of founding.

The authors used data on the establishment of new banking organizations in California, over 1979-1988, to test the hypotheses. During that time, banking within California experienced dramatic deregulation, which provided ample opportunities for new bank start-ups.

New banks were found to enter more often in specialist market niches when the market was highly concentrated, but less often when there were more non-bank financial institutions active in the market. The frequency of new specialist entries displayed an inverted U-shaped pattern as the number of established specialist banks in the market increased.

The findings confirm the idea that elements of market structure influence the niche positioning decisions of new ventures. The paper contributes to our understanding of entrepreneurial decision making in response to environmental conditions.

In this article, I propose a theory of network opportunity emergence. The core of the argument is that as an overall industry network structure becomes centralized, opportunities emerge for new entrants. As the institutional environment evolves toward a centralized network flow structure, innovators can identify newly emerged rich resource niches that serve as the perfect breeding ground for an entrepreneurial start-up. While the framework is an aggregate level conceptualization of market opportunities, it also identifies specific actionable opportunities at a very micro level. Examples from the networks of the airline industry illustrate the logic. I conclude by discussing the innovation and entrepreneurship implications for a wide variety of industries and network tie types, calling for utilization of the framework to answer a broad variety of research questions.

The limited academic literature available on niche marketing has mainly focused on market‐specific factors, and the discussion has in particular centred on the characteristics of what a niche is and what causes it to exist. In an attempt to fill this gap in the literature, the purpose of this paper is to identify the strategic capabilities of niche firms.

In this paper, aspects regarding niche marketing and strategic capability are identified and briefly discussed with reference to the existing literature. Next, the methodology for the research at hand is presented, followed by a discussion of its findings. The paper then continues with the conclusion of this research, followed by pinpointing some of its limitations and providing recommendations for future research.

All the investigated case firms follow a focused differentiation strategy to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. The focus aspect of the niche firms' strategy is mirrored in the reported narrow geographic market focus, which could be limited to only one country, a limited number of customers – one sole customer in one case – or a limited number of customer types. With regard to strategic capabilities, the results were rather similar across cases, particularly for each pair of case firms within similar sectors (wine, organic salmon, and stockfish). From the case firms' point of view, it is clear that having access to high‐quality raw material is critical to their strategy of delivering high‐quality products. Finally, many of the identified resources and competences appear rather static, or fixed over several years.

The strategic capabilities as identified in this paper can be described and placed at different stages within the firms' value chains. Each stage has its own set of important strategic capabilities. These stages are: inbound logistics, production or refinement, and marketing and sales.