Clusters are geographically close groups of related companies or institutions related to a certain area which are inherently more efficient than the other companies due to advantages such as being located in one place, networks, external knowledge, variability of human capital, etc. Today, development through clusters plays a pivotal role in the economic and industrial policies of developed...

In industrial production companies, the practice of assigning responsibility for human factors and ergonomics (HFE) to specific professionals (referred to as HF agents in this paper) may take on various organizational forms. This interview study examines the extent to which HF agents are able to give input towards the design of new production systems in different industrial sectors. The present...

A large part of the literature from industrial organization and management expects that, compared with unrelated M&As, related M&As show superior economic performance because of synergetic eÚects that follow from economies of scale and scope. The current contribution takes the debate on the eÚect of diÚerent M&As somewhat further by studying the eÚect of M&As on the technological performance of...

During the current period, the world economy is characterised by a process of globalisation, which implies that the national economy is part of the global economy, which it influences, but the latter also determines a certain trend of developing a national economy. In this context, industrial companies are part of the globalised economy, which determines a certain complexity in the development ...

The Chinese stimulus package of 2008 was a response by the government to rebound the second largest economy from the effects of the Global Financial Crisis. The package was one of the largest, and arguably one of the most successful, in boosting demand and spurring growth through targeting infrastructure projects and consumer spending. This paper investigates whether the package had any spillov...

In an increasingly competitive market, companies have the need to seek and implement best practices to continuously improve their processes. Recently, several quality management tools and quality improvement methodologies have emerged in literature. However, there is a gap between theory and practice. This study aims to assess to what extent the methodologies and tools cited in literature are u...