The transformation of production processes that occurred across a range of manufacturing industries during the Industrial Age generated new and more complex requirements for the process of intermediation as well as for the production systems themselves. The development of hierarchical organizations provided firms with the ability to oversee directly many of these new tasks and to create markets that supported them. In contrast, the advent of the Information Age has tended not so much to require the creation of markets de novo but has rather altered the nature of existing relationships of intermediation in ways that have facilitated a much wider collection of organizational forms.2
This paper analyses inter-organizational networks that link together firms operating in the food processing and distribution industry in the UK. In doing so, the paper draws on insights recently developed by Mark Casson that treat inter-firm networks as an institutional response to the changing costs and opportunities of information management. Detailed analysis of product innovation and supply-chain management issues within the industry, exemplified by the growth of chilled ready-meals, leads to the identification of two distinct but complementary inter-firm networks: a network of control and a network of innovation. In each case, the study finds that the critical information is derived from the retailers' interface with consumers and thus that these information-based networks are effectively controlled by the leading supermarket chains. The study's conclusions are considered in relation to the recent findings of the UK Competition Commission following its investigation into grocery retailing in Britain.
This paper examines the use of consumer-driven innovation networks within the UK foodretailing industry using qualitative interview-based research analysed within an economic framework. This perspective revealed that by exploiting information gathered directly from their customers at point-of-sale and data mining, supermarkets are able to identify consumer preferences and co-ordinate new product development via innovation networks. This has been made possible through their information control of the supply-chain established through the use of transparent inventory management systems. As a result, supermarkets' e-business systems have established new competitive processes in the UK food-processing and retailing industry and are an example of consumer-driven innovation networks. The informant-based qualitative approach also revealed that trust-based transacting relationships operated differently from those previously described in the literature.
This paper is divided into two parts. The first part is an examination of the OECD classification of industries into high, medium and low technology industries, to look at the basis for this classification and to use that as a benchmark with which to classify the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data for the UK into similar groupings. The industries are ranked according to their research intensities and the rankings between the two datasets are compared. Some features of the UK rankings are highlighted and anomalies between the two datasets pointed out. The second part
This paper presents the results of research undertaken between 2002 and 2004 into the impact of technological change on the UK consumer magazine industry. The findings highlight patterns of innovation, both in the range of products (most notably monthly magazine titles) and the structure of organisations and work practices, which have tended to elude much of the contemporary debate within the "cultural industries" approach adopted in the media studies discipline. Instead, our analysis makes use of insights from the innovation literature to highlight the impact of technological discontinuities on the capabilities of both incumbent firms and new entrants. It also highlights the important and growing role that is being played in innovation-led industries through the adoption of organisational practices that find their origins in the traditions of project-based firms.
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