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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/T25897/01
Title: Managing the Manage Processes
Principal Investigator: Bititci, Professor US
Other Investigators:
Davies, Professor J Ackermann, Professor F MacBryde, Professor J
van der Meer, Dr RB Shafti, Dr F Gibb, Dr S
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Brands Electronics Ciba Group (Pharma/Chemicals) Highland Spring Ltd
Houston Warehousing Linn Products Ltd Operations Management Research Ltd
Pittiglio Rabin Todd & McGrath Ltd Scottish Enterprise Renfrewshire The Weir Group plc
Department: Design Manufacture and Engineering Man
Organisation: University of Strathclyde
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 01 March 2005 Ends: 31 July 2008 Value (£): 372,945
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Manufact. Business Strategy Manufact. Enterprise Ops& Mgmt
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Electronics Food and Drink
Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
Looking back over past 10 or 15 years, where pace of technological, social, political and economical change has been high, we can typify companies: in to:1. Companies, which demonstrated that they could readily adapt and change with the changing environment. These companies seem to be able to respond to external and internal changes with little effort. They seem to be able to identify internal or external threats and opportunities and deal with them at their stride. Looking from outside in, it seems as if dealing with incremental or disruptive events (be it political, technological, market oriented) is part of everyday business. As a result, in these turbulent and uncertain times they have managed to survive and grow.2. Companies, having identified the threats and opportunities to their business, which have failed to respond to these in a positive way. Consequently, today majority of these companies are much smaller (e.g. Brands Electronics) or they no longer exists (e.g. Alcan Chemicals Ltd)The aim of the proposed research is to answer the question what makes the successful companies different? and go on to develop a practical selfassessment tool that could be used to assess the capabilities of the manage-processes.This research will build new theory on how manage-processes create and sustain competitive advantage by developing an understanding of what these manage processes are, their architecture, the factors and practices that underpin their capabilities and by proving a framework for their measurement and assessment. It will build this new theory through case study based exploratory research, based on existing theory and practices of companies who have successfully and unsuccessfully demonstrated capability in creating and sustaining competitive advantage.Due to the exploratory nature of the project, two parallel approaches will be used. One stream will take a deductive approach, developing a model of what the manage processes should be from literature and theory, and then testing this approach by conducting case studies which compare what companies do with the model. The second stream will take an inductive approach, by entering organisations, describing what they do, exploring patterns, consolidating and interpreting these findings to create a picture of manage processes in context.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
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Summary
Date Materialised
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Organisation Website: http://www.strath.ac.uk