Interfirm technology alliances represent an important mechanism through which firms develop new technologies, products and processess. Research shows that the governance structure of such alliances is an important factor affecting the contribution it makes to a firm's innovativeness. Joint ventures are proven to be more effective knowledge transfer vehicles than contractual agreements, and yet alliance formation research shows that firms often govern technology alliances by the latter. If innovation motivates technology alliance governance decisions and if joint ventures increase firm innovativeness, then it is not clear why so many alliances are governed by contactual agreement. This paper tackles this conundrum and aims to advance understanding of the mechanisms connecting alliance governance to a firm's innovativeness.

In the UK, the case of employee-ownership has recently gained attention - in part because of the recognition of the need for fairer society, but also because adverse economic conditions point to business resilience as an important part of sustaining employment and long-term growth.

Cass Professors Joseph Lampel and Ajay Bhalla along with Newcastle University's Dr Pushkar Jha have released a joint study into employee ownership, conducted in collaboration with UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.

Self-employment is the key to a better quality of life. For most women in this study their main motivation for starting a business was to increase their flexibility and improve their work life balance.

This study, commissioned by Avon Cosmetics, explores self-employment and entrepreneurship in women in the UK.

Companies' early-stage research and development efforts are extremely uncertain and research has often argued that companies should form one technology-development alliance at a time to see if a new technology may have potential. The drawback of such a sequential approach is that companies are left empty-handed in case that one alliance does not produce any results.

The portfolio perspective as proposed in this research instead argues that in the face of severe uncertainty, companies should engage in multiple simultaneous alliances in order to distinguish quickly between technological dead-ends and promising new technologies.