Browsing by Person "Welsh, Rita"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Fissures in the marketing strategies of South Asian restaurants in Edinburgh
(Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005-05) Seaman, Claire; Bent, Richard; Ingram, Arthur; Welsh, Rita; Mederos, Mederos
This exploratory study sought to investigate South Asian restaurants in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK in order to obtain a preliminary identification of marketing gaps compromising their future profitability. The aims of the study were to expose and understand the relative importance attached by owners and managers of South Asian restaurants in Edinburgh to the different elements of the marketing mix. South Asian restaurants form a small but important sector of the restaurant in market in towns throughout the UK and are characteristically of disproportionate financial and social importance to the communities who run them. South Asian restaurants in Edinburgh, as in most towns in the UK, are run primarily by the Bangladeshi community and are under increasing pressure as the variety of restaurants operating in the sector increases. The results of the study make evident that any initiatives taken to support South Asian restaurants should include awareness-raising actions. Building awareness, which is perceived to be currently partially understood, of the importance of studying markets, customers and competitors is essential before any advice is given on how to accomplish these monitoring tasks. Equally, a fundamental priority is to encourage self-critical and proactive approaches to business, thus increasing the capacity to identify possible problems and implement correcting measures.
Internal barriers to small business development: a study of independent retailers from the Edinburgh South Asian community
(Queen Margaret University, 2009) Welsh, Rita
This thesis presents a conceptual model of the nature/interaction of internal factors shaping individual ethnic minority micro-enterprise owners' response to external threats in the business environment aimed to assist business support agencies developing/targeting appropriate help/support to enhance business development. Focus of the empirical research is Edinburgh Pakistani community owned convenience stores, as the failure to survive will adversely affect this community disproportionately reliant on the c-store sector and provision of related local social and economic benefits. The intangible influences on business approaches (education, experience, access to finance/business advice, personal values, goals, motivation, role models and cultural background) demands a qualitative, postmodern constructivist methodology, utilising social science adaptive grounded theory methods for sample selection, data collection/management, and theory generation. The initial conceptual model emerging from constant comparison analysis of qualitative interviews with a theoretical sample of 21 Edinburgh Pakistani c-store owners indicates key internal factors as start-up motivation, cultural influences and changing aspirations, awareness and acknowledgement of these influences on predominantly reactive responses to trading challenges varying widely. Comparison with wider ethnic minority/micro-enterprise research develops a conceptual model of the interacting internal barriers to minority community micro-enterprise development. Within any minority community and/or micro-business sector the owner's response to changing business environments is shaped by three factors: motivation for self-employment and changing sojourner mentality; cultural influences and depth of social embeddedness; and generational aspirations and degree of economic embeddedness in the mainstream community. By taking the complex, multi-layered, individual, dynamic nature of these factors into account when developing and marketing business advice, support agencies can design and deliver products and services relevant to specific needs and resource availability. Raising owners' awareness of the factors influencing business decisions will increase the potential for micro-enterprises to react proactively to external threats, with related benefits to individual owners, minority populations and the local community.
Managers' perceptions of tacit knowledge in Edinburgh's Indian restaurants
(2009) Abdullah, Faurouk; Ingram, Arthur; Welsh, Rita
Abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to explore tacit knowledge and managers’ supervision styles in a sample of Edinburgh's Indian restaurants. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports a qualitative fieldwork of managers’ perceptions of their role in directing tasks, supervising operations and staff recruitment. Findings – The research findings describe tacit knowledge contexts derived from restaurant owner-managers directing operations. Research limitations/implications – This is an exploratory study of views and perceptions of a small sample of ethnic managers. It asks questions of tacit knowledge within Scottish-based Indian restaurants, and attempts to place these within a cultural context of kinship networks. Practical implications – The research questions how academic researchers may make nebulous concepts such as tacit knowledge accessible to practical hospitality managers, policy-makers, students and teachers. Originality/value – The research findings describe the context to relationships in small ethnic hospitality businesses. Conceptual development emerges from deductions made from literature, fieldwork, shadowing, interviews, and by asking questions
Over the hedge: hidden networks in knowledge transfer
(Inderscience, 2012-12) Bent, Richard; Seaman, Claire; Welsh, Rita; Pretious, Mike
This paper develops the Edinburgh knowledge hedge (Bent et al., 2010) to introduce the largely hidden role formal and informal networks in the process of linking SMEs and business support agencies, presenting a model to assist in identifying remaining barriers to knowledge exchange. The model is applied to a detailed case study of primary business support experience, laying the foundation for practical and theoretical developments. It is proposed that the model will provide a basis for future qualitative research in this area. A conceptual framework is developed to capture the complexity of knowledge exchange between SMEs and business support agencies and providers. Within the case study SME owners and business advisors identify areas not resolved by formal/informal networks, aiding the development of case specific strategies to get both parties 'over the hedge'.
Succession planning in minority ethnic family enterprises
(Inderscience Publishers, 2013) Seaman, Claire; Welsh, Rita; Bent, Richard
The paper presents interview findings derived from a sample of small Scottish businesses. Owners comments form case studies of succession planning and describe associated decision making processes of ownership, transfer and control, inter-generational relations and kinship networks. Timing, cultural knowledge and conflict resolution are seen as keys to successful succession. The units are located in the east of Scotland and are first/second generation South Asian owned enterprises. From this exploratory work, we question whether exiting formal models of support (based upon larger firms) can assist SME owner managers in planning their succession processes, and the paper highlights a need to embed support within government policy initiatives and delivery mechanism more appropriate to the needs of smaller companies.
Supporting dyslexic Scottish university hospitality students: positive actions for the future?
(2007) Ingram, Arthur; Pianu, Emily; Welsh, Rita
Purpose - The purpose of the paper is to explore the issues of dyslexia and the management of learning support within two Scottish suppliers of premier HE hospitality education: Napier and QMU universities of Edinburgh. Design/methodology/approach - This exploratory, qualitative fieldwork outlines course managers', teachers' and disabilities support staff perceptions of dyslexia support. Students' views are noted, not interviewed. The paper describes the views of 12 of a sample of (eight female and four male) staff interviewees. Napier University and Queen Margaret University are post-1990 new- universities; Napier has a larger student/staff population than QMU. Findings - The emergent findings in this paper highlight the fact that managers, teachers and support staff operate an under-resourced and largely ad hoc system of dyslexic support, although Napier, with greater central funding, shows signs of more strategic insight with the appointment of a full-time dyslexia coordinator with strategic potential. The findings pinpoint the strengths (personal attention) of decentralised support with ambiguity problems and the need for a generic centrally coordinated support system capable of codifying tacit experience into customised support packages for hospitality students. Research limitations/implications - The paper is a small exploratory study of the views and perceptions of dyslexia of course managers', hospitality teachers' and support staff from two of Edinburgh's new universities. Both have decades of internationally respected work in hospitality education and elsewhere in higher education. Practical implications - The fieldwork draws attention to this situation and suggests ways to make concepts of dyslexia and disability more relevant to academic hospitality managers teaching in higher education and to those practising in the field. Originality/value - The paper examines the proposition that, while dyslexia is a condition open to support and improvement, it is for many practitioners a vague concept. What emerges from the interviews is that disability and what to do about it seems to be an attitude of mind, a question of perceptions, frames of references, intangible properties: that the essence of enhanced dyslexic support is how to do things better. Napier and QMU give valuable ad hoc examples here on which to design future practice. What is needed is a systematic approach to design, implementation and sustainability, and an understanding of the tacitly held knowledge that underpins experience-generated systems of knowledge. Bringing out such tacit and explicit notions of the complexity of perceptions of knowledge lies in future studies.
The challenge to c-stores : Edinburgh South Asian responses
(Emerald, 2003-03) Welsh, Rita; Bent, Richard; Seaman, Claire; Ingram, Arthur
While no two businesses are the same, examples from Edinburgh Pakistani community convenience store owners illustrate business survival strategies developed in response to increased environmental challenges presented by changing consumer behaviour, increased competition and demographic variations. These are related to the individual's motivation, experience and family business background, and include exiting the sector, gaining recognised qualifications and alternative employment, and involving second and third generations in expanding family business activities. The resulting smaller, but stronger, convenience(c)-store sector continues to provide opportunities for individual businesses, thus maintaining the economic and social benefits for the ethnic minority community and the wider city population.