Ted Fuller
Teesside University
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Entrepreneurship and Regional Development | 2001
Ted Fuller; Paul Moran
Complexity science constitutes an emerging post-positivist interdisciplinary field of investigation of dynamical systems in the natural and physical worlds. The central concept of complexity is that interactions between parts of open systems create novel, unpredictable patterns, and that while the history of the system is relevant in understanding its dynamic, the isolation of individual parts of the system (analysis) does not reveal the casual mechanisms in the system. It is suggested that complexity science can inform our methodologies for investigating the social sciences. The paper explores whether complexity science offers ways of theory building that can take account of pluralistic or interdisciplinary research in enterprise dynamics. The authors offer a model of six theorized ontological layers, derived from the canon of research literature within a small enterprise domain, with boundaries at each end. It is suggested that dynamical concepts of agency (adaption, evolution, fitness, interdependence) coupled with the theory of evolutionary autopoietic structures generate a plausible field for the study of enterprise dynamics. A focus on ontological and experimental adequacy is necessary to develop theory within this framework. An appropriate methodology involves iterations between experimental forms of scientific analysis and the grounding of emergent or evolving theories.
International Small Business Journal | 1996
Ted Fuller
TED FULLER IS DIRECTOR OF THE Knowledge Systems Research Centre at Durham University Business School, United Kingdom. This paper addresses the need for a clearer understanding of the problems associated with the adoption of computers by small firms. From the catalogue of empirical research evidence already available, the key issues in the adoption of information technology by SMEs are identified. A model of the overall process of designing, developing, supplying, adopting and absorbing small business information technology is developed to identify inefficiencies in the fulfilment of small business needs. Underlying the dynamics of this model is a theory of software as contributor to enterprise development and learning. Specific abilities required by those involved in the software supply chain, i.e. software developers, IT consultants and vendors, business advisors, owner managers and small business employees are identified from a consideration of the dynamics of the model. It is suggested that enterprise development facilitators, such as trainers, consultants and counsellors, could contribute more more significantly to the design and use of software as a vehicle for enterprise development. It is argued that the effectiveness of the dynamics of this model in practice is a crucial policy issue in respect of the competitive aplication of IT by SMEs.
British Journal of Management | 2002
Ted Fuller; Jennifer Lewis
This paper reports on empirical research that investigates the meaning of relationships to owner-managers of small firms, and how differences in meaning are implicated in the strategy of the firms. In-depth interviews with owner-managers yielded 36 usable transcripts. These were coded using a grounded theory approach and the narrative was analysed for differences in meaning. Five categories of orientation to relationships were grounded in the narratives with each firm appearing to have a dominant orientation both with customers and suppliers. A number of apparently common themes in the discourse on relationships, for example, trust, talk, expectations and service, were shown to be interpreted differently, consistent with the types of relationship strategy. We adopted the term strategy because relationships were shown to have a long-term and influential effect, mediated reflexively, on the trajectory of the business. The analysis illustrates the significance of social constructionism and reflexivity as explanatory theories, and therefore the centrality of the meaning of relationships to the strategic management of the firm. Relationships are conceptualized as the mechanism that links the firm to its environment and causal to the impact that change in the environment has on the firm.
Futures | 2003
Ted Fuller
Small business is a relatively new economic category, which became politically necessary as economic activity flowed from owner-managed enterprises to managerial corporations. Historically, all business operated at a small scale and were centred on the individual artisan. Even now there are strong cultural affinities to individual enterprise. Over the centuries, business has emerged, legitimised by reflexive social notions of entrepreneurship and fuelled by regulated international free trade, competition, property rights and usury. In the process, society’s view of how this market structure serves the individual is increasingly depersonalised, demanding self-reliance and responsibility of the individual separate from the economic institutions that they work for. In this landscape, small businesses are increasingly important but relatively powerless. Questions concerning their future ultimately focus on the role they play in personal and social relationships.
Futures | 2000
Fiona Tilley; Ted Fuller
This paper is a report on the analysis underpinning research exploring the relationship between small firms and sustainability using foresighting methods. It identifies the main barriers preventing small firms from responding to the challenge of sustainability. The potential synergy between foresighting and small firms is outlined and a discussion of the literature linking foresighting methods and sustainability is presented. Sustainability is also compared with foresighting methods in order to identify complementary characteristics and the methodological underpinnings of foresighting is distinguished from different potential uses and interpretation of the methods. Finally, the paper assesses the utility of foresighting methods in the context of research on small firms and sustainability.
Emergence | 2000
Ted Fuller; Paul Moran
The proposal that the metaphors associated with complexity theory can inform the business world is made by several writers (Wheatley, 1992; Stacey, 1996; McMaster, 1996, Merry, 1995), but is open to critique that the metaphors are not grounded in the field of study, but in other domains that may or may not be analogous. In previous articles, the authors (Fuller, 1998, 1999; Fuller and Moran, 1999) have illustrated the apparent analogies between complex adaptive systems and the world of small firms. However, because there is no grounding of these analogies in that domain, there is no evidence that complexity theory has validity in describing or explaining empirical observation. For example, a new firm starting up may be associated with the metaphor of emergence, but whether theories of emergence as developed in thermodynamic systems have any analogous properties with a business start-up is problematic. This article investigates how complexity theory can inform an understanding of small firms, which we posit as an example of socioeconomic systems, in a more rigorous and scientific way than metaphor. Our approach to this is to investigate the possibility of a methodology that is plausible in its relationship to small firms, and developed from the conceptions and literature of complexity.
Futures | 2002
Ted Fuller; S Söderlund
Abstract The way that the academic practice in higher education universities responds to the influence of computer networks and technology will be central to the definition of their future role. The traditional metaphor of university as self-contained village is challenged as knowledge becomes widely available on the Internet and teacher–student and student–student dialogues are not bound by spatial boundaries. The paper presents four metaphoric spaces that virtual dialogues can take place in. Each of these appears to fail the criteria of creating space where knowledge that a particular individual has can be shared, recreated, and amplified through interactions with others in academic contexts. We consider the effect of three driving forces that could create alternative teacher and student roles and dialogues between them. A technology-driven shaping of virtual learning may result in auto-responsive ‘robosapiens’, a relativist societal-driven shaping of virtual learning may result in socially isolated ‘nerds’. An environment in which technology is shaped by ethical evaluation with respect to higher level (e.g. meta-conceptual) learning is desired to raise the standards of intellectual and technological talents. Such an environment is considerably different from the norms of present-day universities and the every-day roles of teachers and students.
Futures | 2000
Ted Fuller
How is it possible for individuals and small groups of people, who share particular values or identity, to prosper through their legitimate economic activities with the rest of the world? How does this benefit society and meet some of the imperatives of humanity at the start of the 21st Century? This paper argues that we need to help people in the small business community assess and develop in a positive way the consequences of their actions on themselves and on society. The purpose of the whole enterprise of research is to inform the future, not to explain the past. The entrepreneurial activity is seen as a reflexive shaping of the world and the small firm as a vehicle for economic adaptation. Entrepreneurship is a praxis of knowing and doing, of anticipating and acting, and it is exactly here where foresight becomes alive. Critically requiring the engagement and involvement the people who have an identifiable stake in the future being created. One paradox is that as one seeks to improve the salience and benefit of technology to the (small business) community in particular, this activity itself becomes a discourse of technological determinism. Each step, each shift in the path of activity, has social consequences and will require governance. We are all stakeholders in this.
Entrepreneurship and the Creative Economy: Process, Practice and Policy | 2011
Ted Fuller; Lorraine Warren; Sally Jane Norman
Objectives The production of innovation or novelty in creative interactions is normally represented in research either as normative patterns of behaviour (being creative) or as post-hoc empirical objects (new firms, new products etc.) The structure of creative practices, i.e. what particular forms of interactivity produce successful novelty (i.e. which becomes ‘normal’ and not novel, which creates and captures value), is not well researched. This paper provides a ‘digital economy’ perspective of the creative industries as a micro-level example of a wider analytical problem, which is how society changes itself. The increasing level of innovation and creativity produces greater levels of instability in social structures (habits, norms etc.) Completely new industries can arise (and ‘creatively’ destroy old ones) as new stabilised patterns form, particularly where entry costs are tumbling, such as digital milieu. Prior Work The authors have undertaken a stream of research that utilises the field of entrepreneurship to study the emergence of novelty. This has been informed by entrepreneurship theories (e.g. effectuation), by complexity theory (e.g. emergence) by constructionist theory (e.g. patterning and identity formation) and by critical realism (morphological perspectives). Approach Observations of workshops over several days with creative groups, interviews with creative enterprises, literature reviews on creative industries, business models and value systems have informed the analysis and conceptualisation. Results We present a conceptual framework that we suggest can capture how novelty arises as emergent order over time. We have extended previous work that investigates the significance of emergence in theorising entrepreneurship into an exploration of how to articulate the creation and flow of value and effective ontology in a creative landscape Implications In the digital economy, the creative industries revolve around dynamic, innovative and often unorthodox collaborations, whereby numerous large, small and micro-businesses come together for the duration of a project, then disband and form new partnerships for the next project. Research designs must therefore address multiple contexts and levels presenting an analytical challenge to researchers. Value Methodologically, we suggest that the framework has analytical potential to support the collection of data: ordering and categorising empirical observations concerning how different phenomena emerge over time across multiple levels of analysis and contexts. Conceptually, the work broadens the notions of ‘business model’ to consider value creating systems and particular states reached by those systems in their evolution.
Leonardo | 2010
Ted Fuller; Lorraine Warren; Sarah Thelwall; Fizza Alamdar; David Rae
The generic notion of a business model is well understood by investors and business managers and implies a number of anticipations; chiefly that it is a replicable process that produces revenues and profits. At its heart is some replicable process, artefact or proposition around which the everyday practices are formed. There are a number of reasons why this conception is weak in the Creative Industries. We have identified that the rationale for business models in the Creative Industries includes providing an attractor for non goal oriented creative activity, for stabilising emergent properties from creative activities and for maintaining the stability of these by anticipating revenues.