The ever increasing technological developments and greater demands from our society for qualitative better, safer, sustainable products, processes and systems are pushing the boundaries of what is possible from an engineer’s perspective. Besides the (local) grand challenges in energy, sustainability, …

EHealth applications hold many promises, for instance to improve the quality of health care, to increase its accessibility, or to reduce the cost. Yet, many eHealth innovations never reach the stage where they get embedded into routine health care. This is due in part to a lack of evidence that these …

Draft research proposal; 20 JAN 2013. Preliminary proposal for a 3 (max 4) year research project leading to a PhD. In preparation for the WION workshops on Advanced Purchasing Research and to be worked out in more detail as a PhD research proposal before MAY 2013. The research objective is to find out: …

The case traces the story of Henk Van Houtum’s journey and his desire to turn a small, traditional, family business into a professionally-run company. In June 2011 a Dutch Private Equity company, Friesland Bank Investments (FBI), a subsidiary of the Friesland Bank, announced that it was buying a controlling …

In recent years, the transport industry has encountered numerous challenges. It experienced strong growth, but also many uncertainties. In many cases, logistics service providers were forced to change their strategy. So, the question for logistics service providers arises “how to deal best with uncertainties?” …

Letting go of the firm or “my baby” as some entrepreneurs describe their creation, leads to a certain amount of stress (Rahim 1996, Kets de Vries 1999). Dealing with stress in singular events as the transfer of a business, is hardly been subject of research (Uy et al. 2012). Improving coping strategies …

The objective of this study is to shed light on the added value of the services of five disciplines in M&A advisory in the SME domain: accountants, bankers, business brokers, fiscalists and lawyers. Theory is inconclusive in the added value of advisory services and research on the subject is hardly …

SMEs within the rural Dutch municipality of Utrechtse Heuvelrug (UHG) are becoming increasingly aware of the need for sustainable ‘green’ business. Their sense of sustainability is strongly defined by the ‘green’ environment in which they live and work. They were seeking an entrepreneurial approach to …

Companies are on the verge to think about retention of older workers (workers above 50) in their company. Thus organisations, more specifically small and middle-sized enterprises (SMEs), are busy with the development of concepts how to make the time between 50 and retirement age of 65 or 67 for employees …

The in-depth assessment of the situation of the European textile and clothing sector is composed by six independent reports with a close focus on key aspects useful to understand the dynamics and the development of the textile and clothing industry, drivers of change – most notably the impact of the …