Brexit, the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, is a unique situation in history and the outcomes of this process are still uncertain and they will have unknown consequences for businesses in the UK. This new scenario, with no precedent in the history, presents additional challenges for UK based companies. 2018 is the key year when the European Union (EU) must conclude the negotiations with the United Kingdom (UK) for its orderly withdrawal and define the framework for their future relationship (Barnier, 2018, par. 3). The UK will leave the EU at the end of March of 2019 and the clock is ticking.
At the time this research project is being written the EU and the UK are in a second stage of negotiations and there are three important tasks to pursue in parallel: first, the need to draft a Withdrawal Agreement, a document that should deal with all the consequences of the departure of the UK from the EU. The importance for business is on the issues related to custom procedures, movement of goods, intellectual property, public procurement, data protection and the European Atomic Commission. Secondly, a transition period must be negotiated and thirdly, the European Council and the UK must be able to discuss the framework for their future relationship (Barnier, 2018, para. 4-16).
The present project is intended to be the case study of a metal trading company that at present navigates the uncertainties of Brexit and is in need for a contingency plan to relocate its activities. Brexit represents too many uncertainties and therefore an important risk for the company being studied. The main objective is always to ensure the survival and the proper functioning of the company, which includes availing financing facilities outside the UK, among other targets. New subsidiaries or more likely the complete relocation of activities in countries that provide a safe politic and economic environment is being currently weighted. At present, the company evaluates two countries for this objective: Switzerland and Germany. Due to the natural limitations of such academic project only Switzerland will be studied as the place for relocation. The company being studied specializes in the trade of oilfield steel products and oil and country tubular products, which offers material for big scale projects, therefore working in a highly-specialized service oriented country is very important. This involves a sound financial system, a business-friendly environment, a safe currency, low taxation, among other factors that are of big importance for companies.
Rejda & McNamara (2014) define risk as “an uncertainty concerning the occurrence of a loss” (p. 2), which is precisely what Brexit represents for several companies, an uncertainty and the fact that losses might happen. According to Crouhy, Galai, & Mark, (2013) the financial risk arising from uncertainty can be managed (p. 1). Modern economies differentiate from the ones in the past for their ability to identify risks, measure them, appreciate their consequences and take the proper actions, such as transferring risk or mitigating it (Crouhy et al., 2013, p. 1).
With the UK leaving the EU in March next year, several organizations in the UK are facing a period of uncertainty with, up to now, unknown consequences, but this uncertainty should not stop organizations from designing contingency plans (Deloitte UK, 2018, par. 1). Most big companies produce some form of contingency plan, but usually plans address only high-level issues in their strategies to recover from crises (King, 1993, p. 56). Contingency plans help to deal with catastrophic situations in advance and the response of the management is also a pivotal component to achieve the objectives of the plan.
In this project, Brexit is observed as an issue but also as the opportunity for the organization being studied. So far, the precise outcome of the Brexit negotiations cannot be predicted therefore planning and with detail is helpful for the proper future functioning of a company exposed to Brexit risk.
1. Preliminary Literature Review
This chapter aims to provide the theoretical background for this Applied Research Project. The most relevant topics will be identified, studied and processed to build this literature review. The following paragraphs show the preliminary theoretical background to the topic covered by this Applied Research Project in the early stage of this preliminary study. More details of how this chapter will be divided can be found in the chapter 5 of this preliminary study. The following paragraphs cover a small literature review on Brexit, which will be adapted and improved for the final report. Moreover three other subchapters are being contemplated in this literature review, namely risk management, strategic management and Switzerland as place for relocation.
On June 23rd, 2016, in a historical and unprecedented referendum the UK electorate voted to leave the EU (Glencross, 2016, p. 2). On that day 51.9% of the voters said yes to the withdrawal of the UK from the EU. One of the many explanation for this result is that existing well-being inequalities in the UK might have been one of the causes for Brexit, since less educated workers in remote regions probably have perceived less benefits from the common European project (OECD, 2017, p. 15).
Forty-one years before, on June 1975 the UK held a referendum to remain in the European Economic Community. The question to be voted by then was “Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?” to what the British voted yes by a 67.2% (Miller, 2015, p. 21-25). By then they secured a new deal with the EU whereby their main objectives were heard and respected by the EU, the British objectives back to 1975 were to secure major changes in common agricultural policy, new and fairer methods of financing the community budget, rejection to maintain a fixed currency parity, the retention by the UK parliament of its powers over the British economy which are needed to pursue an effective regional, industrial and fiscal policies, an agreement on capital movements to protect the balance of payments and their full employment policies, a safeguard to the economic interests of the Commonwealth nations and other developing countries and no harmonization of the value added tax that would require the UK to tax necessities (Miller, 2015, p. 12-18).
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at the end of 2017 states that the biggest challenge faced by the UK authorities is to implement Brexit at a minimum cost by being able to secure comprehensive free-trade agreements with the bloc and other countries since around 45% of the UK exports go to the EU27 countries and are facilitated by their EU membership, which means they also participate in both the EU single market and the customs union (OECD, 2017, p. 15). As far as it is known, the UK is not seeking to replicate existing models of relationship of other European countries with the EU, for instance by remaining as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) such as Norway and Ireland. The UK government intends to leave the EU single market and the customs union (OECD, 2017, p. 17).
Some of the findings and recommendations made by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at the end of 2017 include from a macroeconomic point of view that an unorganized exit from the EU would be hurting for trading relationship which would affect the UK’s long-term growth, therefore it is recommended to keep a close economic relationship between the UK and the EU (p. 11). Brakman, Garretsen, & Kohl, (2017) in their study conclude that from the perspective of international trade Brexit an ambiguous issue and most studies performed so far predict that trade with the European Union will decrease considerably (p.65).
2. Research Objectives and Research Question
In this section, the research objectives and the research question will be revealed and explained. The aim of this section is to show an overview of the road that the project will take and explain, summarized, how the objectives are to be achieved. Detailed information about how the objectives are to be achieved can be read in chapter 4, “Methodology”.
The main objective of this research is to develop a contingency plan to relocate a metal trading company from the UK to central Switzerland in the case of a hard Brexit. A case study supported using qualitative methods is intended to be the means to achieve the research objectives. The reasons why this type of methodology has been chosen will be explained in detail in chapter 4.
As background information, in the case of the studied company and so far, the UK has provided a safe and optimal environment for the operations of the company as well as it is the home country of its main shareholders, managers and most their employees working at the headquarters. Nevertheless, Brexit and its consequences might present a threat for the future functioning of the company. Brexit imposes a challenge for many other companies, included the one being studied in this project. The big challenge is to be able to navigate these uncertainties in a sensible and well-structured way given the stakes at risk. Being always the main objective the protection and safeguard of the company, its functioning and its shareholders. Figure 1 illustrates in a simple way the origin and aim of this study, whereby the triggering event, Brexit, imposes a challenge which is to navigate uncertainty and therefore a contingency plan for relocation is needed.
Figure 1: Triggering event and its effects related to this study
The research question is: how to relocate a British metal trading company to Switzerland in a smooth way? This is a question that involves also clarifying several other points such as, the motives for the relocation, revise the mission of the company and of the relocation, the vision in the long-term perspective and the setting of clear objectives to ensure a smooth transition from one country to the other. The attempt to answer this question might lead to new future challenges for the company studied, which are not in the scope of this project, but could be the base of a further study.
A contingency plan that is well developed and as easy as possible to execute in the case of a hard Brexit is desired. This is the reason the client company has requested to develop for this situation. Therefore, the main objectives of this Applied Research Project are: first, to analyze the Brexit and its so far observed consequences from a theoretical point of view through a literature review and analyze Switzerland as a host country for a metal trading company from a tax, operational and business environment perspective, second, to provide the methodological tools in order to understand from experts as well as from the affected parties which are likely to be the consequences of the Brexit for this specific company and third, from the information collected to develop a contingency plan that is easy and timely to execute in case of a hard Brexit.
The selected topic also represents a challenge for the author of the project since Brexit is a matter that develops every day and is a never seen situation in the economic history of the world. Therefore, it involves keeping attention to every day news about the topic and revision of new corpus of academic literature regarding this topic which is constantly being published. All this in order to keep this project as up to date as possible at the time of its closure.
3. Methodology
This Applied Research Project aims to develop a contingency plan for a medium size metal trading company located in the UK in case of its relocation to Switzerland given a hard Brexit or a Brexit that affects its operations. This chapter explains the methodological approach that will be used for this study. An exhaustive literature review should be performed and qualitative methodology will be carried out in order to achieve a case study. These approaches will be explained in the following subchapters as well as how data should be analyzed.
3.1. Literature Review
To gain completely familiarity with the topic being researched, a literature review is a pivotal part on a research project (Hart, 2001, p. 2). The objective in reviewing the existing literature is to identify what is already known in the area of study, concepts and theories that are relevant to this area. The research methods that will be employed, identify controversies, and inconsistencies in findings that relate to the area of study, also finding if there are unanswered research questions in the topic of study, giving the researcher the possibility to revise and refine the research questions in the process of reviewing the literature (Bryman, 2012, p. 98).
The literature review section of this project aims to examine recent existing and significant literature available on the topic of Brexit, risk management and relocation of companies. Therefore, primary and secondary literature as described by Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill (2012) will be used. Primary literature sources such as reports, government publications, unpublished manuscripts, press, consultancy reports, are also named “grey literature” because these can be difficult to trace (p. 83). Secondary literature such as books and journals, which are the subsequent publication of primary literature. Furthermore, tertiary literature corresponds to search tools designed to locate primary and secondary literature, i.e. online databases, indexes as well as encyclopedias are contemplated to be used in this project. These sources act as a vehicle to move from general to specific information regarding the topic being studied.
The topic investigated in this project has a business and strategic background that is practice oriented and a timely issue that implies the application of international financial and strategic management. A literature review has proven to be very important for the author to develop deep understanding of the investigated topic before proceeding with the selected methodology.
3.2. Research Design
This subchapter shows the chosen research design for this project in order to focus on the framework of the collection and the analysis of the data collected. Firstly, the method of case study will be described and justified for this project, secondly the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches will be explored, and it will be explained why one is more suitable than the other for this project and thirdly, the use of semi-structured interviews over unstructured interviews will be introduced and its use in this project will be developed.
3.21. Case Study.
This section describes and discusses the case study approach for this project. Bryman (2012) states that case studies require the exploration in detail of specific cases. These cases could be an organization, a community or a person and when the case has been selected then a research method or methods are necessary to collect the data. The step of selecting an organization to study in depth will not provide the data on its own (p.45) therefore it has been identified that qualitative or quantitative approaches will be needed to support the development of a case study. Cooper & Schindler (2013) note that case studies are a powerful research methodology that can combine individual and sometimes group interviews along with record analysis and observations, whereby the information can be extracted from company brochures, annual reports, sales receipts and newspaper and magazine articles along with observation and combine all this with data obtained from participants’ interviews (p. 165). The final objective is to obtain multiple perspectives about a single organization, situation, event or process at a point of time and the case study can be used to understand particular processes (Cooper & Schindler, 2013, p. 165).
Bryman (2012) indicates that with a case study the case itself is the object of interest in its own right, and the researcher aims is to provide an in-depth clarification of it and the researcher is occupied trying to elucidate the unique features of the case being studied (p. 69).
To sum up, the flexibility of a case study and its emphasis on understanding the context of the subject being studied allows for richness of understanding (Cooper & Schindler, 2013, p. 166).
3.22. Qualitative Versus Quantitative Approaches.
This section discusses the chosen qualitative research design and evaluates this methodological approach contrasting it with the quantitative research design. For this study, the qualitative research and the quantitative research design were evaluated on a first stage. As Silverman (2013) states, the research method depends upon the intended findings. He adds, that "no method of research, quantitative or qualitative, is intrinsically better than any other" (Silverman, 2013, p. 132). In order to properly select the research method for this project, both approaches were contemplated analyzed, and will be briefly described in the following paragraph.
M. Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill (2009) summarized the main differences between both research methods. The authors explain that in the qualitative research method, the data is based on meanings which are expressed through words, whereas quantitative data is derived from numbers. In addition, concerning the data collection, qualitative research collects data with non-standardized methods and requires classification into categories, while numerical and standardized data is collected in quantitative research. Furthermore, the authors indicate that the analysis in qualitative data is through the use of conceptualization, whereas the quantitative research method conducts the analysis with diagrams and statistics (M. Saunders et al., 2009, p. 482).
Since this project is a case study, it must be stated that there is tendency to associate case studies with qualitative research, but such a connection is not very appropriate since as indicated by Bryman (2012) case studies are often the site to employ both methods qualitative and quantitative research approaches (p. 68). Nevertheless, for this project and in order to obtain a deeper insight from the real business environment of the studied company a qualitative approach has been chosen. This approach allows for greater interest in the interviewer’s perspective. New questions can be asked to follow up interviewee’s replies and the order and even the wording of the questions can vary. Qualitative interviewing offers flexibility in this regard. Rich and detailed answers, which can be coded afterwards and processed, are preferred in qualitative interviewing. Besides the interviewee can be interviewed more than once and if necessary, in several occasions (Bryman, 2012, p. 470). The topic of Brexit and its effects in companies and relocation possibilities, moreover discussing about Switzerland as a good location to relocate can be openly discussed and a deeper insight in the studied topic can be obtained from interviewing experts on the topic being researched.
According to Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, (2012) a research interview is a general term used for several types of interviews. In general, it is a calculated conversation between two or more people that requires the interviewer to build rapport in order to ask precise and unambiguous questions that the interviewee will be willing to answer so that the interviewer is able to explore these answers deeper (p. 372). Interviews are very crucial for this study because they help gathering valid and reliable data, which is particularly relevant to answer the research questions and objectives of this project. Furthermore, interviews are also useful for the researcher to refine ideas which are not yet formulated (Saunders et al., 2012, p 372).
Cooper & Schindler (2013) note that most of the qualitative research relies on unstructured or semi-structured interviews. This type of interviews will be explained in the following sub chapter and the reason for choosing one over the other for this project will be clarified. These two types of interviews are very different from structured interviews because these rely on developing a dialog between the interviewer and the interviewee, hence they require more creativity on the side of the interviewer. This person must have the necessary skills to extract more and greater variety of data, his experience and skill can achieve greater clarity and elaboration in the answers of the participants (p. 153).
3.23. Semi-structured Interviews.
This section explains the choice in the kind of interview for the project. For this project, unstructured interviews and semi-structured interviews were weighted against each other. On the one hand unstructured interviews can be used to explore in depth a general area in which one is interested, they lack of a predetermined list of questions or work through and the interviewee is given the chance to talk freely regarding events, behavior and believes in relation to the topic area in a non-directive way where the interviewee guides the conversation (Saunders et al., 2012, p. 375). On the other hand, semi-structured interviews involve having a list of themes and key questions that will be covered, although their use may vary from interview to interview, meaning that sometimes some questions could be omitted in some particular interviews, the order of the questions may vary depending on the flow of the conversation, additionally new questions might be needed to explore the research questions and objectives given the nature of events that take place in particular organizations (Saunders et al., 2012, p 374).
After having considered both types of interviews, semi-structured interviews were chosen over unstructured interviews, which were discarded for this project, since these are too informal while semi-structured interviews offer the freedom and control degree needed to extract the first-hand information for this project. Moreover, semi-structured interviews offer the opportunity to do probe answers, where interviewers have the chance to explain or build on their answers. These interviews also provide the interviewee the opportunity to hear himself “thinking aloud” about spoken aspects they might have not thought about. The result from semi-structured interviews should lead to the collection of rich and detailed data (Saunders et al., 2012, p. 378).
3.3. Sampling Strategy
In qualitative research, samples may be composed of people, as individuals or in groups (Davies & Hughes, 2014, p. 172). For interviews the aim is to select people, objects, situations or experiences that will allow to explore the research question, enable to develop theoretical ideas, and give the opportunity to test them before reaching a conclusion (Davies & Hughes, 2014, p. 173).
When qualitative research is conducted, it tends to go around the concept of purposive sampling, which means that the researcher does not look for participants in a random basis, the goal is to sample those participants in a strategic way in order that the sampled persons are relevant to the research question stated, often the intention is to sample to ensure there is variety in the resulting sample so that the sample members differ from each other in terms of key characteristics that are relevant to the research question (Bryman, 2012, p. 418). Purposive sampling does not allow the researcher to generalize a population and is not available by chance. In purposive sampling, sites, such as organizations and people within sites are chosen due to their relevance to the research question, as a researcher needs to be clear in the mind regarding what the criteria is that will be relevant to the inclusion or exclusion of units of analysis (people) (Bryman, 2012, p. 418). If an approached person indicates that there is another person who has more expertise in the topic researched and refers the researcher to this person and this new person refers another person and so on, then this is named snowball sampling (Bryman, 2012, p. 424). This approach towards building the strategic sampling is inended for this project and all referred persons will be contacted when necessary. Thus, purposive sampling and snowball sampling are going to be used in building the strategic sample of this project.
For this study, the following profiles of professionals is being contemplated for interviews: studied company employees, studied company owner, tax advisors or tax lawyers, connections given by the supervisor of this project and people being profiled over online platforms who are active in the topic of Brexit and possible relocations. Nevertheless, conflicts in interviewing some employees is being weighted and it might not be possible to pursue this profile for the interviews.
3.4. Research Instruments
In past methodological courses at the Lucerne School of Business during my studies it was learned that to proceed with a qualitative study essential empirical tools are needed, these are: the interview outline, the pre-test and data analysis tables, which will be used to analyze the data once it is collected. The following sub sections describe each research instrument.
3.41. The Interview Outline.
The interview outline, will be written in English and is expected to be an important part of this research process because it will establish the structure on the one the interviews will be conducted. The interview questions, will be developed during a deep literature review process and will be adjusted after the pre-test interview and as new literature comes in to be reviewed by the researcher. The main objective is to formulate meaningful questions that achieve the collection of primary data for answering the research question and for obtaining first-hand information from the real world and practical situations.
3.42. Pre-test.
The pre-test aims to prove the efficiency of the interview outline to be developed and should allowed for adjustments of questions and topics for the future interviews. It is desirable to conduct a pilot study before the phase of the data collection. This allows to clarify if the questions are understandable and provided the interviewer with the experience to use the outline of questions giving a greater sense of self-confidence (Bryman, 2012, p. 263).
3.43. Data Analysis Table.
The data analysis table, or “code-book”, is a table developed to group important interview’s answers collected in the interviews. The analysis table, in the researcher’s experience, is developed in the following method: the collected data will be carefully read and analyzed, common topics will be found from interview to interview, each topic will be given a “code”, i.e. a phrase describing them, e.g.: “Brexit and trading metals”, when the interviewees refer to the effects they see Brexit can have on a company that trades with metals. At the end, a table with different topics and codes will be created and will contain the information of all the interviews. According to Creswell, Maxwell, & Stringer (2009), the traditional approach in social sciences is to allow the codes to emerge during the data analysis (p. 220). This is the intended the method for this project.
3.5. Data Analysis
This section introduces the analytical methods intended to obtain the results of this study. Firstly, the analysis of the qualitative interviews will be introduced; secondly, the evaluation process of the data analysis will be explained.
The data collected from the qualitative interviews will be interpreted applying a data analysis table. Before, during and after using this instrument the following steps based on Creswell et al., (2009) will be performed: first, the data from interviews will be organized and prepared for analysis, this will involve transcribing the interviews and adding personal notes and observations to the transcribed document. Second, all the data will be read through with the aim to obtain a general sense of the information collected and reflect on its meaning. Reflect on the general ideas the interviewees provide and the impression of the overall depth should be obtained, the credibility of what will be said and how this information can be used. An option is to take own personal notes on these reflections, which could be used to the improvement of the theoretical background. Third, the detailed analysis of the transcriptions will begin, as it was previously mentioned, coding is important when analyzing qualitative data. Coding refers to the process of organizing the material into segments of text before bringing meaning to the information. This means taking text data gathered during the data collection, segmenting sentences or paragraphs into categories and labeling each category with a term. Fourth, the coding process will be used to create a description of the categories or themes for analysis. The description means a detailed interpretation of the information that will be given by the participants. Then the generated coding provides a small number of categories for a research study. To sum up, a qualitative research can be adapted for various of designs and gives enough flexibility to convey personal, research based and action meanings (p.p. 185-190).
3.6. Quality Criteria
In this section data quality issues regarding semi-structured interviews case study are considered. The overall goal is to ensure quality in this project. It is very important that the preparation for and to conducting the interviews is guided by the need to avoid these issues (Saunders et al., 2012, p. 380). Data quality, issues in qualitative research are associated with reliability, which refers to whether the results of the study are repeatable (Bryman, 2012, p. 46), i.e. if other researcher would get the same results if doing this research. In order to avoid this, the procedures are to be properly documented (Creswell et al., 2009, p. 190), which will be done in the methodological part of the project. According to (Bryman, 2012) other issue of quality in qualitative data collection is validity, this is concerned with the integrity of the conclusions generated for a piece of research (p.47). (Creswell et al., 2009, p. 190) argue on the other hand that validity is one of the strengths in qualitative research and it is based in deciding if the findings are accurate from the standpoint of the researcher, participants or the readers, these authors propose a set of strategies to ensure validity (p. 190).
3.7. Limitations
Every research project has limitations. With this sub-chapter, the author of this project has analyzed possible scenarios and aims to foresee the limitations that might arise in this project in order to plan for corrective measures. The first limitation this project imposes is the time limitation, therefore schedule to accomplish the objectives is tight. Keeping the rhythm of work according to the planned schedule as shown in Appendix A is important. Second, the topic of Brexit is continuously producing new primary and secondary literature to be reviewed. Perhaps the pace at which material is originated is faster than the one the researcher might be able to process given the limitations of time and the intention to keep the research inside of a well-defined scope. Third, in a research that involves a qualitative methodology finding interview partners is key and these might not be always available for interviews or might not want to participate. In some topics, that involve secrecy and strategies, potential interview partners might not be opened for answering certain questions or might not want to be recorded at all. In this case, notes shall be taken and full transcription of interview will be discarded. This issue represents a big obstacle in a case study. Nevertheless, in this particular situation the author has access to operations and daily work of the company being studied in order to cope with questions that might be left unanswered or should not be asked. The answers will be sought through observation. This is one of the advantages offered by case studies. To sum up, the topic being studied is very interesting but sometimes trying to get detailed explanations from some interviewees, due to their cultures, personalities and the sensitiveness of the topic being treated, might represent an obstacle to obtain the interview and or rich and deep answers.
4. Table of Contents of the Final Report
Management Summary
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Literature Review Subject to changes and additions in the subchapters
2.1. Brexit Explore the background of Brexit and follow the latest developments in the negotiations with the UK, specially the issues that are relevant for this case study
2.2. Risk Management Review of relevant risk management topics that are pertinent to this project
2.3. Strategic Management relocation is a strategy move, therefore some literature in strategy issues is contemplated. Nevertheless, this sub-chapter could not be written and replaced with a different one
2.4. Switzerland as Place for Relocation study the advantages and disadvantages that Switzerland provides for the disembarkment of a foreign owned and managed company
3. Methodological Approach This chapter will be adapted to what was done at the end of the project
3.1. Literature Review
3.2. Research Design
3.3. Sampling Strategy
3.4. Research Instruments
3.5. Data Analysis
3.6. Quality Criteria
3.7. Limitations
4. Results
5. Discussion
6. Recommendations
7. Bibliography
Appendixes
Declaration of Sole Authorship
5. Bibliography
Barnier, M. (2018, January 3). Speech by Michel Barnier at BusinessEurope Day 2018. European Commission. Retrieved from http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-18-1462_en.htm
Brakman, S., Garretsen, H., & Kohl, T. (2017). Consequences of Brexit and options for a ‘Global Britain.’ Papers in Regional Science, 97(1), 55–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/pirs.12343
Bryman, A. (2012). Social Research Methods. OUP Oxford.
Cooper, D., & Schindler, P. (2013). Business Research Methods: 12th Edition. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Creswell, J. W., Maxwell, J. A., & Stringer, E. T. (2009). Qualitative Research Design. Sage Publications.
Crouhy, M., Galai, D., & Mark, R. (2013). The Essentials of Risk Management, Second Edition. McGraw Hill Professional.
Davies, M., & Hughes, N. (2014). Doing a successful research project: using qualitative or quantitative methods (Second Edition). Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Deloitte UK. (2018). Contingency Planning for Brexit | Deloitte Ireland | Global Markets. Retrieved April 27, 2018, from https://www2.deloitte.com/ie/en/pages/globalmarkets/articles/contingency-planning-for-brexit-.html
Glencross, A. (2016). Why the UK Voted for Brexit: David Cameron’s Great Miscalculation. Springer.
Hart, C. (2001). Doing a Literature Search: A Comprehensive Guide for the Social Sciences. London: SAGE.
King, J. R. (1993). Contingency plans and business recovery: Details overlooked in contingency plans. Information Systems Management; Abingdon, 10(4), 56.
Miller, V. (2015). The 1974-75 UK Renegotiation of EEC Membership and Referendum, 28.
OECD. (2017, October). OECD Economic Surveys United Kingdom.
Rejda, G. E., & McNamara, M. J. (2014). Principles of Risk Management and Insurance. Pearson.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2009). Research Methods for Business Students. Pearson Education.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2012). Research Methods for Business Students (6th edition). Pearson Education.
Silverman, D. (2013). Doing qualitative research (Fourth edition). London ; Thousand Oaks, California ; New Delhi ; Singapore: SAGE Publications Ltd.