Dr Jillian MacBryde talks about her research in Operations Management. Her recent research has focused on manufacturing companies and a European-funded Project 'Future SME'. She has examined the challenges manufacturers in higher cost economies face when competing against lower cost economies and how they do this through, for example, innovation and quality. Asked to investigate this in relation to Scotland, she travelled to outlying parts of the country where her interest in innovation in peripheral areas was sparked. This led to a scoping study, funded by ESRC, to look into innovation linked to peripherality.