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Unwarranted squeaks and rattles in delivered products may be perceived by the customer as an indication of poor quality. Moreover, they may be indicative of component or assembly faults leading to reduced life or unreliable operation.

The task of this paper is to examine the changes taking place in the skill‐employment mix of 13 industry sub‐groups within the British engineering industry and to propose a suitable projection technique for manpower forecasting.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how entrepreneurs demand for external finance changed as the economy continued to be mired in its third and fourth years of the global financial crisis (GFC) and whether or not external finance has become more difficult to access as the recession progressed.

Using a large-scale survey data on over 30,000 UK small- and medium-sized enterprises between July 2011 and March 2013, the authors estimate a series of conditional probit models to empirically test the determinants of the supply of, and demand for external finance.

Older firms and those with a higher risk rating, and a record of financial delinquency, were more likely to have a demand for external finance. The opposite was true for women-led businesses and firms with positive profits. In general finance was more readily available to older firms post-GFC, but banks were very unwilling to advance money to firms with a high-risk rating or a record of any financial delinquency. It is estimated that a maximum of 42,000 smaller firms were denied credit, which was significantly lower than the peak of 119,000 during the financial crisis.

This paper provides timely evidence that adds to the general understanding of what really happens in the market for small business financing three to five years into an economic downturn and in the early post-GFC period, from both a demand and supply perspective. This will enable the authors to consider what the potential impacts of credit rationing on the small business sector are and also identify areas where government action might be appropriate.

Under this heading arc published regularly abstracts of all Reports and Memoranda of the Aeronautical Research Council, Reports and Technical Memoranda of the United States National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and publications of other similar Research Bodies as issued

One of the tenets of the conventional wisdom of the strategic management literature is that if a business succeeds in increasing its market‐share it will usually enjoy an improvement in its profitability. It is not simply that it serves as one of a battery of measures of relative performance, nor that, ceteris paribus, increases in the volume of sales must be linked to increases in the total amount of profits earned, but that increases in market share will directly cause increases in profitability, that is profits deflated to take into account the level of output. As might be expected, the strength of feeling that is displayed about the virtues of market‐share as a strategic tool varies enormously among opinion leaders. Those from the influential Boston Consulting Group (1970) are almost messianic in their exhortations to businesses to aim single mindedly for increased market‐share in order to move down their experience curves. Others, most notably from the Strategic Planning Institute, through its Profit Impact of Market Strategies Programme (PIMS), e.g. Schloeffer, et al., (1974), Buzzell, et al., (1975) and Gale (1972), imply the importance of market‐share by the emphasis they place upon its influence in their reporting of the results of regressing return‐on‐investment in a model which contains over thirty other variables.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role that the nation‐state plays in influencing the behaviour of the transnational companies (TNCs) and how it affects one's view of TNCs as efficiency‐ versus strategy‐driven institutions.

The paper starts with a brief historical analysis of the main theories of international production and the TNCs, to which it then relates the role of the nation‐state and of strategic approaches.

The characteristics of the nation‐states that affect the behaviour of TNCs are linked to their regulatory regimes regarding fiscal, currency and social security regulations. These create opportunities for advantages of operating across frontiers and thus for specific strategic behaviour towards labour and governments.

The theoretical approach presented will need to be supported by empirical findings.

There are policy implications specifically related to the fact that multinationality per se gives advantages and that actors other than the TNCs may have to move towards achieving a multinational organization.

The paper questions the international character of most current theories of the TNC, arguing about the necessity to put the nation‐states with their different characteristics at the heart of the explanations of TNCs' activities and suggests a strategic rather than efficiency approach to theories of the TNC.

The food standards of the Indiana State Board of Health, which appear on another page, show that it is quite possible to lay down official definitions of various articles of food; and a study of these regulations may be of assistance to those authorities who are striving to arrive at some form of order out of the chaos which at present exists in this country in matters relating to food standards. With reference to milk, it will be seen that not only is the question of composition dealt with, but strict directions are given that milk derived from a cow which can in any way be considered as diseased is regarded as impure, and must therefore, says the Board, be considered as adulterated. In regard to butter and margarine, limits are given for the total amount of fat—which must consist entirely of milk‐fat in the case of the former substance—water, and salt; and not only are all preservatives forbidden, but the colouring matters are restricted, only certain vegetable colouring matters and some few coal‐tar colours being permitted. All cheese containing less than 10 per cent, of fat derived from milk must be plainly labelled as “ skim‐milk cheese”; and if it contains fat other than milk‐fat, it must be described as “ filled cheese.” Some exception is taken to the use of preservatives in cheese, inasmuch as it appears that cheese may contain a preservative if the name of such preservative is duly notified upon the label ; and the rules for the colouring of cheese are the same as those which apply to butter and margarine. All articles of food containing preservatives are considered as adulterated unless the package bears a label, printed in plain type and quite visible to the purchaser, stating that a preservative is present, and also giving the name of the preservative which has been used. Articles of confectionery must not contain any ingredient deleterious to health, such as terra alba, barytes, talc, or other mineral substance, nor may they contain poisonous colours or flavours.

Under this heading are published regularly abstracts of all Reports and Memoranda of the Aeronautical Research Council, Reports and Technical Memoranda of the United States National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and publications of other similar Research Bodies as issued.

A pæan of joy and triumph which speaks for itself, and which is a very true indication of how the question of poisonous adulteration is viewed by certain sections of “the trade,” and by certain of the smaller and irresponsible trade organs, has appeared in print. It would seem that the thanks of “the trade” are due to the defendants in the case heard at the Liverpool Police Court for having obtained an official acknowledgment that the use of salicylic acid and of other preservatives, even in large amounts, in wines and suchlike articles, is not only allowable, but is really necessary for the proper keeping of the product. It must have been a charming change in the general proceedings at the Liverpool Court to listen to a “preservatives” case conducted before a magistrate who evidently realises that manufacturers, in these days, in order to make a “decent” profit, have to use the cheapest materials they can buy, and cannot afford to pick and choose; and that they have therefore “been compelled” to put preservatives into their articles so as to prevent their going bad. He was evidently not to be misled by the usual statement that such substances should not be used because they are injurious to health— as though that could be thought to have anything to do with the much more important fact that the public “really want” to have an article supplied to them which is cheap, and yet keeps well. Besides, many doctors and professors were brought forward to prove that they had never known a case of fatal poisoning due to the use of salicylic acid as a preservative. Unfortunately, it is only the big firms that can manage to bring forward such admirable and learned witnesses, and the smaller firms have to suffer persecution by faddists and others who attempt to obtain the public notice by pretending to be solicitous about the public health. Altogether the prosecution did not have a pleasant time, for the magistrate showed his appreciation of the evidence of one of the witnesses by humorously rallying him about his experiments with kittens, as though any‐one could presume to judge from experiments on brute beasts what would be the effect on human beings—the “lords of creation.” Everyone reading the evidence will be struck by the fact that the defendant stated that he had once tried to brew without preservatives, but with the only result that the entire lot “went bad.” All manufacturers of his own type will sympathise with him, since, of course, there is no practicable way of getting over this trouble except by the use of preservatives; although the above‐mentioned faddists are so unkind as to state that if everything is clean the article will keep. But this must surely be sheer theory, for it cannot be supposed that there can be any manufacturer of this class of article who would be foolish enough to think he could run his business at a profit, and yet go to all the expense of having the returned empties washed out before refilling, and of paying the heavy price asked for the best crude materials, when he has to compete with rival firms, who can use practically anything, and yet turn out an article equal in every way from a selling point of view, and one that will keep sufficiently, by the simple (and cheap) expedient of throwing theory on one side, and by pinning their faith to a preservative which has now received the approval of a magistrate. Manufacturers who use preservatives, whether they are makers of wines or are dairymen, and all similar tradesmen, should join together to protect their interests, for, as they must all admit, “the welfare of the trade” is the chief thing they have to consider, and any other interest must come second, if it is to come in at all. Now is the time for action, for the Commission appointed to inquire into the use of preservatives in foods has not yet given its decision, and there is still time for a properly‐conducted campaign, backed up by those “influential members of the trade” of whom we hear so much, and aided by such far‐reaching and brilliant magisterial decisions, to force these opinions prominently forward, in spite of the prejudice of the public; and to insure to the trades interested the unfettered use of preservatives,—which save “the trade” hundreds of thousands of pounds every year, by enabling the manufacturers to dispense with heavily‐priced apparatus, with extra workmen and with the use of expensive materials,—and which are urgently asked for by the public,—since we all prefer to have our foods drugged than to have them pure.