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This paper examines the validity standards applied to paper and pencil questionnaires by four social science roles: academic researchers, expert consultants, teachers, and organization development (OD) process consultants. These roles, influenced by their key stakeholders (e.g., clients, reviewers, students), employ different validity standards and socialize firm beliefs about these standards. The resulting divergence of attitudes toward measurement inhibits learning from other roles and slows social science advancement. This paper examines the assumption that each role must apply the same validity standards.

The discipline of Operational Research (OR) has always been important in the management field. It has a problem‐ solving/decision‐support focus; it guides the development of many management disciplines, such as management accounting, logistics management, and information systems design, to name a few. It is, in brief, a vital subject for guiding management practices and management development. Because of that, it can appear disturbing to note that contemporary OR has been facing a number of challenges and is obsessed with a number of theoretical/methodological concerns. Two recent examples illustrate this situation:

Observes that the provision of intelligent control is seen as the logical extension of existing seat‐belt and airbag systems for passenger vehicles to optimize secondary safety performance. Demonstrates the need for discrete information about the driver/passenger in the vehicle in order to provide optimal control of seat‐belt pre‐tensioning; seat‐belt reel‐out (post‐crash pulse); and air bag inflation timing and/or rate. Finds, from system modelling and statistical crash data, that such information as occupant mass and position with respect to vehicle interior and steering wheel are important parameters in the optimal control of the above integrated systems. Justifies these needs and shows that the design of a Smart Seat provides the necessary data. Explains that the design incorporates sensor systems, using a Mechatronic integrated approach.

Well‐founded complaint has recently been made concerning the characters of the various forms of “candy,” or, as we should term them, “sweets,” that are manufactured in great quantities in the United States.

The paper aims to understand how state and non-state domestic terrorism impacts MNEs in foreign markets. Despite the burgeoning literature on terrorism within international business (IB), most research has focused on international terrorism, or terrorism generally. Consequently, there has been limited research examining how domestic or local based terrorism impacts foreign firms.

This is a conceptual paper.

Domestic terrorism is the most common form of terrorism in the world today and involves the state and non-state actors. Non-state domestic terrorism can be low intensity or high intensity. High intensity non-state-domestic terrorism typically involves regular and protracted political violence, along with inter-communal violence. This can expose MNEs to considerable operational, governance and legitimacy pressures.

The paper contributes to the gap in IB terrorism research with regards domestic or local based terrorism. Drawing on IB theory and critical terrorism research, the paper addresses the nature and impact of domestic terrorism within IB. The authors’ paper shows the operational, governance and legitimacy pressures of both state and non-state domestic terrorism for MNEs in host markets. While most IB scholars consider the threat of non-state terrorism for international firms, this study shows how domestic state terrorism benefits and constrains foreign firms.

In the Annual Report of the General Purposes Committee of the Middlesex County Council for the year ending March 31, 1909, it is stated that inquiries were made as to the action taken under the Dairies, Cowsheds, and Milkshops Orders of 1885 and 1899 by the thirty‐six district councils in the county, the object of such action being the detection of cows suffering from tuberculosis of the udder. It might be thought that by this time the necessity for putting these orders into force had been thoroughly proved. The Royal Commission on Tuberculosis made a definite statement to the effect that milk derived from tuberculous cattle is one of the principal causes of tubercular disease in the human subject, and, apparently there seems to be some disposition on the part of local authorities to make tuberculosis notifiable. The Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations, 1908, which came into force at the beginning of 1909, require that all cases of pulmonary tuberculosis are to be notified to the sanitary authority if the patients are receiving treatment from the Poor Law medical officers. Large sums are spent every year throughout the country on the upkeep of sanatoria with the object of curing cases of tubercle, if possible, but, in any case, of alleviating the sufferings of those afflicted with tuberculosis. On all sides, in fact, it is now recognised that the most energetic measures are necessary in order to combat this terrible disease. It appears from the figures given in the Report referred to that in twenty‐three out of the thirty‐six districts. “No veterinary examinations of cows were made on behalf of the local authorities!” The statement is not made the subject of comment, but we hardly think that the county authorities can regard the results of their enquiry as satisfactory. The Report was apparently presented to the County Council on July 22 last, so that up to that time, at least, it would seem that these twenty‐three districts, in a county with about one million inhabitants, are governed, so far as sanitary matters go, by people who consider themselves qualified to hold opinions diametrically opposed to those held by experts and based on the best scientific evidence at present available.

The problems of pattern cutting as applied to flexible elastic mesh fabrics (lace) are described within the context of the total manufacturing process. While the design and knitting stages of lace manufacture are highly computerised, providing associated benefits, the cutting room operates with conventional, slow, labour intensive machinery, leading to substantial processing bottlenecks and dependent costs. A new system is presented which uses machine vision to determine the required cutting path on the lace fabric in real‐time via sophisticated, yet high speed, image processing algorithms. The determined cutting path data are used to direct a high speed CO₂ laser beam to the correct cutting point with beam velocities of typically 6 m/sec. Simultaneous dual edge cutting is now possible using this new system, leading to lace throughput being increased by a factor of ten typically, with the possibility of processing more sophisticated designs and achieving higher cut edge quality.

The purpose of the study is to examine the role of legitimacy in forming whistleblowing behavior in Ugandan procuring and disposing entities (PDEs).

This study has adopted both a quantitative and qualitative cross-sectional research design to collect data from a sample of 97 out of the population of 129 PDEs in Kampala, which are regulated by the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority.

This paper finds that improvement in the perception of public servants about the appropriateness of the Whistleblowers Act and its enforcers can increase on the reporting of unethical practices in public procurement.

This study has used a cross-sectional survey data. The causal relationships between variables are possibly obscured; as data from all participants are collected at the same point of time, perceptions go on changing over time. Therefore, further studies should use a longitudinal approach. Second, there are no constructs for legitimacy in public procurement and those from law are domesticated.

There should be a promotion of legitimacy of the Whistleblowers Act and the enforcement agencies of the Act. The government should devise means for the public servants to have an obligation to obey the holders of authority, to trust and have confidence in them and to enforce the Whistleblowers Act in an ethical and normative framework.

This study reveals the whistleblowing intentions and behavior of public servants in PDEs. This study would help the Government of Uganda to make the Whistleblowing Act legitimate and its enforcers to increase on the reporting of unethical practices in public procurement.

In the garment industry, web lace fabric material must be tensioned and placed at the right position and orientation prior to the cutting process. In order to avoid a bottleneck, the speed of material handling must be relatively fast compared to the laser cutting speed so that the use of a laser for rapid prototyping of two‐dimensional (2D) cutting shapes is feasible. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a novel gripping system for handling flexible web materials.

The manner in which this intelligent material handling system operates will be discussed in this paper. This includes its system configuration, errors that may occur during the web handling operation, and sequential operations of web distortion control. The material handling system uses a machine vision system coupled with a self‐tuning motion control strategy to assist the material handling system in controlling the web tension, adjusting the web deformation parameters and transporting the web materials.

The online image analysis and a novel mechanical design concept, coupled with the motion controller, are the key issues in the mechatronic integration of this intelligent web‐based material handling system.

The paper presents a novel approach to designing and realizing an intelligent gripping system, which has not previously been attempted.