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As database techniques are becoming more widely used in publishing and as publishers seek to utilise the growing possibilities of multimedia, there is a growing awareness of the possibilities offered by Standard Generalised Markup language (SGML) as a neutral format for safeguarding content independent of proprietary hardware and software. Pindar is a service company with over ten years' experience in working with different IT projects utilising the standard and its associated tools. Three current case studies, involving technical documentation and reference publishing, demonstrate how and why SGML is becoming useful for document management outside the traditional areas of the aerospace and defence industries, where it was first developed.

The big challenge for communication management is to encourage and enable line managers to improve the quality of their day‐to‐day communication. Communication is a core management competence. In the flat, devolved, team‐based organisation structures, which are fast becoming the norm, good mangement is synonymous with good communication. The role of central communication departments such as Corporate Communication or Internal Communication has to expand to meet this challenge. Traditionally, communication has focused on the production, packaging, targeting and distribution of messages — using skills which are borrowed from journalism and marketing. This skill set needs to be extended so that the centre can facilitate and support the communication of local line managers. As a first step, the centre must make managers around the organisation accept their responsibility for communicating with their staff. Developing an open and communicative style often requires a major shift of behviour for mamnagers. Organisations try to encourage this shift by broadcasting ‘open communication’ as one of their values. Including communication as a key performance indicator in the appraisal process increases managers' accountability for their daily communication with staff. Performance evaluation can be designed to make managers accept that they need to improve their communication. These are new areas for communication managers. What is clear is that unless they find effective ways to address the real issue of line managers' communication, they will miss a huge opportunity and find themselves increasingly relegated to the management side lines.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

In recent years, governments, donors, and NGOs have increasingly embraced value chain development (VCD) for stimulating economic growth and combating rural poverty. In line with the rise in interest, there has been a proliferation of guides for VCD. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a review of 11 guides for value chain along six different dimensions, ranging from objectives and value chain definitions to monitoring impact. The paper concludes with suggestions for the use of guides based on local needs and context, and recommendations for future guide development.

The review compares the concepts and methods endorsed and it assesses the strengths and limitations of the guides for steering development practice.

Overall, the guides provide a useful framework for understanding markets and engaging with chain stakeholders, with a strong emphasis on strengthening institutions and achieving sustainability of interventions. However, the guides often lack discussions on the conditions necessary at different levels for VCD to advance development objectives and achieve that sustainability. The guides are designed to be implemented largely independently of the specific context, in which the chain is situated, despite the major implications context has for the design of interventions and overall success of the chain. Attention to mutual learning, whether related to tool design or the outcomes and impacts of VCD interventions, is limited.

More critical reflection and debate is needed on the design of guides for VCD. The authors suggest three areas for this reflection and debate: concepts, methods, and tools for addressing the needs of the poor in value chains; tools for addressing variations in the context; and mechanisms for mutual learning on the design and implementation of VCD.

The paper concludes with various recommendations for guide authors and donors that support VCD.

Credit is central in labour allocation decisions in smallholder agriculture in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of credit constraints on farm households’ labour allocation decisions in rural Burkina Faso.

The study used a direct elicitation approach of credit constraints and applied a farm household model to categorize households into four labour market participation regimes. A joint estimation of both the multinomial logit model and probit model was applied on survey data from Burkina Faso to assess the effect of credit constraint on the probability of choosing one of the four alternatives.

The results of the probit model showed that households’ endowment of livestock, access to news, and membership to an farmer-based organization were factors lowering the probability of being credit constrained in rural Burkina Faso. The multinomial logit model results showed that credit constraints negatively influenced the likelihood of a farm household to use hired labour in agricultural production and perhaps more importantly it induces farm households to hire out labour off farm. The results also showed that the other components of household characteristics and farm attributes are important factors determining the relative probability of selecting a particular labour market participation regime.

Facilitating access to credit in rural Burkina Faso can encourage farm households to use hired labour in agricultural production and thereby positively impacting farm productivity and relieving unemployment pressures.

In order to identify the effect of credit constraints on farm households’ labour decisions, this study examined farm households’ decisions of hiring on-farm labour, supplying labour off-farm or simultaneously hiring on-farm labour and supplying family labour off-farm under credit constraints using the direct elicitation approach of credit constraints. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine this problem in Burkina Faso.

This study aims to explore how Farming Organisations (FOs) have utilised collective action to overcome the barriers that undermine women farmers’ participation in the agrarian economy in Malawi.

Key informant interviews were conducted with 17 stakeholders from across relevant governmental departments, non-governmental agencies, commercial agricultural organizations and FO officials. Focus groups discussions were conducted with women participants from five FOs.

Analysis identified barriers to women farmer’s full participation in the agricultural sector in three domains: structural (concerning land ownership and control), material (concerning access to agricultural services and markets) and socio-cultural (regarding gender roles and responsibilities). Malawian FOs demonstrated strength in addressing material barriers and in fostering re-alignment of socio-cultural conventions, but have not, to date, effectively engaged in structural issues of land reform.

Research was conducted with a limited number of stakeholders and FOs identified through snowball sampling. There is potential for findings to be non-representative of the country as a whole, and more systematic study of FOs in Malawi is warranted to determine the generalisability of observed trends.

The study draws attention to the crucial importance of action regarding land reform if women are to be more effectively and equitably engaged in the agrarian economy in Malawi.

The paper is an examination of the experience of women farmers in Malawi and speaks to the potential contribution of FOs in addressing the challenges they face.