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The purpose of this paper is to explore whether variations in factors such as start time, duration of event, and day of presentation might lead to improved attendance at performing arts events in the USA.

The research was conducted using a quantitative strategy. The approach consisted of a survey design that explored preference data for respondents. The data were examined to look for emergent themes in both raw data and cross-tabulations. The data collection also included survey questions for conjoint analysis, a form of regression analysis that compares consumer trade-offs for various levels of different attributes.

The researchers found that while anecdotal evidence regarding performing arts attendance largely holds up, there is room to explore the possibility that modern-day consumers require events of shorter duration, and that the utility of Saturday attendance is so overwhelming that start time preference can be manipulated within the Saturday level of that attribute with minimal effect on overall utility.

The study begins to fill a gap in the literature regarding attendance preference for the performing arts regarding several attributes. The study opens a discussion on how to address declining attendance figures by considering some of the factors that are likely contributing to the decline.

In the 21^st Century, a region 's growth and prosperity will depend upon its intermodal transportation infrastructure and its ability to efficiently move goods, materials, and people within the system whether it be from origin to destination; from supplier to customer through the various levels of the supply-chain; or from point to point within the system. Planning for the future focuses on improving a region 's intermodal transportation system efficiencies and infrastructure, its connection to other economies, and on the development of logistics institutions and facilities.

With China 's rapidly developing economy and society, record numbers of new modern facilities such as airports, ports, highways, logistics parks and warehouses are being built. Along with this, companies have made extensive investments in information technologies and software to support the tremendous growth that has taken place in the logistics industry. The development and improvement of China's historic inland water transport system is essential to their continued future growth and prosperity. In Korea, past and present National Governments have emphasized the importance of developing a North East Asian Logistics and Business Hub in their region and have worked on strategies, which include water transport, as part of an important national agenda to that end.

This article looks at how trade flows in the Yangtze and Yellow Sea Regions and between China and South Korea might be enhanced by application of improved shipping methods in marine commerce that will promote economic growth in the region. The application of logistics practices and use of barges is explored for the movement of containers on inland and coastal waterways as well as in short sea shipping which could greatly facilitate the region 's situation with respect to future economic growth.

In recent years, most Organisation for Economic and Cooperation Development (OECD) countries have brought in important reforms into their public accounting systems with the objective of both improving public service management and increasing the transparency and accountability of governments. Reforms of government accounting share a common direction towards the implementation of accrual-based accounting systems. In this context, this paper presents the situation of local government accounting systems in European countries with the aim of showing the degree of uniformity/ heterogeneity that currently exists among the countries considered and why differences persist nowadays, trying to classify countries into groups according to accounting practice. Results show that three groups of countries can be identified: the first continues using the cash basis; in the second, an accrual or modified accrual basis is used for financial accounting but the cash basis still persists in the budgetary system; in the third, an accrual or modified accrual basis is used both in budget and in financial accounting.

In the Court of Appeal last summer, when Van Den Berghs and Jurgens Limited (belonging to the Unilever giant organization) sought a reversal of the decision of the trial judge that their television advertisements of Stork margarine did not contravene Reg. 9, Margarine Regulations, 1967—an action which their Lordships described as fierce but friendly—there were some piercing criticisms by the Court on the phrasing of the Regulations, which was described as “ridiculous”, “illogical” and as “absurdities”. They also remarked upon the fact that from 1971 to 1975, after the Regulations became operative, and seven years from the date they were made, no complaint from enforcement authorities and officers or the organizations normally consulted during the making of such regulations were made, until the Butter Information Council, protecting the interests of the dairy trade and dairy producers, suggested the long‐standing advertisements of Reg. 9. An example of how the interests of descriptions and uses of the word “butter” infringements of Reg. 9. An example af how the interests of enforcement, consumer protection, &c, are not identical with trade interests, who see in legislation, accepted by the first, as injuring sections of the trade. (There is no evidence that the Butter Information Council was one of the organizations consulted by the MAFF before making the Regulations.) The Independant Broadcasting Authority on receiving the Council's complaint and obtaining legal advice, banned plaintiffs' advertisements and suggested they seek a declaration that the said advertisements did not infringe the Regulations. This they did and were refused such a declaration by the trial judge in the Chancery Division, whereupon they went to the Court of Appeal, and it was here, in the course of a very thorough and searching examination of the question and, in particular, the Margarine Regulations, that His Appellate Lordship made use of the critical phrases we have quoted.

One of the many MSC task groups is currently deliberating on how to provide adequately for the 16–18 year old age group; it looks as though some system of ‘vocational preparation’ is to be rapidly pushed through in time to start in September 1983. There is a great deal of talk about emulating the system in use in West Germany. So what is this system and why is it superior? Mr M E Taylor, of St Anthony's College, Oxford, has researched the matter in great detail and published his findings and views in a new book entitled EDUCATION AND WORK IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY. It will be widely quoted, in the coming months, as an authoritative source. The book is now available from The Anglo‐German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society, St Stephen's House, Victoria Embankment, London SW1A 2LA. The price is £9.50. The ISBN is 0 905492 36 6. It runs to 350 pages and includes a massive bibliography. (Tel: 01–930 8226). There follows now a summary prepared by the author himself.

ELIZABETH, Queen of Roumania between 1881 and her death in 1916, was a writer. For many years she turned out verses and stories purely for her own interest and that of her private circle, but then one day it occurred to her that as what she wrote seemed to go down well with friends and acquaintances, it might reasonably, therefore, be worth publishing. At the same time, though, she did not wish to publish under her own name. What name should she use instead? She wanted it, she said, to be something Latin, as she now belonged to a Latin country, and eventually she fixed upon the combination Carmen Sylva (carmen being the Latin for song, silva for forest), explaining: ‘I began in the woods and found my best songs in roaming through the forests of my home on the Rhine.’ It was certainly one way of choosing a pseudonym.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how performance measurement systems (PMSs) might be designed in order to empower managers of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) towards an active work role.

The study is based on a conceptual approach that combines insights from prior research on performance measurement with that on dimensions of psychological empowerment. An exploratory case study is used to further develop propositions for the design of an empowering PMS. Data from in-depth interviews with six managers of diverse SOEs located within a German city enables the tracing of underlying causal mechanisms.

PMSs that are designed according to the principles of goal clarity, balanced goal difficulty, autonomy-enhancing measurement, and a broad goal scope can positively influence the four dimensions of empowerment: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact.

The study’s propositions can be used to enhance the governance of SOEs through a particular design of PMSs. This research thus responds to the call for a new generation of governance mechanisms within the complex setting of SOEs.

Current research on PMSs is extended through the construct of psychological empowerment. Thus, an existing governance mechanism is further developed towards being more effective for use in the context of SOEs.

When a community of fifty thousand people have all their eggs in two baskets and one is dropped it is a serious matter, not only for the industry concerned but for all who live upon it indirectly. Especially is this so when geographical isolation makes it impossible for the worker to transfer to other employment when his job fails. Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, has experienced the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune on several occasions since liberation from German thraldom revived both hope and opportunity to make up the loss and deprivations of those five weary years. It has not been all plain sailing. In addition to starved soil, depreciated and often ruined buildings, and other drawbacks experienced in common with agriculturalists in other countries, Jersey has had her own problems, chief of which has been the Colorado Beetle. A legacy of German neglect, this pest had established itself so widely on the island that the first crop of potatoes raised after Liberation was not safe to be imported to England, and was therefore sold to France. This was unsatisfactory from a financial point of view, and so the following year the crop was taken up by the Army of Occupation on the Rhine. By the season of 1947 sufficient progress had been made in the elimination of the beetle to allow crops from unaffected areas to enter England, and once again normal trading, in so far as controls of all kinds would permit, was resumed. Jersey is a two‐crop island and potatoes must be succeeded by tomatoes if the highly‐priced land is to be made to pay for itself. So while the first of these crops was just paying its way, the second was expected to clear costs and to make the farmer or grower his profit. When it looked as though this might be possible this season the islanders came up against another, and quite unexpected, snag—too much fine weather. It may sound ungrateful to say this, in view of the many thousands of visitors which the continued sunshine brought to the island, and actually the farmer was glad enough to have the fine dry days in which to get his work done. But it reacted against him by bringing on his fruit too early and all at once, which meant that it arrived upon the market when there were still quantities of Guernsey and English glasshouse tomatoes as well as Dutch and other foreign‐grown available, and Jersey shipments were so heavy that they caused a glut. Where a grower is situated near an industrial or residential area he has the opportunity in such circumstances of disposing of at least part of his fruit as it ripens, by retail or direct sale, even if only to passers‐by. But on an island where three‐quarters of the population is engaged in growing tomatoes or in handling them in some way, everyone is soon sick of the sight of them and it is impossible to give them away if a glut occurs. That happened this summer when on two occasions of several days each it was necessary for the authorities to prohibit picking the fruit. The island crop must be gathered when it is first turning from green to yellow in order to allow it to ripen during the process of grading, packing and transit by sea and rail to the wholesale distributors, and thence via the retailer to the ultimate consumer. Therefore, when the position arose that the distributors could handle no more of the 12 lb. trays and the order went out that no more fruit should be picked there were many thousands of these containers en route between the farmsteads and the ships which awaited them at the quayside. All this fruit became useless within a matter of hours, and the only thing to do with it would have been to drive to a disused quarry or to the seashore and dump the lot, had it not been for the local canning factory. Jersey Canners Ltd. has been in existence from the early days of this century, but were not in a position to handle a great deal of produce until this year, when they were taken under the wing of the National Canning Co. Ltd., with Mr. S. W. Smedley in control. A great deal of this surplus was therefore taken over by this factory and converted into puree and sauce, as well as being canned whole. The development and processing of the fruit in this way is a story of its own, but perhaps the most interesting feature of this factory's work is that of the preparation of tomato juice on a commercial scale. This latter process, as apart from the more usual methods of dealing with the tomatoes, was due to the foresight of Mr. Smedley, who early this year visualised the possibilities of utilising any surplus crop and thus, when the position arose, was able to put upon the market the first tins of pure tomato juice ever to have been produced commercially outside of the U.S.A. To do this it was necessary to install an American pre‐heating vacuum pasteurising machine, but all other necessary mechanical appliances are British. These consist of endless belting, elevator, seamer, rotary cooker and cooler, and labelling machines. On arrival at the factory the fruit is conveyed from the lorries by roller belt to the elevator leading to the rotary washing machines. After thorough cleansing it passes on to a sorting belt, where diseased and immature samples are discarded and the remainder are stemmed by a small staff of women. The fruit is then fed automatically to the chopping machine and after treatment it experiences its first heating in the pasteuriser. This prepares it for the actual juice extraction, which is carried out in a machine which discards the cores, skins and seeds, and pumps the pure juice back into the pre‐heater, where it is pasteurised at a temperature of 180 degrees. After passing through this process the juice flows to the automatic filling machine, which handles 60 cans per minute, and so to the seamer, where the lids are sealed down before the cans pass into the cooker. This is an automatic rotary machine which ejects the cans after 15 minutes at a temperature, of 212 degrees. They are then cooled off for ten minutes in a cold water tank and set aside for labelling. The purely mechanical processes here described appear to make the preparation of tomato juice a simple matter. Actually, however, it is one requiring much investigation into the problems of fermentation, colouring, etc., beforehand, and careful attention to temperatures and timing of the various processes while in operation. Cooking of the juice is effected by steam with the cans in a vacuum, this process conserving the vitamin contents and the natural colouring of the juice, two most important features which would be sacrificed if the liquid was exposed to the light at a high temperature. The plant at present installed at Messrs. Jersey Canners Ltd. is capable of handling up to four tons of fruit per hour and has been turning out about 30,000 cases of assorted 16 oz. and 32 oz. cans per month during the height of the rush period. At that time the factory was working right round the clock with the aid of volunteer workers, many of whom put in time at night after their own day's work, in order to save as much as possible of the crop that would otherwise have been thrown away.