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The negotiating process is of considerable significance in industrial situations, helping to develop understanding, agreeing terms and conditions of employment, accommodating conflicting interests, resolving conflict situations, developing procedures and structures for jointly dealing with the various types of problems arising in the industrial situation; resulting in an improved working climate, greater productivity, and more effective use of resources.

FIGHTING has indeed ceased in Europe and our gratitude, especially in London and its adjacencies, is profound. It is shared by all, of course. War is by no means over and that and the drearier contentions of politics for a month or two, or it may be for years, are likely to act as a brake on many schemes. It is true a substantial Education Act has been achieved during the war but such peace as we have achieved finds none of the great social schemes, other than this, anywhere but in the realm of talk. Older men may well be cynical and more may be sceptical; so, it becomes those who believe a better world is possible to be aware. Hardly a town or county is without a scheme of development of sorts, ranging from entirely new, and always enlarged, central libraries to extended branch schemes. The cold fact is that only in a few cases, if in any, will any building of libraries be permitted yet. That does not mean that scheming is a vain occupation. Librarians realize as other men do that housing needs will overwhelm building resources for a few years and that schools, which are disastrously inadequate to permit the full implementing of the Act of 1944, and hospitals, will be preferred to us. Librarians, however, must be opportunists, too ; they will lose nothing by readiness to seize chances. Let us take what we can get; if, in the many newly‐planned residential centres, satellite towns, or other communities, no elaborate library accommodation is possible, let us reflect that what really matters are a book service and a centre of information, which do not require elaborate buildings, only good librarianship. Then, when the needs of the area are known, an appropriate building may be provided. And, as Mr. Berwick Sayers has suggested, much more temporary buildings than have been erected in late years should be used ; we have too many “good buildings” which are obsolescent—to say the least. It can be assumed now that readers do not need so much inducement to use public libraries as they did formerly, although some do and it is well to insist that temporary buildings are not necessarily unattractive inside or outside.

This paper attempts to fill the knowledge gap in the area of foreign direct investment (FDI) research in the regions of Caucasus and Central Asia. Various dimensions of FDI were analyzed from a comparative perspective drawing on a number of selected case studies of inward investors in Georgia and Kyrgyz Republic. The results indicated that the FDI activity in Georgia and Kyrgyz Republic was a market‐seeking type focusing heavily on location‐specific attractions of the two countries. Although the issue of corruption affects foreign investors, it does not act as a major deterrent of FDI infl ows. The most serious problem influencing the performance of FDI firms was found to be inefficiency of local labor force, excessive bureaucracy and red tape, and differences inherent in the business practices of host countries. In general, however, it was found that foreign investors have been satisfied with their performance largely due to the relatively smooth competition and the availability of several market niches in both host country markets.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Conceptual advancement underpins the progress of social marketing and countermarketing research but has been neglected in recent years. This paper aims to describe a new integrative framework of social countermarketing (SCM) concepts, techniques and defining characteristics, based on research tracing the conceptual evolution of the field and contrasting commercial (profit-focused) and social (public good-focused) countermarketing.

This paper undertook searches of electronic databases to examine how socially oriented countermarketing has been characterised in the research literature. Search terms included “countermarketing”, “critical marketing”, “de-marketing” and “counter-advertising”. Broad inclusion criteria allowed consideration of reports, conference and media outputs, as well as peer-reviewed articles published since 1971. Selected marketing journals were searched individually.

After screening of 408 initial search results, 80 studies were retained and full papers retrieved. Main ideas, definitions, scope, concepts and terms used were mapped to identify the common and distinguishing features, as well as higher-order organising themes. This led to the development of a new conceptual framework for SCM comprising eight domains.

The integrative conceptual framework offers a foundation for future research and SCM practice.

This paper introduces a framework designed to advance the conceptual basis of SCM research and practice with particular reference to the field of public health and disease prevention.

This paper aims to synthesize the literature on consumer preferences for farm animal welfare (FAW), with an emphasis on characterizing consumers based on their FAW preferences. The objective is to provide insights into the salient characteristics associated with animal welfare conscious consumers.

The authors conduct a systematic review of the results of published research on consumer preferences for FAW. Approximately 350 papers were reviewed, and 52 were included in the analysis.

The authors’ review suggests that consumers are not homogenous in their preferences for FAW. The authors identify seven themes that enabled them to characterize consumers with higher FAW preferences. These themes (i.e. age, education and income, gender, country and cross-cultural differences, attitudes and consumer and citizen functions) are grouped under four main headings (socio-demographics, ethics and attitudes, product characteristics and public roles).

The authors’ synthesis reflects the findings reported in the literature to this date; the identified characteristics may change with time as new evidence becomes available.

The information collected in this article would be useful to farmers and food and non-food retailers interested in effective product differentiation and marketing strategies regarding FAW standards. It can also inform policymakers about the state of consumer concerns for FAW.

To the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to develop a systematic profile of consumers based on their FAW preferences.

Managing non-profit organizations, social enterprises, strategic management for small entities and tourism.

Useful for graduate students enrolled in courses with development aspects. Undergraduate students learning about non-profit organizations can also benefit.

This is a case of a small non-profit organization that is struggling to formalize its operating systems to generate sufficient surplus to plough funds back to the community that it envisioned to serve. The protagonist has to make a decision of whether to invest large sums in a health center for permanent visibility or to implement health services on a smaller scale given its current level of operations. Whether the protagonists’ operations are scaleable or not is also in question, as its main activity – slum tours – is not a widely accepted concept.

1. Students will understand the challenges of starting and growing non-profit organizations. 2. Students will recognize the need to make operations efficient and to establish control systems to manage enterprise resources. 3. Students will realize that decision-making requires the balancing of interests of multiple stakeholders. 4. Students will learn to analyze the options of financing social projects considering marketing, operations and financial data. 5. Students will gain better appreciation of the merits and demerits of slum tourism.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy.

It has become increasingly common for libraries to provide a reference service which operates via e‐mail or through online forms. This paper compares the performance of three digital reference services available on the World Wide Web, namely, AllExperts, Ask a Librarian, and Internet Public Library (a fourth service, Ask Bob, was included initially but eventually excluded). The online digital reference/“expert” services are generally very effective; most provide an answer within three days, and include suggestions for sources of further information. Although the general response rate from all the services was good, library‐based services were found to be more trustworthy since they provided the answers together with the sources.

The purpose of this paper is to frame next‐generation enterprise systems (ES).

The model is based on a retrospective analysis of the evolution of enterprise systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) research and emerging business requirements.

The paper proposes a conceptual framework for extended enterprise resource planning (ERP II). The aim of this model is to compile present ES concepts into a comprehensive outline of ERP II, thus composing a generic map and taxonomy for corporate‐wide enterprise systems.

The paper concludes that the ERP research needs to broaden its perspective in order to accommodate itself to the new issues of next‐generation enterprise systems.

The model is seen as a first step towards a tool to analyse and design complex enterprise systems architecture.

This paper is the first attempt to formalize and capture the ERP II concept and the next‐generation enterprise systems.