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As a result of the changes caused by the preparation of foods gradually passing out of the home into the hands of manufacturers, there has arisen an absolute need for a complete supervision of the public food supplies. A supervision which shall place some limit upon the substitution of cheaper and inferior methods and dangerous materials in place of the standard formerly used in our homes.

The resources department of the Leicester City Council (LCC) has introduced a wide range of initiatives to achieve quality management with the aim to deliver quality services to customers. Research has shown an improvement in quality management and a commitment to further improvement. Notable improvements include a change to the organizational culture, the application of continuous improvement and the development of a quality assurance programme which can be extended to include ISO 9000. Argues that the commitment to further improvement needs to be considered in terms of a more formal approach to TQM. Suggests that an established integrated approach called the TQMEX model is particularly appropriate for consideration. The output of the research is a TQM strategic plan based on the status quo of LCC, the theoretical background of the TQMEX model and the experience of the author in total quality practices.

The resources department has introduced a wide range of initiatives to achieve quality management with the aim of delivering quality services to customers. Research has shown an improvement in quality management and a commitment to further improvement. Notable improvements include a change to the organizational culture, the application of continuous improvement and the development of a quality assurance programme which can be extended to include ISO 9000. The commitment to further improvement needs to be considered in terms of a more formal approach to total quality management (TQM). An established integrated approach called the TQMEX model is particularly appropriate for consideration. The output of the research is a TQM strategic plan based on the status quo of Leicester City Council, the theoretical background of the TQMEX model, and the experience of the author in total quality practices and from his attendance at the 1st International Conference on ISO 9000 and Total Quality Management (1st ICIT) in April 1996.

The relationships among organisational culture, business environment, business strategy and functional strategies are rarely investigated in a holistic perspective. This leads to reductionism in modelling and prevents the full exploration of the potentially complex relationships among cultural orientation, business strategy and functional strategies and their impact on organisational performance. This paper, based on a sample drawn from food manufacturing businesses in Zimbabwe, recognises the pervasive impact of organisational culture on organisational strategy and functional strategies. As a result, it acknowledges the multi‐level impact of cultural orientation – allowing for the building of a conceptual model, linking cultural orientation, business environment, organisational strategy, functional strategies and performance – which is subsequently empirically tested.

A project was devised to develop a number of user interfaces to an experimental online public access catalogue which could then be evaluated in a series of user tests. BRS/Search commercial software, mounted on a large 16‐bit microcomputer, was used to create the interfaces; this saved time and effort in producing the software. The database was small, consisting of only a few thousand records obtained from the education section of a real library catalogue. Particular attention was paid to the average person's understanding of Boolean logic and terms when searching an online catalogue. It is hoped to investigate the design and format of browse screens in online catalogues. The software and hardware used in this project are described at some length. The problems and advantages of using commercial software for this research are discussed.

Despite failure rates of around 30 per cent, international joint ventures (IJVs) continue to grow. It is argued that IJVs provide a platform for organisational learning, which facilitates organisational performance. Intuitively, IJVs that are learning oriented should have a positive impact upon organisational performance. However, it is unclear as to whether a firm in an IJV should focus more on being learning oriented, or market oriented. The paper aims to address this question.

A survey of 168 senior managers involved in IJVs in Malaysia. Data were analysed using two‐stage least squares estimators for latent variable models.

Results suggest that for IJVs, a market orientation has a more positive impact on organisational performance than a learning orientation. The non‐linear relationship between market orientation and performance suggest that larger gains in performance are achieved by firms who have low initial levels of market orientation. Thus, in the absence of one or the other, it is preferable for a firm in an IJV to have a strong market orientation.

For managers of IJVs, the study would suggest that firms should concentrate on improving their organisations' overall level of market orientation if they are to improve the level of business performance.

This paper is the first to examine the relative effects of a market orientation and a learning orientation in the context of IJVs.

Although trafficking of persons for commercial sex has been increasingly recognized as a community level problem most estimates of the prevalence of sex trafficking in the USA are made by federal entities and vary depending on the data sources used. Little is known about how local police agencies assess and understand sex trafficking in their own communities. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

To help fill this gap, the current study using survey data from a sample of local police agencies across the USA (n=72) examines law enforcement agencies’ knowledge of and experience with addressing local sex trafficking problems in their jurisdiction.

The majority of police agencies reported that sex trafficking is a problem in their jurisdictions and that they have a special unit that has a primary responsibility for addressing sex trafficking issues. Agencies with a special unit tend to use multiple sources of information including official record, intelligence data and personal experience to estimate the community’s trafficking problems when compared to agencies without a unit; however, most of agencies primarily depend on their professional experience.

This is the first study to examine the data sources used by local police agencies to estimate the scope and nature of their community’s sex trafficking problem, and the findings have important policy implications for understanding the reliability and validity of these estimates, and for their potential use to develop and implement data driven responses to sex trafficking problems.

Builds on work in organisational buying. Examines the relationship between power bases and influence strategies in an organisational buying situation, specifically, the decision to purchase the services of an advertising agency. Hypothesises the influence strategies of consultation, coalition, legitimating pressure, exchange, rational persuasion, inspirational appeals and personal appeals, related to source characteristics (power bases). Findings from 150 organisational buying decisions support findings from a recent study in the USA. Suggests that the use of an influence strategy is positively related to the corresponding type of power.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perception of skills shortages, namely, skills scarcity and skills deficiencies among managers, and its relationship with organizational characteristics.

The study used a quantitative approach and data were collected from 243 managers working in China. Multivariate analysis of variance and box plots were employed for data analysis.

The results revealed that organizational characteristics were found to have a significant positive impact on managers’ skill levels, and hard-to-fill vacancies caused by skills shortages were found in all types of organizations. Existing and deficient skills were also identified as affecting all organizations.

The results suggest that organizations would benefit from the adoption of a system supporting internal retention, training and development and external recruitment to close the skills gaps.

This is an empirical study that provides an insight into the skills shortages from a multi-organizational context. It highlights the effects of organizational characteristics in relation to skills shortages and provides a foundation to support the skills needed in the context of national and global organizations.