Describes how Royal Mail recognized the need to embark on a totalquality programme to improve the service given and to upgrade customerperception of Royal Mail. Shows how Royal…
Abstract
Describes how Royal Mail recognized the need to embark on a total quality programme to improve the service given and to upgrade customer perception of Royal Mail. Shows how Royal Mail set about developing a “Customer First” strategy, initiating training and instigating a continuous improvement ethic. The programme involved all levels of staff from the managing director through to front‐line employees and established a quality support network in the process. A total of 120,000 people took part at various Royal Mail sites throughout the UK. Gives details of workshop content, the training programme itself and describes how pilot activity was measured and improvements carried out. Concludes that the strategy has been implemented successfully with positive results for the period 1988 to date.
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Colin C. Williams, Sara Nadin and Peter Rodgers
Since the turn of the millennium, a small corpus of post‐structuralist thought has emerged that challenges the dominant belief that capitalism is now hegemonic and that all…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the turn of the millennium, a small corpus of post‐structuralist thought has emerged that challenges the dominant belief that capitalism is now hegemonic and that all economic formations are contrasting varieties of capitalism. This paper seeks to contribute to the development of this emergent perspective. The aim is to challenge the notion that the Ukrainian economy can be represented as some variety of capitalism by highlighting the shallow permeation of capitalist practices into daily life and the continuing prevalence of multifarious non‐capitalist economic practices.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve this, evidence is here reported from a 2005‐6 survey that analysed the extent to which 600 households in Ukraine used capitalist and non‐capitalist economic practices in their coping tactics.
Findings
This reveals not only the limited use of capitalist practices in the everyday coping tactics of households in Ukraine but also how an array of non‐capitalist economic practices remain heavily relied on by a majority of households to secure their livelihood. The outcome is a call to tentatively reject the “varieties of capitalism” system of meaning because of what it excludes, prohibits and denies, and to open up the future of post‐Soviet Ukraine to other possible trajectories than simply some variety of capitalism.
Research limitations/implications
This snapshot survey of the everyday coping practices of households displays only that capitalist practices are not hegemonic and that multifarious economic relations persist and are widespread. It does not show whether or not there is movement towards greater reliance on capitalist practices.
Originality/value
It begins through the presentation of evidence on Ukraine to tentatively challenge the application of a “varieties of capitalism” perspective towards Central and Eastern European economies.
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The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the nature of undeclared work in South East Europe and the rest of the European Union and in doing so, to evaluate critically…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the nature of undeclared work in South East Europe and the rest of the European Union and in doing so, to evaluate critically the validity of depicting the character of undeclared work as being the same everywhere.
Design/methodology/approach
A 2007 survey of undeclared work is reported, conducted in 27 European Union (EU) member states involving 26,659 face‐to‐face interviews. This paper focuses on the results of the 2,432 interviews conducted in five South East European countries, namely Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Slovenia.
Findings
In South Eastern Europe, more undeclared work is found to be waged employment and conducted by marginalised population groups out of necessity compared with other EU regions. Nevertheless, and similar to other EU regions, most undeclared work is conducted on an own‐account basis, rather than as waged employment, for close social relations, rather than anonymous employers, and out of choice rather than necessity, although different mixtures prevail in different places and populations both within South Eastern Europe and across the EU as a whole.
Research limitations/implications
This recognition of the multifarious work relations and motives involved in undeclared work, and different mixtures in varying populations, displays the need to move beyond treating undeclared work as everywhere the same and towards nuanced spatially sensitive representations.
Practical implications
Given the proportion of undeclared work conducted on an own‐account basis and for closer social relations, this paper reveals that if South East European governments continue to seek its eradication, they will deter with one hand precisely the entrepreneurship and mutual aid that with another they are seeking to nurture.
Originality/value
This is the first evaluation of undeclared work in South East Europe and the EU.
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Consideration of the fast‐growing number of food hygiene prosecutions up and down the country, almost all of them of a most serious nature, shows that it is the food preparing…
Abstract
Consideration of the fast‐growing number of food hygiene prosecutions up and down the country, almost all of them of a most serious nature, shows that it is the food preparing room, the kitchen, which is indeed the hub of the matter. Most of the charges result from its condition and the practices carried on within its walls, all‐too‐often enclosing a cramped space, ill‐equipped and difficult to keep clean. Its state in many prosecutions clearly contrasts badly with the soft lights and alluring elegance of the dining rooms in hotels and catering establishments. Yet, who would say that the kitchen is not the most important room in the home, in the hotel and every food‐preparing place? It has been so from time immemorial. House design has suffered severely with the need to cut building costs and the kitchen has suffered most; in small houses, it seems little more than a cupboard, a box‐room, an alcove. Is it surprising, then, that age‐old kitchen arts have degenerated? In the farmhouse, the country homes of the affluent, the “downstairs” of the town house, the kitchen was among the largest rooms in the house, as befitted all the activity that went on there. In the USA, the modern, comfortable home even of relatively humble folk the kitchen is phenomenally large; room for everything and everyone.
Pierre‐Yves Guay et Sylvain Lefebvre
International tourism is steadily growing. Some people welcome this growth which supports economic and social development. Others are suspicious and afraid of the threat which…
Abstract
International tourism is steadily growing. Some people welcome this growth which supports economic and social development. Others are suspicious and afraid of the threat which tourism could create for the tourist destinations, the loss of cultural identity and of social alienation to its society. Reality is more complex than these two contrary positions suggest. After analyzing the existent attempts to explain the social effects of tourism, this paper intends to illustrate the variability of these effects. In this regard, the globalisation of human activities and its consequences on cultural identity are taken into account.
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This conference, in the series being run by the National Physical Laboratory to help the electronics assembly industry consider the problems of CFC phase‐out, was essentially an…
Abstract
This conference, in the series being run by the National Physical Laboratory to help the electronics assembly industry consider the problems of CFC phase‐out, was essentially an updated repeat of the event held on 30 April, which had been a complete, standing‐room‐only sell‐out. Surprisingly, this repeat performance also attracted a full house and the format used has proved to be the most popular of all the NPL non‐CFC options conferences.
Looking back over five years at Taylor Woodrow, the importance of public relations and an appreciation of its value throughout the business has steadily grown.
Since its early conception, the group has grown from a handful of enthusiastic engineers to the largest trade association in Europe, if not the world, for Surface Mount. As in…
Abstract
Since its early conception, the group has grown from a handful of enthusiastic engineers to the largest trade association in Europe, if not the world, for Surface Mount. As in previous years, SMART will be arranging Seminars, Hands‐on Workshops and Open Forums, giving valuable knowledge for those just entering or those already experienced in SMT. Open forums allow the opportunity for the exchange of information on a variety of different topics, building experience in the technology which would otherwise be unobtainable.