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Speaking about hedge funds, Stephen M. Cutler, Director of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement, stated that “firms that provide… prime brokerage services while recommending that fund to their customers may raise conflict issues as thorny as the hedging strategies these funds employ.” These conflicts have contributed to an increased level of regulatory scrutiny over hedge funds and their relationships with brokers. The purpose of this article is to discuss the regulatory background surrounding the relationship between hedge funds and their prime brokers and capital introduction programs sponsored by prime brokers.

In this chapter, we reexamine the notion that socially responsible behavior by firms will lead to increased financial performance. By identifying the underlying processes, institutional settings, and actors involved, we present a framework that is more attentive to the multiplicity and conditionality of the mechanisms operating in the often tenuous connection between firms’ social behavior and financial performance. Building and expanding upon existing analyses of the CSP–CFP linkage, our model helps to explain the mixed results from a wide range of empirical studies which examine this link. It also provides a novel theoretical account to help guide future researches that are more attentive to conditionalities and contextual contingencies.

Evaluation of any given student's responsiveness to intervention depends not only on how effective the intervention is, but also whether the intervention was delivered as intended as well as in the appropriate format and according to the most useful schedule. These latter elements are referred to as treatment integrity and treatment intensity, respectively. The purpose of this chapter is to define and describe how treatment integrity and intensity can be incorporated in the evaluation of outcomes associated with individualized intervention delivery.

Shrewd channel leadership is required to maximise the benefits and to minimise the many potential problems of exporting through independent overseas distributors. Exporters need to apply effective programmes for distributor recruitment, motivation, support, training, planning, evaluation and control. Recent empirical findings about these issues are, however, scarce. This article provides fresh insights gained in an exploratory study of various dimensions of overseas distributor‐management by British exporters. In terms of recommended practice the findings are equivocal. Distributor recruitment, motivation and evaluation is in general seen as being reasonably well done although there are many areas where scope for improvement is apparent. Distributor training is generally scant and ill‐directed. Areas where improvement may be possible are suggested explicitly and implicitly in the text. Throughout the article, exporters are urged to adopt a “partnership” route to overseas channel management and there is considerable indication in the findings that many of the firms take the kinds of actions embodied in such an approach.

On October 26, 2004 the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) adopted new rules and rule amendments under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (the “Advisers Act”) that will require most hedge fund managers to register with the SEC as investment advisers by February 1, 2006. The actions taken by the SEC will necessitate that hedge fund managers begin preparing for SEC registration at least four to six months in advance of registration. In light of these new rules, this article summarizes: The significant provisions of the Advisers Act that hedge fund managers will need to become familiar with; The SEC registration process that a hedge fund adviser will have to follow; The SEC inspection program and some practical tips that hedge fund advisers should consider implementing. Because the regulatory framework imposes a variety of obligations and prohibitions on hedge fund managers, who, up until now, have operated without significant regulatory oversight, we recommend that fund managers who are likely to become subject to the registration rules should, well in advance of the February 1, 2006 registration deadline, familiarize themselves with the legal and operational changes that will affect them and assemble the information they will need to commence and complete the registration process. This article is designed to introduce fund managers to that framework.

Much has been made of the need to empower employees at all levels of an organisation. There must be a genuine willingness on the part of management and workers to work together to ensure that empowerment will be accepted and succeed. Among those organisations which are prepared to bear the cost of training and multiskilling their employees, training is often ineffective and firms do not realise benefits from their investment. How can training be delivered to maximise the probability that the workers will learn and be able to implement new skills? Reports on a success story in a multi‐site manufacturing organisation which was able to train operations workers on the job, and by using active learning techniques demonstrate to the organisation the benefits of training. The reasons behind these changes, the effectiveness of the training programme, and the views of workers on the factory floor are examined. Interviews indicate that the success of the training programme, combined with other tactics, has seen real cultural change taking pace in the organisation, and workers believe they have been empowered.

Concentrates on ways of helping employers to keep their workforce up to date and adaptable. Contains precised articles exploring the relationship between employers and the world of education. The final group of precis examines the concept of knowledge management, which can help organizations to exploit their hidden talents.

Interrelated conflict and transformation are associated with post World War II U.S. military. Conflicts within the command structure are depicted by military officers in their writings. Transformation, characterised by military sociologists as a process of “civilianisation,” has informed understanding over the past few decades. However, neither the officer‐writers‘ “close‐up” perspective nor, in retrospect, the sociologists’ sanguine formulations effectively interrelate structural transformation and conflicts in command. In this respect, these literatures suggest relevant analogies: officer‐writers reflect existential crisis not unlike many traditional peoples experiencing consequences of externally induced economic change; sociological characterisations of “civilianisation,” like those of “modernisation,” fail to account for adverse and conflictual consequences of such “development”. Both the “crisis in command” and sociological failures to explicate it may be related to political economy's transformation of the military. That is the argument entailed in this article.

With the opening of the Quatre Temps shopping centre in La Defense complex in Paris, a major design project for Conran Associates has been completed. This feature looks at some of the principles the company follows in its approach to both store and product design.

Starting with the fundamental question of ‘Why change at all?’ E Roy Griffiths goes on to examine a number of problems faced by the retail business in the planning and implementation of change. Drawing on his experience with Sainsbury's, he considers the strict administrative demarcations which had to be drawn in the hypermarket partnership with BHS, he looks at the problems encountered in the change of image which Sainsbury's had to effect for Discount 78, and regards, with some circumspection, the changes which are increasingly initiated by government intervention. What follows is a shortened version of a talk given to the IGD Convention in Brighton.