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The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of recent guidance from the FSA and industry, and recent case law regarding product providers and distributors

Explains current status of the guidance; provides overview of the guidance and its two component parts directed at “product providers” and “distributors”; discusses international dimensions; explains compliance implications; describes parallel trade association principles published in a July 2007 paper entitled Retail Structured Products: Principles for Managing the Provider‐Distributor Relationship; and summarizes three recent English judicial decisions relevant to the responsibilities and duties of providers and distributors.

The responsibilities of providers and distributors regarding retail structured products are being defined by an interaction of regulatory, common law, and soft law provisions. Just as the FSA's exercise of its regulatory powers is increasingly based less on detailed rules and more on general principles, so the judges' decision making is based less on doctrinal detail and more on a pragmatic assessment of the relevant facts as a whole.

Regarding retail products, the best approach for providers and distributors is to focus not only on detailed rules and contractual provisions but also on the factual detail of the arrangements, and whether the outcomes are fair to investors and meet their reasonable expectations as created by the firm.

Expert analysis provided by leading lawyers specialized in financial institutions.

The social licence literature contains two quite different accounts of the concept. Sometimes social licence is presented as an essentially empirical matter; sometimes it is portrayed as having normative significance. Both advocates and critics assume that the normative version is easy to generate from the empirical version but the author argues that it is difficult to account for the normativity of social licence. It is commonly claimed that social licence is a ‘metaphor’ or ‘analogy’ drawing on familiar understandings of institutional licences, and standard accounts purport to ‘build in’ normativity. Neither strategy establishes the normativity of social licence. If that is correct, we have reason to be sceptical about the normative significant of claims about the possession of empirical social licence. The approval or acceptance by affected communities may be one factor to be taken into account in such analysis, but it will not itself settle whether a practice ought to be approved or accepted or licenced.

Leadership is one of the most complex and multifaceted phenomena to which organisational and psychological research has been applied. An evolutionary developmental perspective is used to create an evolutionary tree of leadership theory and reveal the path along which it has evolved. Nine evolutionary eras are identified, and requirements for a tenth era of leadership theory are discussed. These eras provide a broad framework for researchers and practising managers to categorise existing, and evaluate future, theories.

In its passage through the Grand Committee the Food Bill is being amended in a number of important particulars, and it is in the highest degree satisfactory that so much interest has been taken in the measure by members on both sides of the House as to lead to full and free discussion. Sir Charles Cameron, Mr. Kearley, Mr. Strachey, and other members have rendered excellent service by the introduction of various amendments; and Sir Charles Cameron is especially to be congratulated upon the success which has attended his efforts to induce the Committee to accept a number of alterations the wisdom of which cannot be doubted. The provision whereby local authorities will be compelled to appoint Public Analysts, and compelled to put the Acts in force in a proper manner, and the requirement that analysts shall furnish proofs of competence of a satisfactory character to the Local Government Board, will, it cannot be doubted, be productive of good results. The fact that the Local Government Board is to be given joint authority with the Board of Agriculture in insuring that the Acts are enforced is also an amendment of considerable importance, while other amendments upon what may perhaps be regarded as secondary points unquestionably trend in the right direction. It is, however, a matter for regret that the Government have not seen their way to introduce a decisive provision with regard to the use of preservatives, or to accept an effective amendment on this point. Under existing circumstances it should be plain that the right course to follow in regard to preservatives is to insist on full and adequate disclosure of their presence and of the amounts in which they are present. It is also a matter for regret that the Government have declined to give effect to the recommendation of the Food Products Committee as to the formation of an independent and representative Court of Reference. It is true that the Board of Agriculture are to make regulations in reference to standards, after consultation with experts or such inquiry as they think fit, and that such inquiries as the Board may make will be in the nature of consultations of some kind with a committee to be appointed by the Board. There is little doubt, however, that such a committee would probably be controlled by the Somerset House Department; and as we have already pointed out, however conscientious the personnel of this Department may be—and its conscientiousness cannot be doubted—it is not desirable in the public interest that any single purely analytical institution should exercise a controlling influence in the administration of the Acts. What is required is a Court of Reference which shall be so constituted as to command the confidence of the traders who are affected by the law as well as of all those who are concerned in its application. Further comment upon the proposed legislation must be reserved until the amended Bill is laid before the House.

In the very able and striking address which he recently delivered before the Society of Arts, Sir WILLIAM PREECE insisted that commercial success—whether of a man, of a body of men, or of a nation—is referable to the working of distinct laws, the recognition and study of which may justly be said to constitute a “science of business.” In terms rendered the more severe by their dispassionate and moderate character, Sir WILLIAM referred to the lamentable ignorance displayed by the legislature, by the manufacturer, and by the general public, of what may bo regarded as the most elementary facts and methods upon which such a science must be based. He pointed to the loose and bungling character of our commercial legislation; to the lack of co‐operation and combination; to the nonexistence of a properly organised and effective consular service whereby full information could be supplied and the interests of British trade, both home and colonial, might be studied and advanced; and finally to the lethargy of British producers and manufacturers themselves, who allow foreign competitors to drive them out of even their own home markets without making an effort to discard the old‐fashioned and worn‐out methods which have given those competitors the advantage. Of late years the warning voice has been raised from time to time, but it has been as a voice crying in the wilderness. The remarkable speech delivered at the Guildhall by H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES is fresh in the recollection of those who are not too drowsy or too indifferent to appreciate the vital nature and the magnitude of the evil. In 1891 Lord PLAYFAIR stated that if the Americans were right in principle in the management of some of their commercial concerns, “the whole policy of the United Kingdom was founded on a gigantic error, and must lead to our ruin as a commercial nation.” Sir WILLIAM PREECE is amply justified in attaching severe blame to the British manufacturer and producer. They have allowed “the Americans and the Germans to oust them out of their own markets, not by any superiority in the quality of their goods, but by lower prices, by superior knowledge of the demands of the markets, by the establishment of new markets, by better direct communication with foreign countries, by superior methods in business ways, by establishing regular intelligence departments, and, above all, by possessing and exercising superior commercial technical knowledge,” “and,” continued Sir.WILLIAM, “they must lay aside the commercial habits of their fathers.” With regard to food‐products, for instance, can it be truly said that any adequate steps are taken to secure any satisfactory and permanent improvement of the national food supply with respect to purity and good quality? Has anything been done, with governmental or legislative assistance, to make a systematic study of, and provide authoritative information upon such questions as the sources from which food stuffs are obtained, the adequacy or inadequacy of supplies, the true value of home‐produce and the advantages of utilising colonial products as far as possible? The answers to these questions can only be emphatically in the negative. There is no civilised country in the world in which the producer and vendor of adulterated, impoverished, and inferior articles of food can cany on their nefarious practices with more impunity, in certain respects, than in the United Kingdom, although, originally, we led the way in framing legislative enactments on these all‐important matters. At every port of entry today we might most appropriately set up the old waste‐land notice that “rubbish may be shot here.” As we offer all the necessary facilities, and as they are being taken advantage of more and more, wo might also freely advise that “rubbish should bo manufactured here” as well, What steps do British producers and manufacturers of articles of food take to move with the times, to set their houses in order, to protect themselves, and to enable the public to differentiate between the good and the bad? In the vast majority of instances the attitude they adopt is still one of unmasterly inactivity, except in the direction of unscientific and clumsy advertisement. On this they spend enormous sums without proportionate returns, and in following this course they constantly lay themselves open to condemnatory criticism by the publication of unauthorised and exaggerated statements which, in spit© of CARLYLE'S dictum “mostly fools,” are now merely received by the general public with a shrug of the shoulders. The time has come when, in order not only to develop their trade but in order to keep it, British manufacturers must give evidence of an independent and authoritative character to justify the faith that is presumably in them in recommending their goods to the public. Those who refuse to entertain new ideas and who are content to rest in a semi‐comatose condition on the achievements of the past,—relying merely on the possession of the hitherto reputable “name of the firm,”—by the operation of an inexorable law must inevitably drop out of the race.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

President, Charles S. Goldman, M.P.; Chairman, Charles Bathurst, M.P.; Vice‐Presidents: Christopher Addison, M.D., M.P., Waldorf Astor, M.P., Charles Bathurst, M.P., Hilaire Belloc, Ralph D. Blumenfeld, Lord Blyth, J.P., Colonel Charles E. Cassal, V.D., F.I.C., the Bishop of Chichester, Sir Arthur H. Church, K.C.V.O., M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S., Sir Wm. Earnshaw Cooper, C.I.E., E. Crawshay‐Williams, M.P., Sir Anderson Critchett, Bart., C.V.O., F.R.C.S.E., William Ewart, M.D., F.R.C.P., Lieut.‐Colonel Sir Joseph Fayrer, Bart., M.A., M.D., Sir Alfred D. Fripp, K.C.V.O., C.B., M.B., M.S., Sir Harold Harmsworth, Bart., Arnold F. Hills, Sir Victor Horsley, M.D., F.R.C.S., F.R.S., O. Gutekunst, Sir H. Seymour King, K.C.I.E., M.A., the Duke of Manchester, P.C., Professor Sir Wm. Osler, Bart., M.D., F.R.S., Sir Gilbert Parker, D.C.L., M.P., Sir Wm. Ramsay, K.C.B., LL.D., M.D., F.R.S., Harrington Sainsbury, M.D., F.R.C.P., W. G. Savage, M.D., B.Sc., R. H. Scanes Spicer, M.D., M.R.C.S., the Hon. Lionel Walrond, M.P., Hugh Walsham, M.D., F.R.C.P., Harvey W. Wiley, M.D., Evelyn Wrench.

The objective of the study is to understand the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO), employers' organizational commitment to their employees (OCE), employees' perception of the adequacy of budgetary resources (BRs), and firm performance in Malaysian and Chilean firms. A survey of 165 managers finds that EO has a significant positive relationship with performance. Additionally, the perceptions about the adequacy of the BR have a significant positive effect on performance. And in the Chilean subsample, the OCE interacts positively with perceptions of budget resource adequacy to affect the firm performance. The total effect of EO on performance is similar across both countries despite the EO being higher in Malaysia and perceptions of budget resource adequacy being higher in Chile. The study highlights the contribution to the literature on the EO – performance relationship – and emphasizes the importance of providing adequate resources to enhance the psychological safety of employees working in less developed countries.