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This paper aims to evaluate the possibilities associated with go-along technique and other mobile qualitative methods augmenting other qualitative methods as a novel approach to developing understanding of multifaceted organisations.

The study explores the challenges associated with “static” qualitative methods for understanding multifaceted organisations and evaluates how a range of mobile methods can achieve a greater depth of analysis when researching complex hospitality and tourism settings. The paper uses an illustrative empirical case where mobile methods are used as part of a multi-method qualitative study exploring ancestral tourism in a large, heterogeneous tourism organisation.

This research highlights how mobile methods can service to: broaden the scope of interviews through introducing enhanced meaning and spontaneity; afford opportunity to explore and verify interview findings in informal settings; and widen participation in the study through ongoing recruitment of participants.

The authors identify implications for researchers working within hospitality and tourism who can gain additional insight by augmenting qualitative studies with mobile methods.

This paper identifies challenges in using more static qualitative methods when seeking understanding of complex, multifaceted tourism organisations where work activities are mobile and spatially dispersed. This research highlights the value of mobile methods in combination with other qualitative methods, to gain greater understanding of these organisations.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explore how commercial hospitality has contributed to the development of urban areas in relation to commerce, hospitality, religious and imperial patronage in early modern, Safavid Iran (c. seventeenth century). Second, to combine material culture research methods in an analytical framework for future use.

Data were collected during 27 site visits over three years to 14 caravanserai six bazaar complexes. A material culture methodology is proposed, designed and implemented, supplemented by analysis of textual sources.

The form and function of caravanserai at Zein‐i Edin broadly reflect the form and function of desert caravanserai common in much of the Islamic world. However, the complex within the Qaysariyya Bazaar in Isfahan reflects the convergence of specific dynastic, geopolitical and economic issues facing seventeenth century Safavid Iran shaping both urban form and commercial focus. These are consolidation of the Safavid dynasty, rivalry with the Ottoman Empire and the vital importance of trade with Mughal India.

The research is limited by its specific contextual scope but invites further investigation in analogous contexts across this milieu as well as further implementation of the material culture methods it adopts to both historical and contemporary commercial contexts.

The paper explores, for the first time the development of commercial hospitality in early modern Iran and invites further consideration of the development of capitalism outside of Eurocentric teleologies. Furthermore, it presents a new and explicit methodological framework for using material culture as a means of enquiry.

The management consultants Inbucon chose Glasgow for a recent seminar on electronics manufacturing. Board manufacture, surface mounted components and quality of electronics were subjects that created much discussion.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how lessons learned from a case study of a construction project undertaken in the Pacific Islands relates to the interaction between social capital and knowledge transfer. The paper is reflective in nature focusing upon the experiences of one of the authors, being a Pacific Islander and trying to make sense of the role of social capital and the way that it impacts upon knowledge transfer.

Three theoretical frameworks are drawn upon in a pilot test of tools used to better understand and measure knowledge transfer including barriers to knowledge transfer to help explain the difficulty of knowledge transfer in a given context and the development of social capital for a foreign aid project. These tools allowed us to visualise project stakeholder outcomes for knowledge transfer and building social capital that were articulated by the aid recipient as being highly important. This was a pilot study and results reported upon in this paper were fed back to stakeholder representatives concerned for their comment and validation. Project documentation data, unstructured ad hoc interviews, together with personal reflection‐in‐practice, were gathered and used for the study.

The approach was found to be very useful in helping stakeholders better visualise and measure this project outcome, whereas experience from previous similar projects indicated that it was very difficult for stakeholders to find a tangible way of measuring this important element of success or failure.

Many projects of the type exemplified by the case studies are funded by aid agencies. This paper makes a contribution by presenting an evaluation tool for intangible project outcomes. The findings may influence the design of project success measures.

Describes the background to publishing in Scotland and outlines the nature and range of current Scottish publishing houses. Sets Scottish publishing within its UK and European context and indicates a number of major trends. Presents broad statistics of current Scottish publishing. Describes the nature, activities and achievements of 30 Scottish publishing houses, from large to small and from general to specialist.

THIS is the month when librarians and library workers everywhere, their holidays over, turn to their winter plans. There are, however, some interesting events to take place before the darker and more active months come. The first is the meeting at Oxford on September 21st and subsequent days of the Federation International de Documentation. This will be followed by and merge into the ASLIB Conference, and there is in prospect an attendance of over three hundred. Our readers know that this organization produces and advocates the International Decimal Classification. It is not primarily a “library” society but rather one of abstractors and indexers of material, but it is closely akin, and we hope that English librarianship will be well represented. Then there is a quite important joint‐conference at Lincoln of the Northern Branches of the Library Association on September 30th— October 3rd, which we see is to be opened by the President of the Library Association. Finally the London and Home Counties Branch are to confer at Folkestone from October 14th to 16th, and here, the programme includes Messrs. Jast, Savage, McColvin, Wilks, Carter, and the President will also attend. There are other meetings, and if the question is asked: do not librarians have too many meetings ? we suppose the answer to be that the Association is now so large that local conferences become desirable. One suggestion, that has frequently been made, we repeat. The Library Association should delegate a certain definite problem to each of its branches, asking for a report. These reports should form the basis of the Annual Conference. It is worthy of more consideration.

Annalist rather than analyst, Professor Asa Briggs moves not dogmatically but deliberately through his own Music of Time series, the chronicles of broadcasting. His immense and detailed labours began in the 1950s, the first volume of this serial universe being published in 1961. The fourth, the most substantial to date, covers the period 1945–1955. Like the others it is a model of quite literal documentary history, strong on sources which range from the indispensable basic material—Cmd. 5091, 6852, 6974, 8116, 8416 and other official key papers—down to office memos and even snatches of conversation. The impression is of discreet panelled rooms and policy documents, in‐trays and loaf‐haired secretaries, all the apparatus of a living bureaucracy staffed by impeccable products of the British leadership machine creating a tradition as they go along, leaving behind them an immutable executive procedure as they move onwards, upwards or outwards from the great institution itself. Names now scarcely more than smoke trails in the memory swirl about the pages as once they swirled about the corridors, concocting reports, generating minutes, shaping paragraphs, giving material embodiment to the Corporation.