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Social Workers and their time — continuing our account of a project to study how social workers spend their time and how this time could be used more effectively:

The purpose of this paper is to explore the organisational cultures of two different parts of the emergency service, the police and the ambulance service.

Semi-structured interviews with 45 police officers and ambulance staff sought to understand more about the relationships between these two distinctly different professions who work together closely and regularly in often very difficult situations.

Interviews with police officers and ambulance staff revealed the strong and harmonious working relationship between the two professions and an existence of both shared organisational characteristics and shared cultural characteristics. These cultural characteristics, identified as both explicit and tacit in nature provide the “glue” which not only binds each organisation together but which appears to cement a longer term, tangible link between the police and ambulance services.

This paper reveals a new dimension within cultural analyses of occupational groups by considering the shared cultural characteristics of two groups within the emergency services, police officers and ambulance staff. This potential for cultural boundary crossing is explored in detail.

‘Help social workers to organise themselves? You must be mad!’ ‘It can't be done — there are too many imponderables!’ ‘Why bother to plan when the majority of it is going to be altered?’ These were some of the typical responses that we received when we embarked about a year ago on a trail that has been fascinating, aggravating, often difficult—but always worthwhile. The story, in fact, starts about six months before that, and the tale is not one of unqualified success, but a mixture of responses, all significant.

Discusses current trends in the application of motors and drives by OEM users. Networks such as CAN and SERCOS are expanding rapidly and being controlled by PC/Windows‐based systems, with software written in “C” combined with proprietary libraries.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the role of consumer perceived value relative to home furnishing case good (i.e. furniture made of wood and not upholstered) consumption choices.

A qualitative approach to data collection and interpretation was used. A semi-structured depth-interview and focus group schedule was created based on an extant review of literature and consisted of open-ended questions about shopping for and purchasing home furnishings case goods.

A thematic interpretation of interviews and focus groups led to the development of emergent themes: the key factors influencing participant's value perceptions were quality, comfort, and price; participants decorated first for themselves; a welcoming, attractive environment for family and friends/guests was important; and desires and wants were more salient than needs. Themes were then categorized according to Sheth, Newman, and Gross' five consumption value dimensions.

Limitations of the study include a focus on Southeastern US consumers and a focus on home furnishings case goods.

Although the findings of this research are market specific, they have important implications for the home furnishings case goods industry. Overall, this study provides product developers, manufacturers, and marketers with a greater understanding of the home furnishings case goods consumer, which could allow sellers to create lead times and provide consumers with more tailored offerings/selections that would better suit their needs and desires.

This paper offers insight into the role of consumer perceived value relative to home furnishing consumption choices to product developers, manufacturers, and marketers.