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Demonstrates the development of action research skills in a particular area of organizational life: improving the management of the product development process. Describes product development as a process, before introducing self‐assessment and benchmarking as an intervention oriented towards achieving managerial focus on issues identified as relevant to improvement.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Episodic mood disorders are often associated with alcohol dependence. Few studies have explored the contribution of episodic mood disorders to length of stay among those hospitalized with alcohol dependence syndrome. Filling this research gap could improve care for patients while minimizing hospital utilization costs. This study was a cross-sectional analysis of the National Hospital Discharge Survey. ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes were used to identify those admitted to a private or non-profit hospital with alcohol dependence syndrome, and a co-morbid diagnosis of an episodic mood disorder (n=358). Descriptive statistics were used to highlight differences in key demographic and hospital variables between those with and without episodic mood disorders. Negative binomial regression was used to associate episodic mood disorders with hospital length of stay. Incidence rate ratios were calculated. Co-morbid episodic mood disorders ([.beta]=0.31, P=0.001), referral to a hospital by a physician ([.beta]=0.35, P=0.014), and increasing age ([.beta]= 0.01, P=0.001) were associated with longer hospital stays. Hospital patients with an admitting diagnosis of alcohol dependence syndrome were 36% more likely to have a longer hospital stay if they also had a co-morbid diagnosis of an episodic mood disorder (IRR=1.36, CI=1.14-1.62). Patients admitted to a hospital with alcohol dependence syndrome should be routinely screened for episodic mood disorders. Opportunities exist for enhanced transitional care between acute, ambulatory, and community-based care settings to lower hospital utilization.

Those parties who do become caught up in the sanctions and are blacklisted face a daunting situation. Their property and accounts are often blocked, and dealings with US parties, and frequently their overseas affiliates as well, are essentially cut off with little or no warning by virtue of decisions made by a relatively small and obscure office within the Treasury Department. US as well as foreign parties can be blacklisted, and these restrictions can even extend to a firm's employees. The practical consequence of being touched by one of the Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC) economic sanctions programmes may be the economic equivalent of capital punishment. By virtue of the restrictions, the blacklisted business may cease to exist as a viable entity.

Latin America's contagion from the Asian shock was limited because: a) the region had successfully implemented structural reforms in recent years; b) policymakers acted swiftly to make appropriate changes in fiscal and monetary policy; and c) abundant reserves facilitated a relatively smooth adjustment. The Russian shock proved much harder to weather, as it adversely affected risk perception about emerging markets as an asset class resulting in an abrupt halt of capital inflows and a deep recession. Recent developments in international capital markets suggest a more benign environment for growth. This, however, provides no guarantee of a sustainable recovery for all economies in the region.

One reason for the severe short age of nurses is the un will ing ness of males to pursue the profession in great numbers. This article explores people’s negative stereotypic beliefs about males in the nursing profession. Participants were asked to provide evaluations and trait descriptions of both male and female nurses. The results revealed that both male and female participants harbored favorable impressions of female nurses but unfavorable impressions of male nurses. Male participants were especially likely to form negative evaluations of men who pursue the nursing profession. Exploratory multivariate analyses of trait descriptions revealed that male nurses are viewed as feminine, non traditional, intelligent, and caring. Additional results suggest that unfavorable stereo types of male nurses can be moderated by highlighting the masculine qualities of nurses’ job duties. Implications for the recruitment of males into nursing are discussed.

ALL TAXES must, at last, fall upon agriculture, wrote Gibbon. Today he would probably change it to ‘all taxes must, at last, be borne by others for agriculture’. It vexes every government in and out of Europe, hovering over Common Market desks and troubling lands like New Zealand.

This paper discusses some of the lessons learnt from the use of the ‘bail‐out’ technique in the financial crises in Thailand, Korea and Indonesia in 1997–8. While the solution to debt crises in the past relied upon debt restructuring techniques which involved directly creditors and debtors, a distinct feature in the recent Asian financial crises, as well as in the Mexican crisis in 1994–5, is the massive amount of public funding — from bilateral and multilateral sources — that has been made available to shore up the crisis. The need for immediate disbursal of vast sums of money as well as the speed with which the crisis evolved, prompted governments to provide financing in a way that is reminiscent of the emergency liquidity assistance provided at a domestic level by the lender of last resort role of the central bank. By analogy to the bank‐to‐bank (micro) contagion that provides the theoretical rationale for the domestic lender of last resort, the country‐to‐country (macro) contagion and associated quick loss of confidence is the main argument put forth to justify the role assumed by the International Monetary Fund as de facto international lender of last resort in the late 1990s.