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Franchising is not an industry but a method of distribution. The franchise system of distribution has been adapted to a diverse array of products and services. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, more than 1,800 companies in some 40 different industries use the franchise method of marketing. Today the franchisors' know‐how, trademarks, and advertising muscle offer unique opportunities to individuals with limited capital and experience.

Work environments, which are widely acknowledged to exert strong influences on employee attitudes and behavior, have been studied since the initiation of formal work entities. Over this time, scholars have identified myriad impactful internal and external factors. Absent though are investigations examining economic downturns despite their acknowledged pervasiveness and destructive effects on worker performance and well-being. To address this theoretical gap, a multistage model acknowledging the impact of recessions on workplace responses, response effects, and environmental considerations is proposed. Inherent in this discussion is the role of economic decline on reactive change processes, the nature of work, and the structure and design of organizations. These significant changes affect employee attitudes and behaviors in ways that increase the political nature of these work environments. Organizational factors and employee responses to heightened recession-driven politics are discussed. Additionally, theoretically relevant intervening variables capable of influencing work outcomes are described. The chapter is concluded by discussing the implications of this theoretical framework as well as directions for future research.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

Natural Fats.—It is important to bear in mind that there is an acute shortage of fats throughout the world. Most of the great sources of tropical fats, palm oil, copra and ground nut oil, are still producing much smaller quantities than before the war, partly because a lack of consumer goods makes the natives disinclined to collect raw material, partly because it takes a long time to rebuild a complicated industry and trade that was wrecked in many areas to a large extent by the upheaval of the war. Other sources of raw fats that were available to us before the war have dried up entirely, so far as we are concerned. India no longer exports edible oils. But, even if these sources of fat were as productive now as they were before the war there would still be a big world shortage, so great has become the demand for fats. As I see the problem, the only real solution, although it necessitates taking a very long‐range view, is rapidly to push ahead with the development of ambitious undertakings in the tropical belt of the world, similar in character to the ground‐nut scheme that our Government has had the courage and initiative to launch. The potential productivity of the vast tropical belt is prodigious, if the enormous tasks of dealing with disease, infestation, sanitation, fertilisation and land conservation can be successfully tackled, as I am confident the pioneer experimental attack in East Africa will demonstrate. Such developments will provide not only the fat so greatly needed for human use but enormous quantities of animal feeding stuffs with which to increase the production of bacon, meat, poultry, milk, butter and cheese. But, as I have remarked, this is a long‐range view. It will be asked whether there is any alternative likely to bring about an increase in. the supply of fats during the next two or three years. There is a possibility that there may be a steady, if slow, improvement. The supply of tropical fats will, I think, tend to get a little better as conditions in the producing areas gradually return to what they were before the war, and there is also the hope, perhaps a rather slender one, that food for livestock will not be as restricted in the next year or two as it has been. Production of whale oil is also on the up‐grade. So much, then, for the supply of ordinary natural fats, but, as we should consider every possible approach to the problem, passing reference should be made to other potential sources of supplies. There are two directions in which much exploration has been undertaken. In both the Germans were the pioneers.

THE article which we publish from the pen of Mr. L. Stanley Jast is the first of many which we hope will come from his pen, now that he has release from regular library duties. Anything that Mr. Jast has to say is said with originality even if the subject is not original; his quality has always been to give an independent and novel twist to almost everything he touches. We think our readers will find this to be so when he touches the important question of “The Library and Leisure.”

“GIVE a dog a bad name and hang him,” is an aphorism which has been accepted for many years. But, like many other household words, it is not always true. Even if it were, the dog to be operated upon would probably prefer a gala day at his Tyburn Tree to being executed in an obscure back yard.

The factors which influence costs of production of food and the prices to the consumer have changed dramatically during this century, but especially since the establishment of trading systems all over the world. Gone are the days when the simple expedients of supply and demand alone governed the situation. The erosion of these principles began at the turn of the century, mainly as a result of the introduction by the rapidly developing industrial power of the USA to protect her own industries against the cheaper products of European countries. They introduced the system of tariffs on imported manufactured goods; it grew and eventually was made to apply to wide sectors of industry. European countries retaliated but the free trade policy of Britain's Liberal government was making the country a dumping ground for all other country's cheap products and surpluses.

Examines the seventeenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.