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Dampness in buildings is unsightly, it can be damaging to the health of the occupants and, if left unattended, it can lead to structural deterioration.

Developments in acrylic polymer technology over the past few years have led to the possibility today of formulating total paint systems for wood using water based all‐acrylic coatings.

The School of Economic Synthesis is not only a modern theoretical approach to economics, but it is also an active academic and social movement which aims at fostering a better economic society. Based on the socio‐economic interpretation of history and theory, Economic Synthesis seeks a realistic explanation of those factors and problems in modern society which can only be analysed and solved from a multi‐social (interdisciplinary) approach to the social sciences.

The possibility of a total water based paint system becomes a reality with a significant new acrylic emulsion from Rohm and Haas called Primal AC 2530.

A comparison between production and distribution practices in the two countries, and the effects of these elements on costs.

Interviews in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and India indicate net present value (NPV) is not widely employed in making capital investment decisions in these newly industrialized and developing countries. It is not from lack of knowledge about net present value: rather, it is due to (1) widespread violation of the assumptions underlying NPV, (2) the high risk/high return nature of the capital investments, and (3) the decision‐making process employed in making capital investment decisions. These same three conditions exist for many capital investment decisions made by firms in developed countries. Only by abandoning the static NPV approach, building in real options, and understanding and building in the decision‐making process will further advances be made in capital budgeting decision‐making. One of the key paradigms in finance is net present value (NPV). In order to maximize value, managers should accept all positive NPV investment projects, and reject all negative NPV projects. The issue becomes more complex when uncertainty is introduced, or, as in recent years, when real options to defer, abandon, expand, etc. are incorporated into the decision‐making process [e.g., Dixit and Pindyck (1994) and Trigeorgis (1995 and 1996)]. However, with these exceptions, the state of the art in capital investment decision‐making revolves around the simple statement—take all positive NPV projects. In practice, evidence from surveys and discussions with corporate executives indicates the message taught for the last 30 years in business schools has been heard and, to a large extent, acted upon by larger U.S., Canadian, and British‐based firms. While larger firms in North America, and to a lesser extent Western Europe, generally employ the static, or traditional, NPV framework for making, or assisting in making, capital investment decisions, less is known about the decision‐making process employed by firms in other parts of the world. The question addressed in this study is: “Do firms in other parts of the world, especially in newly industrialized or developing countries in the Asia Pacific region, employ NPV for making capital investment decisions?” The purposes of this study are threefold: (1) to report the results of a series of open‐ended interviews conducted in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and India about the capital investment decision‐making process employed; (2) to understand why NPV is not widely employed in making capital investment decisions in these newly industrialized and developing countries; and, most important, (3) to indicate that NPV and the capital budgeting decision‐making process need rethinking and refocusing to make them more effective—in all countries, whether developed, newly industrialized, or developing. The paper proceeds in the following manner. Section I provides an introduction to the study. In Section II the results of the interviews are presented. In Section III patterns that emerged during the interview process are presented, along with a number of specific examples of the types of capital investment decisions being considered. In Section IV the assumptions underlying NPV are examined, and then risk/return and the decision‐making process are considered. Section V contains the discussion and conclusions.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The influential Sainsbury Centre report, Making Recovery a Reality (Shepherd et al, 2008), talks about clinical and social aspects of recovery. The issue of psychological recovery is not discussed at length, although other workers have put forward a psychological model of recovery (Andresen et al, 2003). While there are numerous definitions of recovery, the one developed by Gordon, the focus of this profile, is unlikely to be matched for its parsimony. Gordon describes recovery as ‘coping with your illness and trying to have a meaningful life’ (McManus, 2008). In this paper, he outlines his background. He is then interviewed by Sarah Morgan about his life, illness and recovery. Finally, Jerome gives an appreciation of his contribution to our developing understanding of recovery.