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This paper aims to show the results from a pioneering primary care‐based extended scope physiotherapist (ESP) led service, which placed patients directly onto the surgical waiting list of secondary care orthopaedic consultants over a two‐year period.

A retrospective data review was performed on all referrals from community‐based ESPs for direct listing at the secondary care hospital between 2 January 2008 and 31 December 2009.

A total of 130 referrals for direct listing were made by the ESP team during the two‐year period. Of these, 127 (98 per cent) went on to undergo a THR. Three patients (2 per cent) did not ultimately have a THR.

This process has continued over the two years of the direct listing service, with ongoing evaluation and refinement of the pathway, so referral criteria and clinical/administrative pathways have been changed in the light of experience.

Patients who were directly listed did not require a hospital orthopaedic outpatient appointment until attendance at preoperative assessment clinic shortly before their surgery. In addition to the reduction in inconvenience and travelling costs incurred by patients, there was an approximate saving of £145 to the primary care trust per directly listed patient.

The authors believe that this service evaluation is the first publication to show that direct listing by primary care based ESPs is a safe and effective process for some patients requiring primary THR.

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.

Notes increasing US support for the BTID insurance strategy, i.e. buy low cost term life insurance and invest the difference between the cost of this and of whole life insurance. Points out some other investment possibilities and compares the terminal and interim wealth accumulation potential of five different insurance/saving combinations for both sexes at five ages, taking tax into account. Discusses ease of access to savings, taxation of death proceeds and restrictions on creditor rights to distribution for various types of insurance/savings and considers the implications. Draws some conclusions about the best investment performance but stresses that investment choice also depends on individual factors, e.g. tax bracket, risk, tolerance and investment knowledge.

As an unprecedented level of merger and acquisition activity continues to sweep across the global business landscape, public relations firms certainly have not watched from the sidelines. PR agencies are pursuing mergers as fast as other industries. And this despite the sobering fact that the majority of mergers and acquisitions fail within the first three years. For any PR consultancy in search of a merger partner, avoiding that fate requires a constant awareness of one simple fact: PR is truly a people business. PR assets are exclusively people and their intellectual property, so making a PR agency merger work involves much more than getting the numbers right.

This is a conceptual paper for facilities management (FM) practitioners and FM researchers. The paper seeks to analyse a number of well‐documented successes and failures in military exploitation of innovation, and identify several recurrent facets that resonate with the contemporary approach to, and difficulties with achieving innovation in FM.

Several military cases are selected for their analogous pertinence to FM. They cover military aspects of technological innovation; process innovation, including innovativeness in the modes of engagement; innovativeness within strategy and paradigm; and innovativeness in the tactical behaviours needed to realise the value of innovations. They are presented as an indirect means of illuminating systemic challenges for innovation within FM.

The paper identifies the primacy of innovativeness over individual technological innovations; and the centrality of empowerment practices and the catalysing of local tactical and operational innovative behaviours to innovativeness. The crucial factors are the attitude and behaviour of leaders, especially in terms of creating latitude for local managers; the locus of command, control and communication; plus local empowerment to achieve clearly explained strategic targets. The authors also identify a shift in performance measurement perspective as a pivotal pre‐requisite for successfully innovating for post‐industrial FM.

Particular focus is made on lessons for developing a culture of organisational innovativeness and for the successful exploitation of latent innovation potential. The paper concludes that these issues represent a significant and systemic challenge to innovation and innovativeness in FM.

As we approach the millennium, we find ourselves in a world that places ever greater weight and significance on the outcome of polls, surveys, and market research. The advent of modern polling began with the use of scientific sampling in the mid‐1930s and has progressed vastly beyond the initial techniques and purposes of the early practitioners such as George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and Archibald Crossley. In today's environment, the computer is an integral part of most commercial survey work, as are the efforts by academic and nonprofit enterprises. It should be noted that the distinction between the use of the words “poll” and “survey” is somewhat arbitrary, with the mass media seeming to prefer “polling,” and with academia selecting “survey research.” However, searching online systems will yield differing results, hence this author's inclusion of both terms in the title of this article.

This paper has two purposes. First, to explore the cultural context of information technology management in China: cultural tendency, dependism dynamic, and power distance dimension. Second, to apply them specifically to information technology management in China. In this regard, a large number of studies on the management and Chinese culture are cited. Five perspectives of information technology management are investigated: information technology properties, information technology infrastructure, management roles, human resources management, and entering into strategic alliances. General lessons can be learned about the ways in which information technology is managed, or should be managed, in developing countries.

The term “library management” covers many different aspects of the way that a library is operated and conjures up different concepts in the minds of different people, depending on their own interests, agendas and requirements. Research into the subject is even more difficult to define because the application of research in one field can be vital to the development of another. Some researchers would not consider their research central to library matters at all, whereas the practising librarian might well see it as casting new light on a difficult area of understanding or development.