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A debate continues on whether the structural separation of incumbent telecommunications operators would increase competition in telecommunications markets leading to a more dynamic industry. John Cubbin and David Currie, the future Chairman of OfCom, and the OECD have both contributed to this debate. More recently (in Issue 4 of this Volume) Professor Martin Cave asked the question “Is LoopCo the answer?”. In the light of the regulators’ objectives in the new EU framework to promote efficient investment, this article answers some of Professor Cave’s arguments against structural separation and sets out a framework for analysing the impact of separation on innovation in the sector and in other industries which use telecommunications as a key input. The article draws on work conducted by other academics, notably The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis and Michael Porter.

The research presented in this article aims to extend our understanding of the symbolic and experiential values of shopping through the investigation of consumers' grocery shopping and consumption experiences.

The research approach was based on the existential phenomenological interview; ten women living in the UK who were in paid employment outside the home at the time of the study, who were married (or living with their partner) and who had at least one child living at home participated in the study which explored their lived experiences of grocery shopping and consumption.

The findings reveal that consumers can construct various dimensions and levels of self/identity through their food shopping and consumption practices through their shopping experiences and in conjunction with various resources and support provided by retailers. Four key themes are identified and explored: “I am in control”; “I am me”; “I share and I love”; and “I belong”.

The present study is exploratory in nature; it identifies four key themes which appear significant and provides a starting point for further research.

This paper explores the ways in which shopping confirms consumers' personal identity, social position and social identity and contributes to the literature in two ways: the research extends our understanding of the experiential values of shopping by extending the domain of enquiry from consumers' experiences in‐store to the actual consumption phase and consumers' self identity is investigated through the exploration of individual consumers' lived shopping and consumption experiences from an holistic perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the underlying motives for individuals’ polychronicity, the preference to multitask with media.

For this exploratory study, a qualitative research design is chosen, using face-to-face in-depth interviews and triad groups. In total, 34 in-depth interviews are conducted in the UK, Germany and Australia, with four subsequent triads in the UK.

The underlying motives for individuals’ preference for multiple media use include eight dimensions: comfort with multitasking; multi-channel preference; effectiveness and efficiency; convenience; emotional gratification; information and knowledge; social benefits and assimilation.

A non-probability sample of a specific sample group (Digital Natives) is used in this study and despite the reassurance provided by quality criteria and triangulation, generalisation from this study is problematic. Future research to validate the eight exposed dimensions would be valuable.

For marketing communications and media channel planners, endeavouring to optimise clients’ budgets, the unique knowledge provided by the depth of understanding offered by the eight dimensions of polychronicity and their associated facets enables the development of relevant communication campaigns.

This paper presents a unique insight into individuals’ preference for multiple media use, uncovering the underlying dimensions of this behavioural phenomenon. Accordingly, this study makes a valuable contribution to knowledge in this emerging research domain.

The Ministry of Health have issued a Circular (No. 2198, November 25th, 1940) reminding local authorities of the measures which can usually be taken to protect the public against the spread of the diseases commonly conveyed by food, i.e., diseases of the enteric group (typhoid and paratyphoid fevers), dysentery, food poisoning and intestinal parasitism. The Circular continues: One of the commonest causes of the spread of the enteric diseases is the contamination of food, including milk, by the hands of persons excreting the causal organisms of the disease, whether they are actually suffering from the disease, or are chronic carriers of the infection, or are persons temporarily excreting the causal organisms without themselves being ill. The Milk and Dairies Order, 1926, confers on medical officers of health in Articles 18 and 19 powers relating to infected milk supplies and to persons having access to the milk, milk vessels, etc., at registered premises whose employment may be likely to lead to the spread of infectious disease. It also requires generally under Article 15 that every person engaged in the milking of cows or the distribution or measuring of milk or otherwise having access to the milk or to the churns or other milk receptacles shall keep his clothing and person in a cleanly condition. Article 23 of the Order requires that in connection with the milking of cows the hands of the milker shall be thoroughly washed and dried before milking, and throughout the milking be kept free from contamination. With respect to food and drink in general, provision is made in Part III of the First Schedule to the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations, 1927, whereby on a report by the medical officer of health, the local authority can (1) in any case of enteric fever or dysentery occurring in the district by notice in writing require, in addition to other precautions, that the person specified in the notice shall discontinue any occupation connected with the preparation or handling of food or drink for human consumption and (2) require the medical examination by the medical officer of health or a medical officer acting on his behalf of a person suspected by the medical officer of health to be a carrier of enteric fever or dysentery infection who is employed in any trade or business connected with the preparation or handling of food or drink for human consumption, and can suspend such person from his employment for a specified period if as a result of the examination or from bacteriological or protozoological examination of material obtained at any such examination, of material obtained at any such examination, the medical officer of health is of opinion that the person is such a carrier. Apart, however, from conditions which can be dealt with by the temporary discontinuance of work by persons actually suffering from the disease or found to be carriers of it, experience shows that outbreaks of disease of the enteric group and of food poisoning are not uncommonly caused, or their range extended, by the handling of food by persons who have not previously been suspected to be suffering from or carrying disease, and the Minister is advised that a substantial number of consequential cases could be avoided if all persons engaged in the preparation or handling of food intended for sale were habitually to take the elementary precautions required by law. The relevant statutory provisions as regards food other than milk are those contained in Section 13 (1) of the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, which read as follows :—

This paper aims to, using the example of the highly globalised shipping industry, shed light upon the practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the extent to which it might be relied upon to fill international regulatory gaps.

The paper draws upon findings from a questionnaire study of shipboard accommodation.

The paper finds that seafarers’ welfare remains under-considered by many companies. It suggests that the consolidation of regulation pertaining to seafarer living conditions under the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) has been timely. However, a priority for the international community should be to develop the relatively low standards currently required by existing regulation to provide for better standards of seafarer welfare across the global fleet.

This evidence from the shipping industry challenges arguments for the normative basis for CSR and lends weight to those suggesting that the apparent exercise of CSR by multinational companies should broadly be understood as an exercise in public relations.

The research points to the need for the MLC to be amended to raise the mandatory standards of shipboard accommodation in the merchant shipping industry.

The paper contributes unique data on seafarers’ living conditions and augments the body of knowledge concerning the exercise of CSR in global sectors.

Summing up the positive and negative effects that will result from the completion of the Single Market in 1992, we can conclude that although there will be a certain amount of restructuring in business activity, the labour market and the overall supply of tourist services, there are going to be some very important benefits as well.

The aim of this paper is to explore the evolving nature of the work of cabin crew in a Scandinavian carrier in three eras, drawing on theories of gender and emotional labour.

The paper draws on ethnographic data from fieldwork, interviews and documents.

From being a feminized and temporary occupation for young, upper- and middle-class women in the 1970s, the occupation became a full-time job and with greater diversity of cabin crew. Today there are signs of the job becoming a precarious and temporary one of demanding and devalorized work in a polarized and class-divided labour market. Changing circumstances impact on the emotional labour requirement and terms and conditions at work.

A limitation is that the research design was not initially longitudinal in the sense that the author does not have exactly the same kind of data from each era. The author has, however, been involved in this field for two decades, used multiple methods and interacted with different stakeholders and drew on a unique data material.

The development in aviation is contributing to new discriminatory practices, driving employee conditions downwards and changing the job demands. This development will have practical consequences for the lives and families of cabin crew.

The analysis illustrates how work ‘constructs' workers and contributes in creating jobs that are not sustainable for the employees. Intensification of work, insecurity and tougher working conditions also challenge key features in the Nordic model such as proper pay, decent work and a life-long employment. Much indicates that the profession is again becoming a temporary one of demanding work with poor working conditions in a polarized and class-divided labour market.

The research contributes to the literature on emotional labour, gender and the evolving nature of the work of cabin crew. The unique data material, the longitudinal aspect of the research and the focus on a single network carrier are good in charting changes over time.

Gatekeepers in social research are regularly taken for granted in the associated methods literature, yet they constitute an interesting social phenomenon in themselves as powerful and normally unpaid agents of research access. Questions relating to the recruitment of potential gatekeepers and to the nature of the rewards that they might seek are under-considered and locating key gatekeepers is often characterised (perhaps inadvertently) as a matter of luck or happenstance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper is a multi-sited ethnography based on maritime industry conferences held annually in Europe and Asia. The two authors attended 18 of these conferences either as regular delegate or as a speaker. In these conferences, they maintained fieldnotes and formally and informally interviewed participants both face to face and e-mail.

Every year executives come together at commercially organised conferences focussed upon human resource management in the shipping industry. At these events, major global players discuss a programme of issues related to the business of recruiting and training seafarers. However, these international conferences are both much more and much less than they seem. They are crucial in establishing reputational capital and provide researchers with key venues for negotiating research access.

This paper argues that unlike most conferences, these can only be seen as “field configuring events” to a very limited extent but that they nonetheless serve an important purpose in securing symbolic, and more significantly reputational, capital for both individual delegates and interested academics. The paper further argues that resourceful researchers can mobilise such capital in their favour in negotiating research access contributing new ideas to the literature on gatekeepers and on research access.