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Humanity and all life depend on the natural environment of Planet Earth, and that environment is in acute crisis across land, sea and air. One of a set of commentaries on how service can address the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), the authors focus on environmental goals SDG 13 (climate action), SDG 14 (life below water) and SDG 15 (life on land). This paper aims to propose a conceptual framework that incorporates the natural environment into transformative services.

The authors trace the evolution of service thinking about the natural environment, from a stewardship perspective of the environment as a set of resources to be managed, through an acknowledgement of nonhuman organisms as actors that can participate in service exchange, towards an emergent concept of ecosystems as integrating human social actors and other biological actors who engage fully in value co-creation.

The authors derive a framework integrating human and other life forms as co-creating actors, drawing on shared natural resources to achieve mutualism, where each actor can have a net benefit from the relationship. Future research questions are posited that may help services research address SDGs 13–15.

The framework integrates ideas from environmental ecosystem literature to inform the nature of ecosystems. By integrating environmental actors and ecological insights into the understanding of service ecosystems, service scholars are well placed to make unique contributions to the global challenge of creating a sustainable future.

IT support for marketing planning can aid in the use of marketing tools, facilitate group planning, and support moves towards continuous planning based on a live marketing model of the business. But, amongst other factors, achieving these benefits depends on the style of support provided by the system. After a review of relevant decision support system (DSS) literature, describes here the findings relating to support style from a qualitative evaluation of a system named EXMAR. The findings support Little’s classic rules of “decision calculus”, such as the importance of ensuring that managers understand and can control the system, rather than the objective influenced by management science of prescribing an optimal recommendation. Also emphasises the role of systems in enhancing mutual understanding in a cross‐functional planning team, and hence in building commitment to the resulting plan.

A research study is described exploring the potential of decision support systems to improve marketing planning practice, using a combination of project action research and case research approaches. The paper focuses on solutions to two practical methodological problems: how to analyse action research data in as rigorous a way as possible; and how to minimise the biases which can arise from the action researcher's dual role as participant and observer. In particular, the paper describes an adaptation of the research design termed analytic induction to the complex, multi‐propositional theory common in action research, and indeed in much qualitative management research. The findings of the study itself are also reported briefly.

Planning tools originating from logical rational models of strategy formation still have their place in e‐commerce, albeit complemented with elements of incrementalism and vision. Tools for prioritisation specifically, though, are unvalidated in this sphere. Action research would seem to be well suited to turbulent environments such as e‐commerce, due to its immediacy of outcome, its future orientation, its respect for practitioners as co‐producers of knowledge and its cyclical process. An action research study is described which modifies the directional policy matrix (DPM) to take account of competition between business models, not just between individual organisations. Conclusions are drawn on the wider applicability of the matrix, the role of strategy tools in situations of uncertainty, and the role of action research in reducing the gap between theory and practice.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

This paper presents evidence to suggest that despite obstacles that made predatory pricing essentially impossible, the National Cash Register Co. (N.C.R.) managed successfully to deploy an arsenal of non-price predatory strategies that permitted it to consolidate and maintain a nearly complete monopoly of the cash-register trade. N.C.R. took actions to raise the costs and reduce the revenues of its rivals, actions that made sense only to the extent that N.C.R. could recoup their costs through the maintenance of monopoly rents. Our analysis suggests that antitrust prosecution was a significant threat to N.C.R., and ultimately forced the company to agree to abandon its most objectionable practices.

The increased digital interactions in the B2B industry have enhanced the importance of customer engagement as a measure of firm performance. This study aims to map and analyze temporal and spatial journeys for customer engagement in B2B markets from a bibliometric perspective.

The extant literature on customer engagement research in the B2B context was analyzed using bibliometric analysis. The citation analysis, keyword analysis, cluster analysis, three-field plot and bibliographic coupling were used to map the intellectual structure of customer engagement in B2B markets.

The research on customer engagement in the B2B context was studied more in western countries. The analysis suggests that customer engagement in B2B markets will take centre stage in the coming times as digital channels make it easier to track critical metrics besides other key factors. Issues like digital transformation, the use of artificial intelligence for virtual engagement, personalization, innovation and salesforce management by leveraging technology would be critical for improved B2B customer engagement.

The study provides a comprehensive reference to scholars working in this domain.

The study makes a pioneering effort to comprehensively analyze the vast corpus of literature on customer engagement in B2B markets for business insights.

LIBRARIES are not a first priority in the building programme of the nation. It would be difficult to make them so. The Library Association Council, we are assured, have this matter under consideration continually and will lose no opportunity to urge the need for extensions of old buildings and for new ones. The demand for libraries grows, in the face of other needs, at a pace which is both a pleasure and an embarassment to librarians. Some authorities have made provision for new libraries this year in budgets which come under consideration this month, and we hope the Ministry concerned will allow some of these projects to be realized.

The final report of the Butter Regulations Committee has now been published and it is earnestly to be hoped that Regulations based on the Committee's Recommendations will at once be framed and issued by the Board of Agriculture. It will be remembered that in an Interim Report the Committee recommended the adoption of a limit of 16 per cent. for the proportion of water in butter, and that, acting on this recommendation, the Board of Agriculture drew up and issued the “Sale of Butter Regulations, 1902,” under the powers conferred on the Board by Section 4 of the Food Act of 1899. In the present Report the Committee deal with the other matters referred to them, namely, as to what Regulations, if any, might with advantage be made for determining what deficiency in any of the normal constituents of butter, or what addition of extraneous matter other than water, should raise a presumption until the contrary is proved that the butter is not “genuine.” The Committee are to be congratulated on the result of their labours—labours which have obviously been both arduous and lengthy. The questions which have had to be dealt with are intricate and difficult, and they are, moreover, of a highly technical nature. The Committee have evidently worked with the earnest desire to arrive at conclusions which, when applied, would afford as great a measure of protection—as it is possible to give by means of legislative enactments—to the consumer and to the honest producer. The thorough investigation which has been made could result only in the conclusions at which the Committee have arrived, namely, that, in regard to the administration of the Food Acts, (1) an analytical limit should be imposed which limit should determine what degree of deficiency in those constituents which specially characterise butter should raise a presumption that the butter is not “genuine”; (2) that the use of 10 per cent. of a chemically‐recognisable oil in the manufacture of margarine be made compulsory; (3) that steps should be taken to obtain international co‐operation; and finally, that the System of Control, as explained by various witnesses, commends itself to the Committee.

It is seven years ago since I first took up the estimation of dirt in milk samples; there had been numerous complaints about dirty milk sold in Chester, and the Public Health Committee asked me if it would not be possible to estimate the dirt, so that proceedings could be taken against the milk sellers.