Search results

Construction organisations are becoming increasingly aware of the impacts of their operations, from both an environmental and, more recently, a social viewpoint. Sustainability standards can enable an organisation to evidence a benchmarked level of performance against a particular issue. To date, research on standards has largely focused on the operational and administrative aspects of their enactment, rather than how they might affect – and be appropriated by – organisational actors. The purpose of this paper is to examine how capacity for learning can affect the success of implementing standards within two construction SMEs.

Taking an organisational learning and absorptive capacity (ACAP) perspective, this research uses the case study approach and abductive logic to understand what role learning plays with regard to sustainability standard implementation.

The results reveal that strong communication channels and commitment to training programmes increase the capacity for implementing standards, but that SMEs tend only to approach standards if they see immediate financial benefits stemming from their implementation.

SMEs provide a challenging context for the implementation of sustainability standards unless there are significant external levers and extrinsic motivation for them to be embraced. Care should be taken in incorporating these aspects into the future design of standards that are more aligned with SME needs.

Stakeholders should seek to apply pressure to firms to positively influence engagement with sustainability standards.

The role and importance of ACAP is an underdeveloped debate in the certification field. This study is the first that links the process of implementing a standard with the ACAP of an organisation.

Making Fine Powders ‐ Extremely fine and uniform particles, of 5–50 nanometers, have been produced by a process being developed at Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories. Researchers have used the technique to synthesize new, highly dispersed catalysts with a high surface area. It offers a way to make other products which have improved properties: ceramic ball bearings and gears which are stronger and more durable than those available today, and pigments for paints and inks.

Manders (Holdings) plc announces the acquisition of the business of McNeill & Co (Decorations) Ltd., a decorators' merchant distributing leading brands of paint, wallcoverings and decorating sundries through its five branches in Belfast, Londonderry and New‐townards.

To present an overview of the research and development carried out by an EC Framework 6 part funded consortium, known as MICROSCAN, for the implementation of an in‐line PCB inspection prototype system that is capable of offering comprehensive defect detection.

Four non‐destructive testing inspection modules based on digital radiography (X‐ray) inspection, thermal inspection, automated‐optical inspection and acoustic inspection have been integrated to form a combined inspection system.

A proof in principle in‐line PCB inspection system, utilising four different inspection techniques, has been developed and demonstrated. The system is based on a generic mechanical, electrical and software communications platform culminating in a flexible system that enables the inspection modules to be used separately, together or interchanged to give the best results in terms of inspection coverage and inspection throughput.

In its current embodiment, the prototype is suited to inspection of high‐return PCBs, particularly those used in medical and aerospace products, rather than high‐throughput PCB production work. The X‐ray inspection module is the slowest inspection technique and combining four different inspection techniques reduces the inspection throughput of the whole system to that of the X‐ray inspection module. Further, trials and investigations need to be carried out to improve inspection throughput.

The novelty of the system is that it is the first time that four inspection techniques have been combined to give the capability of 100 per cent defect coverage.

In his introduction to Golspie: Contributions to its Folklore, Nicholson tells how he and his wife and three daughters first went there during the summer of 1891 when, crowded out of Nairn and seeking shores “for the feet of the paddler or the spade of the digger”, they found there “all that we craved”. His book is a charming medley of children's games, ghost stories, customs and superstitions, weather beliefs and archæology—with special emphasis on Pictish inscriptions. It was printed by the Oxford University Press and published by David Nutt in dark green cloth. A Highland scene and four happy little girls playing the local ring game of Hilli Ballu—over one fine of its air—are gold stamped on the front board; the locally significant wild cat's head decorates the spine and there is an outline map of Sutherland on the back. The whole book is obviously the work of a man of wide human sympathies, insatiable curiosity, untiring perseverance and an immense affection for children. Are there better basic qualities for a librarian? Golspie is equally obviously the work of a dogmatic man who takes himself and his thoughts and activities very seriously, and who displays few signs of a sense of humour. But then these basic qualities have manifested themselves in other librarians also. Who was this E. W. B. Nicholson and what did he do?

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of leadership learning in the entrepreneurial context, by building a dynamic learning perspective of entrepreneurship. It draws on contemporary leadership literature to appreciate entrepreneurial leadership as a social process of becoming located in particular contexts and communities.

Through qualitative phenomenological interviews with nine entrepreneurs the lived experience of learning to lead is explored. The principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) are utilised to analyse the data and enable inductive theory‐building.

The findings illustrate situated leadership patterns and relationships unique to the entrepreneurial context. A number of significant structural and experiential factors are identified that both shape and restrict the development of leadership practice in small ventures. Specifically, the limited opportunities for leadership enactment and observation, the dominance of the business as the crucible for leadership learning, the influence of the family and the low salience of leadership are highlighted.

In appreciating the leadership learning task that nascent entrepreneurs are faced with it is vital that further research delves deeper into the varying levels of “leadership preparedness” brought to new venture creation. From a policy perspective, there is significant value in enabling entrepreneurs to engage in meaningful dialogue, critical reflection and purposive action with their peers through the creation of leadership “learning networks”.

The research demonstrates leadership learning processes and pathways that are significantly different to those experienced by managers in the employed context. In so doing, this article represents the first systematic attempt to apply a learning perspective to the subject of entrepreneurial leadership.

This is the most readable and rewarding book that has yet been written on library history. The second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth have seen almost the whole development of libraries from what may be called the age of the primitives to the present day, which will doubtless in its turn come to be regarded as near‐primitive. And nowhere, not even perhaps in the British Museum, has the contrast between 1845 and 1945 been more striking than in the Bodleian.

Balancing the relationship between commitment to work and commitment to family is becoming a major issue in the modern workplace of industrialized nations. In addition, regional economic integration is fast becoming a reality in all three legs of the TRIAD (Europe, Japan, and the United States). Rationalized production is occurring at a fast pace across North America. The Enterprise for the Americas Initiative seeks to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from the Alaskan Yukon to Tierra del Fuego in Southern Chile and many American corporations are moving some production jobs to countries in Latin America. In spite of these labour trends, very little is known about the attitudes of workforces in these emerging labour markets regarding the balance between commitments to work and family. Results of research comparing work‐family orientation values among Chile, Venezuela, Mexico and the United States are presented. Implications for both researchers and managers are discussed.

Ian Kitching has been appointed head of technical services at Valspar Paints.

There was a time, in the not too distant past, when choosing a library system was more often than not a simple matter of deciding to take the one option on offer, for example, the single commercial system on sale in a library's particular geographical area, or a proposal to develop an “in‐house” system on an existing computer with available capacity. It is conceivable, though perhaps unlikely, that the matter will again become simple and straightforward — if library automation should one day reach a point of development where there are no important new horizons to be explored and all surviving systems can do everything that might be required of them in as many ways as may be required of them, and if library procedures become, as a result of automation, more standardised and more susceptible to automated solutions in general, then a stage may be reached where for a library of a particular type and size there is one recognised choice of system. In current circumstances, however, choosing a system is a complex and difficult task, requiring, at minimum, many months of detailed research. It is safe to say, moreover, that this situation is not likely to alter appreciably in the foreseeable future.