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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that management decision making and corporate strategy must start by questioning all prior assumptions and arguments, while focusing on simple fundamental truths.

The paper examines fundamental principles practiced by foreign‐owned transplants (e.g., Honda, Toyota, and Nissan) that have entered the automotive marketplace in the latter half of the twentieth century. They use lean production methods, while traditional industry players utilize mass production methods. The authors refer to these two production methods as “The Toyota Way” and “The Traditional Way.” Comparative analysis is conducted to identify and contrast key differences, which are examined using root cause analysis.

The paper finds that problems facing US industry could have been prevented, if companies had taken the time, and made the effort to fully understand the root causes.

Managers learn that it is beneficial to take time to properly identify and understand the root cause of any problem, no matter how large or small the problem may seem.

By turning 14 principles of lean management upside down the point is made in the paper is that one must start out questioning everything. Even changing something as simple as the order of principals examined could force a very different look at the situation. A summary of root cause analysis suggests a simple answer to the seemingly complex question: “If everyone knows what the problems are, then why isn't anyone fixing them?”

The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and human resources management researchers, we aim to contribute to the respective bodies of knowledge to provide both employers and employees with a workable foundation to help with those problems they are confronted with. However, what research on research has consistently demonstrated is that the scientific endeavor possesses existential issues including a substantial lack of (a) solid theory, (b) replicability, (c) reproducibility, (d) proper and generalizable samples, (e) sufficient quality control (i.e., peer review), (f) robust and trustworthy statistical results, (g) availability of research, and (h) sufficient practical implications. In this chapter, we first sing a song of sorrow regarding the current state of the social sciences in general and personnel and human resources management specifically. Then, we investigate potential grievances that might have led to it (i.e., questionable research practices, misplaced incentives), only to end with a verse of hope by outlining an avenue for betterment (i.e., open science and policy changes at multiple levels).

Satellite images can be a powerful source of data for analyses of conflict dynamics and social movements, but sociology has been slow to develop methods and metadata standards for transforming those images into data. We ask: How can satellite images become useful data? What are the key methodological and ethical considerations for incorporating high-resolution satellite images into conflict research? Why are metadata important in this work? We begin with a review of recent developments in satellite-based social scientific work on conflict, then discuss the technical and epistemological issues raised by machine processing of satellite information into user-ready images. We argue that high-resolution images can be useful analytical tools provided they are used with full awareness of their ethical and technical parameters. To support our analysis, we draw on two novel studies of satellite data research practices during the Syrian war. We conclude with a discussion of specific methodological procedures tried and tested in our ongoing work.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

The European Union (EU) is not a state, though it has some statelike attributes; it is not an empire, though it includes many former European imperial powers; and it is not a federation, though Euro-federalists seek to make it one. There is, however, no need to argue that the Union is a singularity, nor to invent novel terminology, such as that deployed by “neo-functionalists” and “intergovernmentalists” to capture its legal and political form. The EU is a confederation, but with consociational characteristics in its decision-making styles. This conceptualization facilitates understanding and helps explain the patterns of crises within the Union.

WE offer our readers good wishes for 1939. We hope that every kind of library may be allowed in peace to pursue its development for the spreading of good reading, to the end that enlightenment and with it wisdom may prevail amongst our millions of readers. We hope too that it will be another year of progress in service, in good and deftly‐employed technique, in the development of the will to make libraries interesting, attractive, useful and indeed inevitable and essential to all men. For librarians we hope it may be a further stage in the promotion of their profession, of growth of their own faith in it, and of increase in the willingness of those who employ librarians in municipalities, counties, colleges and other places to recognize training and service with better pay, prospects and status. We know that appreciation will not give greater willingness to serve; we do know it will give greater happiness.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

OF old the public library was wont to take its reputation from the character of the newsroom. That room, as everyone knows, attracts every element in the community and it may be it attracts especially the poorer elements;—even at times undesirable ones. These people in some towns, but perhaps not so often now‐a‐days, have been unwashen and often not very attractive in appearance. It was natural, things being as they are, that the room should give a certain tone to the institution, and indeed on occasion cause it to be avoided by those who thought themselves to be superior. The whole level of living has altered, and we think has been raised, since the War. There is poverty and depression in parts of the country, it is true; but there are relief measures now which did not exist before the War. Only those who remember the grinding poverty of the unemployed in the days, especially the winter days, before the War can realise what poverty really means at its worst. This democratic levelling up applies, of course, to the public library as much as to any institution. At present it may be said that the part of the library which is most apparent to the public and by which it is usually judged, is the lending or home‐reading department. It therefore needs no apology if from time to time we give special attention to this department. Even in the great cities, which have always concentrated their chief attention upon their reference library, to‐day there is an attempt to supply a lending library service of adequate character. We recall, for example, that the Leeds Public Library of old was first and foremost a reference library, with a lending library attached; to‐day the lending library is one of the busiest in the kingdom. A similar judgment can be passed upon Sheffield, where quite deliberately the city librarian would restrict the reference library to works that are of real reference character, and would develop more fully the lending library. In Manchester, too, the new “Reference Library”—properly the new Central Library—has a lending library which issues about 1,500 volumes daily. There must be all over the country many libraries issuing up to a thousand volumes each a day from their central lending departments. This being the case the department comes in for very careful scrutiny.

The purpose of this chapter is to offer reflections on conventional theories concerning causes and determinants of diseases. It also intends to examine both theoretical and empirical bases for adopting an Integrated Social-Ecological Systems (ISES) lens as a tool for understanding complexities related to drivers, determinants and causes of diseases.

We assessed the theoretical underpinnings of a range of historical and contemporary lenses for viewing infectious disease drivers and the implications of their use when used to explain both personal (i.e. individual) and population health. We examined these issues within the empirical context of the City of Dhaka (Bangladesh) by adopting an ISES lens. Within this study an emphasis has been placed on illustrating how feedback loops and non-linearity functions in systems have a direct bearing upon various aspects of infectious disease occurrences.

A brief triumph over microbes during the last century stemmed in part from our improved understanding of disease causation which was built using disciplinary-specific, monocausal approaches to the study of disease emergence. Subsequently, empirical inquiries into the multi-factorial aetiology and the ‘web of causation’ of disease emergence have extended frameworks beyond simplistic, individualistic descriptions of disease causation. Nonetheless, much work is yet to be done to understand the roles of complex, intertwined, multi-level, social-ecological factors in affecting disease occurrence. We argue, a transdisciplinary-oriented, ISES lens is needed to explain the complexities of disease occurrence at various and interacting levels. More theoretical and empirical formulations, with evidence derived from various parts of the world, is also required to further the debate.

Our study advances the theoretical as well as empirical basis for considering an integrated human-nature systems approach to explaining disease occurrence at all levels so that factors at the individual, household/neighbourhood, local, regional and global levels are not treated in isolation.

It is characteristic of the modern English universities that a close relationship exists between the library and the teaching departments. The fact that the library forms an integral part of the academic community, in daily, even hourly, touch with the teaching staff, has a profound bearing on every aspect of library policy. The academic staff take an active interest in the library, particularly in those parts of the library serving the teaching and research carried on in their own departments, and it is indeed not unusual for a professor to show as great a concern for the actual arrangement of the books on the shelves as for the addition of the right books and periodicals to the book stock.