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A small start-up company must make additional investments to maximize its firm value. But the company owner will not make this investment unless she can renegotiate outstanding debt claims. Solving this “debt overhang” problem through negotiation is the focus of the case. In this context, students are exposed to a variety of issues: the nature of financial claims, bargaining and negotiation fundamentals, and agency costs of debt.

Americans are increasingly aware that international business affects their lives. Consider the furor over foreign automobile imports or the concern about foreigners buying up U.S. farmland. Remember how excited U.S. soft drink manufacturers got about diplomatic recognition of China's teeming millions of thirsty citizens? Overseas sales by U.S. firms have been growing in both developed and underdeveloped countries. On the other hand, involvement of foreign businesses in the U.S. economy has been increasing at a “significant pace” recently. Given that knowledge has been equated with money and with power, the need for information on international or multinational business should be apparent. But what is the best source or sources of such information? Two directories of international business, Kelly's Manufacturers and Merchants Directory and the Who Owns Whom (WOW) directories, are in their ninety‐third and twenty‐first editions respectively. In addition there is Bottin International: International Business Register, less well‐known to Americans but equally venerable, now in its 182nd edition. Dun and Bradstreet's Principal International Businesses (PIB), in its seventh edition, is the relative newcomer to the field. This review will compare and contrast the above‐named directories, pointing out areas where they overlap and suggesting to what segment of library users each might appeal.

The main theme of this chapter is raising awareness and improving insights and planning abilities in relation to problems faced by people of colour, as individuals and in institutions. In promoting these skills, there is a need to recognize the role played by personal perceptions and emotions in the way in which we construe problems. Here, the author presents a personal construct psychology (Kelly, 1955, Ravenette, 1997) derived approach, which offers a way through the conceptual confusion clouding our thinking about aspects of our lives that concern us, and often leaves us lacking the energy and ability to loosen our thinking and move in the direction of rewarding new attitudes and behaviours.

This paper aims to explore effective supply chain principles, through the theory of transaction cost economics, as measures to improve current contingency pharmaceutical item shortfalls in the Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) Contingency Pharmaceutical Programme.

In this research, AFMS contingency pharmaceutical data was collected from various databases, including the Joint Medical Asset Repository, Medical Contingency Requirements Workflow and the Medical Requirements List. Through the methodology of cost-benefit analysis, alternative sourcing and fulfilment practices are evaluated.

The findings of this research indicate that the application of centralized purchasing principles, in an effort to leverage prime vendor contract fill rates for shortage items, can lead to 12%–17% increases in pharmaceutical material availability across the programme.

This research clearly shows that consolidating demand for shortage items across Active Duty War Reserve Material assemblages, though applications of centralized purchasing principles that leverage prime vendor contract fill rates, can lead to substantial increases in material availability at costs that justify the calculated benefits.

Role congruity theory and gender stereotypes research suggests men are expected to engage in agentic behavior and women in communal behavior as leaders, and that role violation results in backlash. However, extant gender and leadership research does not directly measure expectations–behavior incongruence. Further, researchers have only considered one condition of role incongruence – display of counter-role behavior – and have not considered the outcomes of failing to exhibit role-congruent behavior. Additionally, few studies have examined outcomes for male leaders who violate gender role prescriptions. The present study aims to address these shortcomings by conducting a novel empirical test of role congruity theory.

This experimental study used polynomial regression to assess how followers evaluated leaders under conditions of incongruence between follower expectations for men and women leaders’ behavior and leaders’ actual behavior (i.e. exceeded and unmet expectations). Respondents read a fictional scenario describing a new male or female supervisor, rated their expectations for the leader’s agentic and communal behavior, read manipulated vignettes describing the leader’s subsequent behavior, rated their perceptions of these behaviors, and evaluated the leader.

Followers expected higher levels of communal behavior from the female than the male supervisor, but no differences were found in expectations for agentic behavior. Regardless of whether expectations were exceeded or unmet, supervisor gender did not moderate the effects of agentic or communal behavior expectations–perceptions incongruence on leader evaluations in polynomial regression analyses (i.e. male and female supervisors were not evaluated differently when displaying counter-role behavior or failing to display role-congruent behavior).

In addition to providing a novel, direct test of role congruity theory, the study highlighted a double standard in gender role-congruent behavior expectations of men and women leaders. Results failed to support role congruity theory, which has implications for the future of theory in this domain.

Proposes investigating the work of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) QA Focus advisory service.

Outlines the work of JISC's QA Focus advisory service, which has been developing a quality assurance methodology and support service that aims to ensure that project deliverables will be interoperable.

The JISC vision for the Information Environment seeks to provide users with seamless access to quality resources which are distributed across a range of providers, including JISC services, the institutions themselves and commercial vendors. The vision is based on use of open standards, which will allow developers and end user institutions freedom of choice in the application they use to develop and provide access to resources. This approach is reliant on use of open standards to ensure interoperability.

This paper is useful for those who plan to use the JISC's QA Focus advisory service.

Oxenfeldt and Kelly argue somewhat tongue in cheek, that franchising as a vertical market structure is advantageous to a successful franchisor primarily in the early stages of his market expansion. They also suggest that this market device has further meaning to a would‐be franchisor for the exploitation of marginal distribution locations. They go on to state that: “If we are correct, it will be clear that the great importance attributed to franchising as a source of investment and employment, and as a haven for independent entrepreneural spirits, is largely mistaken”.