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The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers that higher education (HE) work-based learners face when constructing experiential learning claims through reflective narratives.

A survey of 38 part-time, HE undergraduate work-based learners was conducted. A questionnaire was designed comprising Likert scale and open ended questions to capture students’ experiences of constructing experiential learning claims.

The study found that students experience several learning barriers including the diversity and complexity of reflective learning models, the solitary nature of reflective learning, problems articulating tacit knowledge in writing, emotional barriers to reflective learning, accurately recalling “historic” learning experiences and difficulties in developing the meta-competence of learning to learn.

Consideration should be given to assisting learners to develop the skills necessary to select and use reflective learning models that best fit particular experiential learning contexts. Learners should be encouraged to undertake group reflection in the classroom and in the workplace to enable them to write critical reflective narratives that have integrity. There should be less reliance on written reflective narratives to evidence tacit knowledge with consideration given to other methods such as practical demonstrations, videos presentations and interviews.

The study contributes to knowledge of the barriers that students face when constructing experiential learning claims through reflective narratives. It proposes an outline pedagogical scaffolding framework to assist learners to develop recognition of prior learning (RPL) claims to enable them to maximise opportunities for claiming credits through universities RPL processes.

Devotes the entire journal issue to managing human behaviour in US industries, with examples drawn from the airline industry, trading industry, publishing industry, metal products industry, motor vehicle and parts industry, information technology industry, food industry, the airline industry in a turbulent environment, the automotive sales industry, and specialist retailing industry. Outlines the main features of each industry and the environment in which it is operating. Provides examples, insights and quotes from Chief Executive Officers, managers and employees on their organization’s recipe for success. Mentions the effect technology has had in some industries. Talks about skilled and semi‐skilled workers, worker empowerment and the formation of teams. Addresses also the issue of change and the training that is required to deal with it in different industry sectors. Discusses remuneration packages and incentives offered to motivate employees. Notes the importance of customers in the face of increased competition. Extracts from each industry sector the various human resource practices that companies employ to manage their employees effectively ‐ revealing that there is a wide diversity in approach and what is right for one industry sector would not work in another. Offers some advice for managers, but, overall, fails to summarize what constitutes effective means of managing human behaviour.

This monograph contains abstracts from the 2005 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, 6‐7th September 2005

A highly significant action taken by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, reported elsewhere in this issue, could well result in important advances in surveillance and probably legislative control over enforcement of certain aspects of EEC legislation in the Member‐states. The Minister has sent an urgent request to the Commission in Brussels to dispatch inspectors to each country, including the United Kingdom, to examine and report on the standards of inspection and hygiene with detailed information on how the EEC Directive on Poultry Meat is being implemented. Information of the method of financing the cost of poultrymeat inspection in each country has ben requested. The comprehensive survey is seen as a common approach in this one field. The Minister requested that the results of the inspectors' reports should be available to him and other Member‐states.

“Consumerism”, for want of a better description, is given to the mass of statutory control (which shows no sign of declining) of standards, trading justice to the consumer, means of redress to those who have been misled and defrauded, advice to those in doubt; and to the widespread movement, mostly in the Western world, to achieve these ends.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Examines the marketing problem of knowing what customers look for in a product. Claims that for some product groups, consumers may evaluate products and their characteristics differently from what is expected, and that consumers may distort or bias their evaluation of products in the marketplace. Reports on a study that suggests that consumers may distort their evaluations of products on the basis of beliefs about how certain product attributes should go together. Finally, offers implications and recommendations in terms of how marketers may address what is referred to as “systematic distortion” of products.

From earliest times the land and all it produced to feed and sustain those who dwelt on it was mankind's greatest asset. From the Biblical “land of milk and honey”, down through history to the “country of farmers” visualised by the American colonists when they severed the links with the mother country, those who had all their needs met by the land were blessed — they still are! The inevitable change brought about by the fast‐growing populations caused them to turn to industry; Britain introduced the “machine age” to the world; the USA the concept of mass production — and the troubles and problems of man increased to the present chaos of to‐day. There remained areas which depended on an agri‐economy — the granary countries, as the vast open spaces of pre‐War Russia; now the great plains of North America, to supply grain for the bread of the peoples of the dense industrial conurbations, which no longer produced anything like enough to feed themselves.

Looks at the contemporary debate on US immigration, focusing particularly on the increasing articulation of eugenics. Notes that, at times of economic and moral crisis, biological generalizations tend to resurface to provide support for the existing system of privilege and rights, and that the information superhighway provides the perfect vehicle for rapidly spreading beliefs and information. Addresses three specific issues – the genetically determined traits and behaviours of specific racial groups, culture as an expression of biological characteristics, and immigration destroying the racial purity of American society. Outlines briefly US history of immigration. Airs the current concerns on US immigration – pinpointing that concern lies not in immigration per se., which has declined in the last decade, but in the changing national origin of new immigrants, that is immigrants are now mainly Latin American or Asian, which is seen as a threat to Anglo‐Saxon hegemony. Refers to the work of the Pioneer Fund, exploring human variation through the racial basis of intelligence and propensity to violence and/or crime. Claims that scientific language has been adapted to reinforce worries about immigration reducing the supremacy of America’s culture.

The British countryman is a well‐known figure; his rugged, obstinate nature, unyielding and tough; his part in the development of the nation, its history, not confined to the valley meadows and pastures and uplands, but nobly played in battles and campaigns of long ago. His “better half”—a term as true of yeoman stock as of any other—is less well known. She is as important a part of country life as her spouse; in some fields, her contribution has been even greater. He may grow the food, but she is the provider of meals, dishes, specialties, the innovating genius to whom most if not all British food products, mostly with regional names and now well‐placed in the advertising armentarium of massive food manufacturers, are due. A few of them are centuries old. Nor does she lack the business acumen of her man; hens, ducks, geese, their eggs, cut flowers, the produce of the kitchen garden, she may do a brisk trade in these at the gate or back door. The recent astronomical price of potatoes brought her a handsome bonus. If the basic needs of the French national dietary are due to the genius of the chef de cuisine, much of the British diet is due to that of the countrywoman.