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Academic libraries have long desired one‐stop shopping for their customers and, in this electronic age, their customers are demanding it: a way to search from a single point at any physical location, and retrieve information from the library catalog, citations from journal indexes, and full text information from electronic resources. Academic libraries have explored ways to provide this access, as have library vendors of electronic databases, indexes, and integrated online library systems. The various components for a universal common user interface are in use and available, but have yet to be combined into a single system interface, adaptable enough to include any electronic resource, yet still powerful and versatile enough to provide a powerful and expert search engine. This article discusses the integrated facets as well as the system components that should be built into the ideal electronic library interface, taking into account the information needs of everyone from the newest freshman to the most erudite scholar and their expectations with regard to access, functionality and personalization.

Selecting, installing, and implementing an integrated library system is a time consuming and expensive undertaking. Factors that can result in disappointment (and even regret) are always present, and must be anticipated, recognized and properly handled. The experiences of libraries (that were in the vanguard of those installing automated sytems) provide an important resource from which other libraries can benefit. The experience of Texas A&M with the selection and implementation of DataPhase system is a particularly interesting (on‐going) case study. Two sidebars present the current perspectives of DataPhase Corporation and the Texas A&M University Library administration.

In this chapter we compare and contrast our relationships with clients in our roles as expert witnesses, consultants, and specialists with the relationships we have with our subjects and informants as research anthropologists and as we collect ethnographic data. While there are qualities that differentiate the relationships we have as expert witnesses, consultants, and specialists with our clients from the relationships that we develop as anthropologists working with informants in the field, there are also important similarities. We build upon our experiences as anthropologists and our roles serving as expert witnesses, specialists, and consultants to argue that the similarities and differences must be considered. Specifically, we examine the concept of guilt and innocence for informants and clients, the place of the individual in the group, and the larger cultural framework that defines our clients and informants as individuals worthy of our interest.

Forcibly displaced populations face economic, social, and spatial restrictions that impact how they navigate and make sense of their surroundings. In refugee camps, children and youth’s agency may look less dynamic and obvious. In this study, the authors examine the concept of “thin agency” or “everyday agency” in children’s and youth’s daily decisions and actions in a highly restrictive environment. By analyzing written narratives of 55 adolescent girls in Kakuma Refugee Camp, the authors find that children and youth are constantly exercising agency and/or are actively involved in “agentic practices” on a spectrum consisting of three major categories: thinking, action, and change. Hence, the authors propose taking a balanced approach in the field of refugee education that recognizes not only the multiple complex challenges in forced displacement but also the capabilities and strengths embedded in both the personal and social sphere that help children and youth overcome those barriers.

Drawing on new insights from the experiences and perspectives of a prominent reporting client and its assurance team, the purpose of this paper is to explore the question: what are challenges to the legitimacy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting and assurance?

Using a qualitative research approach, in-depth, semi-structured interviews are conducted with a Fortune 200 firm’s Vice President responsible for CSR oversight (including CSR reporting), and with the report’s assurance team from a Top 20 accounting firm. Questions are informed by existing literature, and analysis focuses on new insights that conform to, or contrast with, prior studies in areas that may challenge the legitimacy of CSR reporting.

The study documents that reporting and assurance may often serve the respective commercial and professional interests of the firm and the assuror, rather than providing accountability to the public interest. Specifically, the authors find that legitimacy-challenging instances of managerial capture of CSR reporting may co-exist in a firm with management-as-CSR-champion, in contrast with existing literature. Prior research has assumed these two constructs are not likely to co-exist within a single organization. The interviews suggest that managerial influence is fostered by the lack of reporting standards and the absence of agreement regarding the over-arching purpose of CSR reports and their assurance.

Going forward, researchers should consider the multifaceted role management can play in CSR reporting and assurance, rather than treating managerial capture and management-as-champion as mutually exclusive. Future research could also examine how standards may balance desired comparability with flexibility in CSR reporting.

The study will interest report users who may assume that a seemingly supportive management would not play a restrictive role in the reporting and assurance processes. Reporters and assurors will benefit from reading the perspectives provided by professionals engaged in similar work, including the challenges they face, such as the consequences resulting from the lack of standards for CSR reporting and assurance.

The study is the first to provide a behind-the-scenes view of the report–assuror dyad by interviewing both the reporting firm and the assurance team engaged on the same CSR report.

Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.

Organizational downsizing, right sizing, layoffs, and restructuring that attempt to reduce labour cost and increase competitiveness, have generated considerable feelings of job insecurity among today's employees. Conversely, the rapidity of change in the Middle Eastern region, coupled with the unpredictability of economic conditions, the inevitable need to survive and the ever‐lasting craving for organizational success merge to aggravate the adverse effects of job insecurity. The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between job insecurity and powerlessness, management trust, peer trust and job satisfaction within Lebanon.

Employees working within medium‐sized organizations in Lebanon were surveyed to measure their perceptions of job insecurity, job satisfaction, powerlessness, and interpersonal trust. Statistical analyses were performed using Pearson correlation matrix and linear regression tests.

The study identified significant positive relationship between job insecurity and powerlessness, and negative relationships between job insecurity and management trust and job satisfaction. No significant relationship was found between job insecurity and peer trust.

The study adds to the existing job insecurity literature by empirically testing the relationship between job insecurity and powerlessness, peer trust, management trust and job satisfaction within Lebanese organizations. The researchers hope that this study will assist managers in understanding the importance of earning their subordinates' trust and its implications on job insecurity which could also negatively affect job satisfaction. Also, the issue of powerlessness should be seriously considered by management since it triggers the feeling of job insecurity.

Western organizational behavior literature has given the topic of job insecurity significant attention. However, no scholarly research has yet examined the topic of job insecurity within the Middle East. This paper sheds light on important results regarding job insecurity and its consequences. Powerlessness predicts and aggravates job insecurity, and is affected by the nature of the job; trust in management has a negative effect on job insecurity, while peer trust has no influence. Also, job satisfaction is influenced by the perceptions of job insecurity.

Secondary customers often experience secondary vulnerabilities that manifest in family-centred transformative services as other- and self-related customer needs. Yet, a relational perspective on primary and secondary customers’ needs is lacking. The study analyses secondary customers’ needs and their relationship to primary customers’ needs to enhance well-being in customer entities. The service inclusion lens is used to understand customers’ experiences of vulnerability.

The study uses an exploratory approach. The data consists of ethnographic observations and interviews of elderly residents (primary customers), their family members (secondary customers) and nurses in two nursing homes.

Primary and secondary customers’ needs are interrelated (or unrelated) in four ways: they are separate, congruent, intertwined or discrepant. The vulnerability experiences fluctuate in intensity and over time, individually reflecting on these need dimensions.

The study contributes to service research concerning customers’ experiences of vulnerability, secondary customers and their inclusion in services. Primary customers’ service inclusion may increase/decrease secondary customers’ service inclusion and their experience of vulnerability. Moreover, secondary customers’ inclusion is often necessary to foster primary customers’ inclusion and well-being.

Fostering service inclusion and well-being for primary and secondary customers requires balanced inclusion and acknowledging the needs of both groups. Service providers may need to act as moderators within customer entities if discrepant needs occur.

The study addresses the under-researched areas of family members’ customer needs, their relation to primary customers’ needs, experiences of secondary vulnerability and context-related vulnerability.