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The business environment for the past quarter‐century has been characterized by increasing competition, decreasing product life cycles, and growth of industrial organizations in terms of both human and physical assets. Coupled with these challenges are increased societal pressures for greater corporate accountability. In order to survive and eventually achieve myriad diverse objectives, decisionmakers are forced to extend planning horizons, introducing even greater levels of uncertainty. Moreover, the typical decision‐maker is further removed from action points, increasing the communications problem and rendering decisive management more difficult.

Resale price maintenance has been used as a management strategy for a long time. Even in the face of unfavorable court decisions, the concept, like a Phoenix, continues to rise from its ashes. Much evidence indicates a strong desire by some manufacturers to control their product's prices throughout a distribution channel. However, businesses must be careful not to overstep legal bounds in the implementation of an aggressive price policy. This article looks at resale price maintenance as a management technique and offers guidelines for the prospective marketer.

WE place this special Conference number in the hands of readers in the hope and belief that it will offer features of distinct interest which will increase the value and enjoyment of Brighton. There can be no doubt that the organizers of Library Association Conferences have endeavoured to surpass one another in recent years; almost always, it may be said, with success. Brighton, like Blackpool if in a rather different way, is a mistress of the art of welcome, and it will be long before another town can surpass her in the art. She is at her best in September when the great, and to some appalling, crowds of her promenades have thinned out a little. This year, then, librarians have an interesting time ahead; although, as we glance over the programme again, we fear that the outdoor and other pleasures we have subtly suggested will occur only fitfully. There will be so much to do in the way of business.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the great contributions made by the American library expert, Mary Elizabeth Wood, to Chinese library development.

As a pioneer of the modern library movement Mary Elizabeth Wood devoted herself to a Chinese library career. It was structured according to the following theme: setting up the Boone Library and introducing the modern American public library into China; establishing Boone Library School and initiating Chinese library science education; raising money and appealing for China's library development; helping forward the foundation of the Library Association of China; as well as promoting Chinese library intercommunion and cooperation with the West.

With the background of underdeveloped Chinese librarianship, Mary Elizabeth Wood introduced modern American public library spirit into China, opened the gate of Chinese library science, and promoted Chinese library science.

The paper discusses the library history of China and the role of an American librarian in Chinese library history; thus, it should be of wide interest to researchers involved in library history.

Mary Elizabeth Wood devoted herself to a Chinese library career, and promoted Chinese library science greatly, but research on her is limited. This paper considers her contribution to Chinese library science.

This paper aims to examine how the extant publication has related big data analytics (BDA) to supply chain planning (SCP). The paper presents a conceptual model based on the reviewed articles and the dominant research gaps and outlines the research directions for future advancement.

Based on a systematic literature review, this study analysed 72 journal articles and reported the descriptive and thematic analysis in assessing the established body of knowledge.

This study reveals the fact that literature on relating BDA to SCP has an ambiguous use of BDA-related terminologies and a siloed view on SCP processes that primarily focuses on the short-term. Looking at the big data sources, the objective of adopting BDA and changes to SCP, we identified three roles of big data and BDA for SCP: supportive facilitator, source of empowerment and game-changer. It bridges the conversation between BDA technology for SCP and its management issues in organisations and supply chains according to the technology-organisation-environmental framework.

This paper presents a comprehensive examination of existing literature on relating BDA to SCP. The resulted themes and research opportunities will help to advance the understanding of how BDA will reshape the future of SCP and how to manage BDA adoption towards a big data-driven SCP.

This study is unique in its discussion on how BDA will reshape SCP integrating the technical and managerial perspectives, which have not been discussed to date.

The chapter Technological Advances in Special Education provides information on advances of technology and how such technological advances have influenced students with disabilities and special education across the globe. The chapter presents technological advances that benefited students with disabilities in developed countries as well as potential technologies to support students with disabilities in developing countries. The scant exiting literature on developing countries suggests some universal themes regarding technology for students with disabilities including access and training. Additional attention and research is needed on assistive technology to support students with disabilities in both developed and developing countries, with recognition that what works is developed counties may not work in developing.

Workplace deviance remains a concern for many organizations, and narcissism has been identified as a primary contributor. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether political skill and ambition interact with narcissism to attenuate or exacerbate workplace deviance.

The authors surveyed a sample of 335 participants in leadership positions and empirically tested interactions among political skill, narcissism and ambition in predicting workplace deviance.

The authors performed moderated hierarchical regression analyses on the data to test the hypothesis and research question. Contrary to expectations, political skill attenuated the relationship between narcissism and workplace deviance. However, ambition was found to attenuate deviance, with the highest levels of deviance evident when narcissism was high, political skill was low, and ambition was also low.

Although research has examined the relationship between narcissism and workplace deviance, to the authors’ knowledge, the study is the first to examine the roles of political skill and ambition in attenuating the manifestation of narcissism into workplace deviance.

THE Reference Department of Paisley Central Library today occupies the room which was the original Public Library built in 1870 and opened to the public in April 1871. Since that date two extensions to the building have taken place. The first, in 1882, provided a separate room for both Reference and Lending libraries; the second, opened in 1938, provided a new Children's Department. Together with the original cost of the building, these extensions were entirely financed by Sir Peter Coats, James Coats of Auchendrane and Daniel Coats respectively. The people of Paisley indeed owe much to this one family, whose generosity was great. They not only provided the capital required but continued to donate many useful and often extremely valuable works of reference over the many years that followed. In 1975 Paisley Library was incorporated in the new Renfrew District library service.

An obvious way to improve acquisition performance is to avoid completing value-destroying acquisitions. However, once announced, manager motivations often focus on completing acquisitions. The authors develop how external governance actors can interpret acquisition characteristics and make counter-signals that acquiring firm managers could use to improve acquisition outcomes. The authors specifically develop how managers may react to counter-signals by shareholders, media, analysts, and short sellers. While there is limited research considering these external governance actors, evidence suggests that managers’ reactions to these actors may vary. A more integrated assessment of external governance actors’ influence on acquisition completion offers an opportunity to better understand acquisition processes and performance.

Strategic positioning of foreign firms in a host market is vital for their success. By integrating the resource partitioning theory and the resource-based view, this study aims to investigate foreign firms’ strategic positioning (i.e. their choice of generalist or specialist positioning strategy) and its performance implications in the US market.

The final sample includes 212 foreign companies from 28 countries operating in the US market. Multiple data sources were used to collect data of these foreign companies’ subsidiaries in the USA This study used logistic regression to test its major hypotheses.

The results of this study suggest that a generalist positioning strategy is positively related to performance in a host market. It is also found that market concentration and local market knowledge moderate this strategic positioning – performance relationship.

For a foreign firm that enters a host market, market concentration (an industry-level factor) in the host market and the firm’s local market knowledge (a firm-specific factor) play prominent roles in the strategic positioning – performance relationship.

This study offers a novel perspective of international business strategy by applying the lens of resource partitioning theory to study the relationships between multinational enterprises’ strategic positioning and performance. This study contributes to the strategy literature in that it examines the performance implications of firms’ strategic positioning (i.e. generalist or specialist positioning).