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The universality of the health system in Canada is often emphasised to contrast the differences between the Canadian and American systems of access to care. However, changes in migration patterns and tightening of administrative procedures around undocumented persons are beginning to challenge this Canadian image. Currently, there is a lack of data to support the existence and the consequences of this shift. This pilot project documents health care professionals' and community organisation workers' perceptions of the problems faced by recent migrants in accessing health care, and the health consequences of such barriers. Results confirm the existence of numerous health care access problems for both completely undocumented migrants and legal migrants who fall into the cracks of the provincial and federal health systems. The data suggests that these barriers may have important unrecognised morbidity and mortality consequences, and that they are a source of severe stress and psychological distress. To protect recent immigrant families, there is a need not only to revise the articulation between the provincial and federal health mandates but also to address the strong societal perception linking universality of health care to the notion of citizenship. Further research is warranted on this emerging social problem, but the institutional sensitivity of these issues may constitute an obstacle to a more comprehensive understanding.

Globalization, says a recent study, “is in danger of becoming, if it has not already become, the cliche of our times: the big idea which encompasses everything from global financial markets to the Internet but which delivers little substantive insight into the contemporary human condition.” That study, although lamenting that globalization “lacks precise definition,” nevertheless defines it as “a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions — assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact — generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise of power.” Public debates on globalization often generate more political heat than analytical light; yet we cannot avoid studying globalization for, as the Finnish scholar Raimo Väyrynen notes, “it is an important, pervasive historical trend whose consequences will be accentuated in the new millennium.”

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the success of the 50 EURO STOXX companies as measured by the earnings before taxes (EBT) and the percentage of female members on their supervisory boards.

The paper relies on data extracted from the annual reports of the 50 EURO STOXX companies in 2015 and from financial websites.

The paper provides the existence of a weak correlation between companies’ performance as measured by EBT and the percentage of women on supervisory boards.

This study has two main limitations: first, a single key performance indicator was used to measure firms’ success; and second, the study offers insights related only to the year 2015. The analysis could be extended over a larger time span while some other variables could be considered in a more holistic approach.

The paper raises awareness that there is much to be done with regard to the presence of women on boards, and readers, investors and business owners gain an insight on the business environment and women active on European corporate boards.

By concentrating on the companies of the EURO STOXX 50 Index, the study offers a good image of the European business environment.

The Indian higher educational system is one of the largest in the world. Besides, the growth of students and universities, the range of disciplines and universities in professional and vocational education has greatly increased. With the sudden immense growth of the educational institutes all over the country, educational institutions must improve the quality of their services to compete and achieve a leading position. Orientation towards quality and competitiveness in higher education in India has thus started gaining the attention of the policy makers, educational planners, and administrators as also the various stakeholders of the educational system. With the internal and external stakeholders becoming more demanding in a gradually liberalizing Indian economy, the issues related to quality need to be addressed from varying perspectives on the very conceptualization, implementation, and assessment. Starting with a theoretical background, the purpose of this paper is to present the results of an empirical study conducted on the administrative staff, so as to obtain the internal customer's perspective on quality.

Based on the literature review followed by a pilot study and an earlier study based on the quality function deployment technique, certain elements critical to quality management in education are identified. Thereafter, the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) technique is applied.

The ISM technique helps prioritize the strategic issues in quality assessment qualitatively, so as to propose a hierarchical structure through prioritizing, sequencing, and categorizing of ideas. The elements are classified as drivers, enablers and dependents, and the hierarchically structured.

The adoption of such a framework in educational institutions would lead to the creation of an environment where the administrative staff would be satisfied and in turn, be able to deliver quality service to the other customers and stakeholders.

An implementation of the integrated framework of such critical components can help policy makers, educational planners, and administrators as also the various stakeholders of the educational system contribute towards growth, success and survival in the rapidly changing environment.