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Michael Barron and David Targett argue in favour of forecasting playing a relevant part in decision making. They point out that forecasting possesses reliable techniques, it is only when the gap between the producers of forecasts and the users is too great that managerial scepticism intervenes. They suggest ways of overcoming this.

In recent times there has been a change of emphasis in business forecasting. The shift has been away from the technical and statistical aspects. More thought is now being given to the way in which techniques are used and the context in which they are applied. This article is the first in a series of two which deal with these issues. It describes the role of the manager in forecasting. In particular, it discusses the tasks in designing and planning a forecasting system which are the key to its success and which fall within a manager's responsibility. The second article is concerned with the link between forecasts and the decisions they support.

Forecasting experts are not always sufficiently knowledgeable about the way their forecasts are used by managers. Consequently there is a tendency for them to focus excessively on forecast accuracy instead of decision usefulness. This article draws on modern information theory to provide some insights into the problem of identifying relevance and recognising value for money in market research and sales forecasts.

Emphasizes the importance now placed on maintainability of military aircraft by the US Department of Defense. Describes how Lockheed Martin have used Delmia simulation software to simplify and speed up routine maintenance tasks for the next‐generation joint strike fighter (JSF). Ergonomics and the use of realistic human models have played a key role in determining maintenance procedures.

This chapter combines insights from organizational theory and the entrepreneurship literature to inform a process-based conception of organizational founding. In contrast to previous discrete-event approaches, the conception argues that founding be viewed as a series of potential entrepreneurial activities – including initiation, resource mobilization, legal establishment, social organization, and operational startup. Drawing on an original data set of 591 entrepreneurs, the study examines the effect of structural, strategic, and environmental contingencies on the relative rates with which different founding activities are pursued. Results demonstrate that social context has a fairly pervasive impact on the occurrence and sequencing of founding processes, with one possible exception being the timing of legal establishment.

My warm thanks to Dean James Hunt, Provost, and Professor Jacqueline Muir-Broaddus, Chair of the Psychology Department, for making a home at Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas, for cultural ergonomics and the International Center of Cultural Ergonomics, and for facilitating preparation of this book. Southwestern students Kendra Francisco, Staci Benson, and Ellen Gass contributed helpful assistance. At Elsevier, Fiona Barron, Publishing Editor, has been extraordinarily helpful, and the consideration and support there from Becky Lewsey and Deborah Raven have been particularly noteworthy. Dr. Pierre Falzon, Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris, made possible the acquisition of documents written by Professor Alain Wisner, who died recently. Computer advice and assistance provided by Richard H. Troxell have been invaluable. Communication and interchange of documents and information with Dr. Eduardo Salas at the University of Central Florida were facilitated by Marcella Maresco and Diana Furman.

Institutional ethnography (IE) is a sociology that focuses on the everyday world as problematic. As a theory/method of discovery, it focuses on how the work people do is organized and coordinated by text-mediated and text-regulated social organization. Actor-network Theory (ANT) is a theory/method that is concerned with how realities get enacted. ANT focuses on a multiplicity of human and nonhuman actors (e.g., computers, documents, and laboratory equipment) and how the relations between them are constituted and how they are made to hang together to create certain realities. In this chapter, we discuss some of the similarities and differences between IE and ANT. We begin with an overview of IE and ANT and focus on their ontological and epistemological “shifts.” We then discuss some of the similarities and differences between IE and ANT, particularly from an IE stance. In doing so, we put these approaches into dialog and allude to some of the potential benefits and pitfalls of combining these approaches.

National Animal Health Week, usually the last week in May, was instituted by presidential proclamation in 1984. (The related observances Be Kind to Animals Week, sponsored by the American Humane Association, and National Pet Week, sponsored by the Auxiliary to the American Veterinary Medical Association, are usually celebrated during the first full week in May.)