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The purpose of this paper is to use an evaluation of a micro-place-based hot-spot policing implementation to highlight the potential issues raised by data quality standards in the recording and measurement of crime data and police officer movements.

The study focusses on an area of London (UK) which used a predictive algorithm to designate micro-place patrol zones for each police shift over a two-month period. Police officer movements are measured using GPS data from officer-worn radios. Descriptive statistics regarding the crime data commonly used to evaluate this type of implementation are presented, and simple analyses are presented to examine the effects of officer patrol duration (dosage) on crime in micro-place hot-spots.

The results suggest that patrols of 10-20 minutes in a given police shift have a significant impact on reducing crime; however, patrols of less than about 10 minutes and more than about 20 minutes are ineffective at deterring crime.

Due to the sparseness of officer GPS data, their paths have to be interpolated which could introduce error to the estimated patrol dosages. Similarly, errors and uncertainty in recorded crime data could have substantial impact on the designation of micro-place interventions and evaluations of their effectiveness.

This study is one of the first to use officer GPS data to estimate patrol dosage and places particular emphasis on the issue of data quality when evaluating micro-place interventions.

The purpose of this study is to explore the information culture of people living with Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and how that impacts their self-management practices in Ghana. The study focuses on the information experiences and information cultural patterns and creates awareness of the need for people to be aware of effective information management for sustainable self-management support.

An interpretive qualitative approach was used. A total of 12 interviewees involving 10 diabetes patients and 2 health professionals provided data for the study. Allowing the participants to freely talk about their attitude and behaviour, defining their experiences around information for their self-management was the best approach to achieve an in-depth understanding this study seeks.

The specific elements defining the information of people living with DM in Ghana can be identified. People living with the condition are willing to share information about their condition not only with those within their diabetic community but also with anyone interested. They prefer to use information from sources they find reliable and trust, and they have good information-related competencies that are consistent with diabetic patients in other countries’ contexts to help them identify, access, use and share relevant information. Only a few of the interviewees have difficulty in evaluating the accuracy and currency of some of the information. But they receive a lot of support from experienced people from their community. People also prefer to have information about the condition in their ethnic language. It is important for people living with the condition in Ghana to get involved in the diabetic groups, clubs and community, as members appear to receive the most benefit and support from the community to self-manage the condition alone.

The study is limited by the number of participants and the distances between the researchers and the research context. Also, even though two groups of participants were interviewed (diabetic patients and health professionals), the analysis did not separate the responses of the different groups of study participants. This paper provides a useful insight and understanding of the culture of people living with diabetes in Ghana in terms of how they access, use and share the information they need to support their self-management. It will create awareness of the importance of being mindful of information culture patterns in people in other groups in Ghana and beyond. The research processes and procedures described in the paper can be replicated by other researchers in other contexts.

Although there have been a lot of studies about diabetes and people living with the condition in Ghana, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study looking at how people define their need for information, how they identify the source of the information and how they access and use the information, including their general behavioural patterns that influence these information experiences.

This study incorporates two Chinese cultural variables guanxi (personal relationship) and xinyong (personal trust) with other relational variables that are well defined in the west, i.e. supplier competence, commitment, conflict handling and satisfaction to see how they generate partnership relationship in a sino‐western relationship marketing context.

Research objectives are achieved through a combination of model building, quantitative design, testing of hypotheses using AMOS and analysis of findings. The subject scope is imbedded within cultural impact on relationship marketing in a sino‐western context.

This study finds that Western suppliers must be competent in product knowledge, market development, and adaptation to buyers' requirements to resolve conflicts in order to establish their xinyong with the buyers. Competence allows suppliers to show psychological commitment and establish guanxi with the buyers. It also shows that guanxi has a stronger influence on xinyong than on satisfaction. Suppliers should use guanxi to generate buyer's perception on xinyong whilst maintaining a reasonable level of buyer satisfaction with their products and services. Also, relationship between xinyong and satisfaction is not significant. A buyer's satisfaction on the supplier's product and services does not necessarily mean that this buyer perceives the supplier having xinyong because Chinese mix (up) business with personal relationships together and sometimes they make trade‐off between them!

This relationship study was conducted in a single‐product relationship context within the clothing industry in the PRC environment and therefore, its findings may not be generalised to other industry. Future Chinese relationship study should increase the sample size so as to cover more industries to allow comparison across industries. This is especially valid between a manufacturing and a service‐based industry. A service‐based industry may even emphasize more on guanxi and xinyong because of its intangible aspects! Future research should include the xinyong constructs, the concepts of face and reciprocity. To what extent these important Chinese cultural values affect satisfaction and xinyong have not been determined.

Effective conflict handling skills and guanxi are vital to formulate a xinyong positioning strategy. A supplier must be competent in product knowledge, market development skills, and adapt to a buyer's requirements to resolve conflicts with the buyer to establish xinyong.

This research is an initial attempt to establish the relationship between guanxi, xinyong and partnership relationship and generates a new research area in Chinese relationship marketing.

Since the mid‐1960s scholars have sought to better understand the issues which affect the effectiveness of buyer‐seller interactions. While much progress has been made, existing knowledge is rather scattered and disjointed due to a lack of integration. Assesses the contributions of various research frameworks and incorporates them into a comprehensive model of the buyer‐seller relationship. Of particular importance is the model’s focus on the interaction environment of the buyer‐seller relationship. Provides a discussion and rationale for the variables included in the contingency framework and discusses the implications of the proposed model.

MUCH has already been said and written upon the subject of the indicator: but in view of the general trend of advanced Public Library administration a little space may with advantage be devoted again to the consideration of its value as a modern library appliance. Passing over (a) the decision of that curiously constituted committee formed in 1879 to consider and report on indicators, and (b) the support which it received in 1880 from the Library Association, it may be said that for the next fourteen or fifteen years the indicator system was the popular, almost the universal, system in vogue throughout the country. Of late years professional opinion as to its value has undergone a remarkable change. The reaction which has set in was brought about chiefly by the introduction of Open Access in 1894, with the many reforms that accompanied it, though much, doubtless, was due to the prevalence of a more exact and systematic knowledge of librarianship, and to the natural evolution of ideas. It is not, however, intended in this paper to compare the indicator with the open access system, but with others suitable to the requirements of a closed library.

The purpose of this study is to examine the actions and interactions that take place before and after purchase between a service provider (service seller) and its customers (service buyers) in complex business relationships. Specifically, it is to examine customers’ expectations of the service provider’s service offer before purchase and the same customers’ perceptions of the service solution offered after purchase in a business-to-business (B2B) context.

This study adopted a mixed methods design, which combined data generated through in-depth interviews (both with service buyers and key informants from the service company), an online customer survey, analysis of textual documents and structured observations of buyer–seller interactions and actions. Both objective and subjective points of view at different stages of the investigation were collected.

The authors’ results show that, contrary to previous evidence in B2C service research, the customers’ perceptions of the service performance were not significantly related to their previous expectations. In this context, characterized by dynamic and constantly evolving processes and many parties (both from the buyer and the seller company) involved in the implementation process, service complexity may cause a lack of well-formed expectations regarding how the service will perform and its relevant performance attributes.

This study suggests that the service models traditionally used to describe and explain customer service expectations and perceptions in relatively simple service contexts with final consumers are difficult to apply in B2B complex business relationships. Rather, scholars need to take a holistic, continuously evolving and adapted perspective when examining the formation of customer service expectations and their perceptions in B2B complex services.

There should be a teleological balance between sales and purchase approaches in B2B contexts to optimize the outcome of complex business relationships between service providers and service receivers. The authors suggest several recommendations to service providers to ensure that their salespeople do not create unrealistic and unachievable expectations in the minds of the service receivers. Service providers are also encouraged to develop formal cross functional teams (e.g. consisting of salespeople, service technicians and service support) based on mutual understanding and information sharing.

This study provides an alternative time-oriented understanding of the way customer expectations before purchase and their perceptions after purchasing a complex software solution in industrial markets formed through the lens of teleological framework. As such, this is the first empirical inquiry with this specific framework in B2B contexts making a relevant contribution to literature.

Generic deficiencies are identified in the theory generation of supply chain management (SCM). There is a crucial and challenging necessity to revise and extend the current theory generation of SCM. There is a need to move from atomistic theory generation towards holistic and cross‐disciplinary theory generation beyond the traditional boundaries of SCM. The holistic theory generation of SCM should consider the dynamics between the point‐of‐origin and the point‐of‐final‐consumption in marketing channels. Furthermore, adequate cross‐disciplinary concepts and frameworks beyond the current theory generation of SCM should be considered, which so far mainly come from economics, engineering, operation management, production management, and logistics. The incorporation of generic marketing concepts and frameworks in the theory generation of SCM contribute to enhance the holistic and cross‐disciplinary theory generation of SCM beyond atomistic considerations, thus eliminating some of the deficiencies of the current theory generation of SCM.

Examines the emerging ideology of total quality management and summarizes its implications for further and higher education institutions (FHEIs). Rather than prescribing a set of generic implementation steps, it is suggested that there are other, more significant factors to be considered. These factors are related to the context in which the initiative takes place rather than where it should begin. Discusses four necessary issues, namely, the removal of abstraction from the concept of quality in further and higher education, organization‐wide understanding of customers and their perceptions, the importance of assessing the current quality level and the need for strategic quality planning. Also cites classical organizational facets such as structure, culture, human resource management and leadership among the determinants of TQM success. Concentration on these key matters attenuates the importance of the method of implementation. Argues that to disregard these prerequisites for success is to risk long‐term damage to the organization and considerably reduce the likelihood of sustained and self‐generating organizational improvement. Concludes by questioning the real levels of commitment which exist in FHEIs at present.

EVERY librarian in his inmost heart dislikes newspapers. He regards them as bad literature; attractors of undesirable readers; a drain upon the limited resources of the library; and a target against which the detractors of public libraries are constantly battering. From the standpoint of the librarian, newspapers are the most expensive and least productive articles stocked by a library, and their lavish provision is, perhaps, the most costly method of purchasing waste‐paper ever devised. Pressure of circumstances and local conditions combine, however, to muzzle the average librarian, and the consequence is that a perfectly honest and outspoken discussion of the newspaper question is very rarely seen. In these circumstances, an attempt to marshal the arguments for and against the newspaper, together with some account of a successful practical experiment at limitation, may prove interesting to readers of this magazine.