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Describes the human‐resource management policies that helped UK pest‐control company Cleankill to win an Investors in People bronze award.

Explains the importance of knowledge sharing, training, empowerment and good internal communications at Cleankill.

Reveals that staff benefit from directors being able to continually see any problems that they may be having with certain customers, and always having an understanding of their jobs. Staff appreciate the flexibility they have in their work and know that if they are falling behind their contract schedule the management team will help.

Highlights how the company benefits from the training it provides for its employees.

Shows how enlightened human‐resource management practices can contribute to organizational success, which can benefit society as a whole.

Gives the inside story of how a company won an Investors in People award.

This paper uses a cultural perspective to explore the problems of change within the British Civil Service. The catalyst for such change is the Government's “Improving Management in government: Next Steps” report (1988). Its intention is to alter radically the structure of the government in the 1990s and beyond. Such a transformation is consistent with other government change initiatives introduced into the NHS, the education service and the prison system. These are both radical and ambitious and illustrate the growing determination to counter what are regarded as the weaknesses and inefficiencies of centralized bureaucracy.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of external head cooling on alleviating the heat stress in the human body by analyzing the temperatures of the core body (T_c), blood (T_blood) and head (T_h) during exercise conditions using 3D whole body model.

Computational study is conducted to comprehend the influence of external head cooling on T_c, T_blood and T_h. The Pennes bioheat and energy balance equations formulated for the whole-body model are solved concurrently to obtain T_c, T_blood and T_h for external head cooling values from 33 to 233 W/m². Increased external head cooling of 404 W/m² is used to compare the numerical and experimental Th data.

Significant reductions of 0.21°C and 0.38°C are observed in Th with external head cooling of 233 and 404 W/m², respectively. However, for external head cooling of 233 W/m², lesser reductions of 0.03°C and 0.06°C are found in T_c and T_blood, respectively. Computational results for external head cooling of 404 W/m² show a difference of 15 per cent in T_h compared to experimental values from literature.

The development of stress because of heat generated within human body is major concern for athletes exercising at high intensities. This study provides an insight into the effectiveness of external head cooling in regulating the head and body temperatures during exercise conditions.

The species Arcobacter is related to the well‐known human pathogen, Campylobacter jejuni, and has been linked to human illness, both by association and epidemiologically. In this study the survival of Arcobacter butzleri in acidic conditions and in ethanol has been investigated. The organism is not able to remain viable in acids below pH4.0 but the actual inhibitory pH depends on acid, growth conditions and growth phase. A. butzleri is able to survive in 10 per cent ethanol in culture and, when attached to stainless steel surfaces, 22.7 per cent of the organisms remain viable and recoverable after swabbing with 5 per cent ethanol compared with a control swabbed with water. The fact that this organism is able to survive under these conditions may have an impact in the food processing industry.

This chapter considers the usefulness and validity of public inquiries as a source of data and preliminary interpretation for case study research. Using two contrasting examples – the Bristol Inquiry into excess deaths in a children’s cardiac surgery unit and the Woolf Inquiry into a breakdown of governance at the London School of Economics (LSE) – I show how academics can draw fruitfully on, and develop further analysis from, the raw datasets, published summaries and formal judgements of public inquiries.

Academic analysis of public inquiries can take two broad forms, corresponding to the two main approaches to individual case study defined by Stake: instrumental (selecting the public inquiry on the basis of pre-defined theoretical features and using the material to develop and test theoretical propositions) and intrinsic (selecting the public inquiry on the basis of the particular topic addressed and using the material to explore questions about what was going on and why).

The advantages of a public inquiry as a data source for case study research typically include a clear and uncontested focus of inquiry; the breadth and richness of the dataset collected; the exceptional level of support available for the tasks of transcribing, indexing, collating, summarising and so on; and the expert interpretations and insights of the inquiry’s chair (with which the researcher may or may not agree). A significant disadvantage is that whilst the dataset collected for a public inquiry is typically ‘rich’, it has usually been collected under far from ideal research conditions. Hence, while public inquiries provide a potentially rich resource for researchers, those who seek to use public inquiry data for research must justify their choice on both ethical and scientific grounds.

The foregoing sections have demonstrated and analysed the range and complexity of vulnerability in the labour market. Its source can be economic or legal, or can derive from characteristics of work or workers. Vulnerability is not a stagnant or even declining phenomenon. Indeed, we have argued that not only are considerably more workers disadvantaged than, say, two decades ago, but that such a situation is compounded by government policy, concepts of core and peripheral workers, and by forces which have created or highlighted unconsidered or new areas of vulnerability. It is arguable that even the much publicised “networkers” who may have relatively attractive terms of work can become isolated and demoralised by working solely at home, and thus suffer yet another form of vulnerability.

This article argues that accounting practice is complex. The determination to implement a particular type of accounting practice is not a simple task. It is a decision that necessitates thorough considerations involving knowledge, human needs and interests, and situations surrounding the decision maker. The decision process itself thus represents complex activities. To ease understanding of this complexity, this study suggests to use metaphor, Javanese Language Speech Level metaphor. Metaphor, many have argued, helps to highlight and explain the core idea of a study, and to understand the nature, the significance, and the social dimensions of the phenomena being investigated. In sustaining its arguments, this study provides an illustration of some accounting practices that satisfy the appropriateness of Javanese language as metaphor.