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Explores and compares the strategic development of Spain’s two most important retail organisations, El Corte Inglés and Galerías Preciados. Both department stores were established in the 1930s, but while the former has gone from strength to strength, Galerías Preciados changed hands several times before going into receivership in 1994, when it was bought up by El Corte Inglés. A comparative case study approach which focuses on outlet growth, diversification, financial control and continuity is used to identify the factors which appear to account for the contrasting fates of the organisations. Concludes that careful planning, vertical integration and continuity of ownership and positioning within the context of the macro‐environment contributed to El Corte Inglés’ success and longevity.

This chapter explores the strategic responsiveness of commodity multinationals operating in developing countries to the uncertainties raised by the emergent European Union (EU) sustainability regulation. The study applies deductive theory triangulation to derive five response propositions, subsequently contrasted with inductive insights from an exploratory single-case study. The research involves in-depth interviews with a mix of senior and middle management and numerous external stakeholders. Empirical findings are discussed through storytelling and retrospective sensemaking and cross-checked against corporate documents, archive material, and online articles for added validation. This chapter concludes that an authentic commitment to corporate social responsibility and creating shared value can enhance the multinational enterprise (MNE)’s resilience and responsiveness to regulatory uncertainty, especially when combined with early signal scanning and real options reasoning. Through varied, first-hand insights, the case study demonstrates the role of reputation, core values, and ethical leadership in support of effective stakeholder engagement capabilities and the MNE’s ability to develop viable collaborative solutions to uncertainties implied by evolving sustainability regulation and stakeholder expectations. Taking an evolutionary view, this chapter introduces a process perspective on sustainability transition, relevant to firms seeking a shift in focus from mere compliance toward strategic responsiveness founded on adaptability and renewal.

This chapter seeks to explore what responsible management entailed in the country of Ghana, with regard to gold trade. Responsible management ‘… addresses the specific strategies, tactics or actions managers ought to pursue to address business’s accountability, obligations and duties to society and stakeholders’ (Carroll et al., 2019, p. 57). The Akan moral saying, ‘To possess virtue is better than gold’, purports that good ethics is of more value compared to wealth; and underpins Afro-communitarianism where common societal good is priced over individual gains. ‘The gold mining sector was largely administered by the Abusa system, which is still a feature in agriculture in modern Ghana’ (Iliffe, 1995, p. 147). This system operated a tripartite profit-sharing scheme, where the chief who is the landholder, received one-third of the production, the lessee or operator of the mine one-third and the workers the last third (Iliffe, 1995, p.147). Some traditional values and ethical concepts that guided doing business in ancient Ghana will be expounded in this chapter.

The purpose of the paper is to identify how local populations, particularly at the municipal and village levels, can enhance their capacity to prepare and respond more effectively and efficiently to the logistic challenges that they face in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Using a phenomenological approach, a qualitative research study was conducted from an interpretative, constructivist perspective. Through a series of semi‐structured interviews the researchers gathered stories about the experiences of local responders at municipal level in the capital city region of the Republic of the Philippines in the aftermath of a specific natural disaster event (Typhoon Ondoy – September 2009). A number of key differences between the espoused strategies expressed in disaster management legislation and the actual experiences of local people on the ground were identified and, as a result, a conceptual model was developed that, if implemented, would enhance the capacity of local populations to prepare and respond in a more efficient and effective manner.

Results from the study indicate that the ability of local populations to contribute to the logistic preparation and response processes has been considerably undervalued and underutilised. A revised model is therefore developed that better incorporates their potential contribution to the management of both the demand and supply sides that would lead to swifter, more accurate, and more efficient logistic response mechanisms.

The developing canon of humanitarian logistic literature has, to date, been relatively silent on the subject of the contribution of the local population to the overall logistic management challenge. The paper provides important insights into the issues on which the government of a developing country could usefully focus attention in their approach to natural disaster preparedness and response, and it offers a conceptual model for future testing and evaluation.

To provide an overview of the guidance for proxy firms and investment advisers included in the Staff Legal Bulletin released this year by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after its four-year comprehensive review of the proxy system.

Discusses briefly the context in which the SEC’s review was conducted; the general themes of the guidance provided; the most notable aspects of the guidance; and the matters that were expected to be, but were not, addressed by the SEC.

The guidance does not go as far in regulating proxy advisory firms as many had anticipated it would. The key obligations specified in the guidance are imposed on the investment advisers who engage the proxy firms. The responsibilities, policies and procedures mandated do not change the fundamental paradigm that has supported the influence of proxy firms – that is, investment advisers continue to be permitted to fulfill their duty to vote client shares in a “conflict-free manner” by voting based on the recommendations of independent third parties, and continue to be exempted from the rules that generally apply to persons who solicit votes or make proxy recommendations.

The SEC staff states in the Bulletin that it expects that proxy firms and investment advisers will conform to the obligations imposed in the Bulletin “promptly, but in any event in advance of [the 2015] proxy season.”

Practical guidance from experienced M&A lawyers.

This article aims to provide details of the process involved in preparing a comprehensive maintenance audit of school buildings and facilities in a state government education department.

This paper presents the framework and logistics of the survey or audit, which relied on integrating a property management system with a consistent approach to the definition of maintenance and its costing. The use of visual illustrations of maintenance categories is a feature of the process and this study.

The work was completed in three months and drew upon the department's two computerized property management and asset systems, the physical resource management system (PRMS) and the school asset management system (SAMS). The department adopted an IT‐based approach that integrated the building element‐based maintenance items with electronic plans and a standard costing approach using hand‐held pen‐activated computers under the control of the maintenance auditors. The process of conducting the maintenance audit has resulted in the most comprehensive review and updating of all the maintenance requirements in school buildings. It has provided real and accurate costing of this work on a fair, methodical and consistent basis. The size of the final costs in each maintenance category has allowed funding to be refined, targeted and focused on many key and important areas.

Whilst categories of different maintenance work are provided in broad terms, for confidentiality reasons the client organization would not permit the financial values of these categories to be published.

Examples of the categorization and analysis of maintenance items are included to illustrate and demonstrate the method of approach. Details of the extensive auditing process described provide insights for any large organization with widespread facilities and property assets to adopt a similar approach.

The process is an exemplar for an integrated property management and maintenance auditing system using IT and the practical skills of maintenance inspectors.

Labor productivity is one of the most important factors that affect the physical progress of any construction project. In order to improve labor productivity, site production should be measured on a regular basis, and then compared to acceptable standard benchmarks. The objective of this paper is to measure masonry labor productivity in Gaza Strip, Palestine, using a consistent benchmarking approach.

Production data were collected from nine different construction projects located in Gaza. For each project, values for baseline productivity, disruption index, performance index and project management index were calculated.

Based on the nine targeted projects, the baseline productivity of masonry works in Gaza seems to range from 0.29 to 0.80 work‐hours per square meter. Calculated values were utilized to develop a correlation between two project benchmarks (i.e. disruption and project management indices). AS only four out of the targeted nine projects performed reasonably well, the paper strongly recommends developing a benchmarking standard for each local construction firm in Palestine which may lead to an improvement in the national construction productivity.

The outcome of this research will improve the national construction productivity in Palestine and highlights the benefit of improving benchmarking standard.

OUR issue devotes special attention this month to the subject of the library for children. There is a common inclination to regard this subject as the most over‐written in all branches of library literature. It certainly is the part of our work which leads to much sentimental verbiage. These are dangers against which we are on our guard; they may be inevitable, but we do not think they are. As a matter of fact there has been a great deal of talk about this matter by people who have ideas and ideals, but who have had no real experience in applying them. The paper by Mr. Berwick Savers, written for the Library Association Conference, points out very cogently what has been wanting in library work in this country. This question of the children's librarian has not been faced anywhere in what may be called the ultimate manner; that is, as a distinct, specialist branch of library work, requiring high qualifications and deserving good payment. There will be no really successful library work of the kind in Great Britain until this is done.

In the past two decades, much of the literature in the area of government financial management has been devoted to studying the causes of fiscal stress. Most studies emphasized the role of such factors as economic cycles, business relocation and factors beyond the control of policy makers as major causes of fiscal stress. This study extends the scope of the research in this area to investigate whether state and local fiscal structures contribute to fiscal stress. Using a pooled cross-sectional time-series approach with the state-local data ranging from 1982 to 1997, the result shows that: there is more significant difference in the composition of tax structures than that of total revenue; high aggregate spending is associated with high fiscal stress; state and local governments over-commit on the social welfare category; local revenue diversification is associated with low fiscal stress; and fiscal decentralization or high spending responsibility assumed by local governments is associated with low fiscal stress. The findings suggest that local revenue diversification and fiscal decentralization can be used as measures to reduce fiscal stress.