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The Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) initiative is the most recent in a series of attempts to improve training and stimulate a change in attitudes. There is an emphasis on local people meeting local needs. The details and operation of the scheme are described and assessment made of TECs′ successes to date.

Training should start from the top and be central to the achievement of corporate objectives. Effective management of human resources is essential if a company is to attract, develop and retain people of the right calibre. A company′s ability to adapt to change is the key to its long‐term success and implicit in this is the need for organisations to undertake fundamental reappraisals of where they are going. The best organisations have a clear view of their “mission” and what makes for success; leadership must start from the top but should not end there. It is vital to build a team approach at every level, to encourage people to work effectively together for the common good. Everyone needs to feel part of the team and that they are making a positive contribution. The training function should be central to this goal.

While some libraries have done their best over the years to inform the public as to what they are doing and can do as regards helping readers, others seem to move along without making any special effort to publicise their facilities. In the old days modesty was a virtue, but now it is its own reward. Government departments, which used to shun the limelight, now employ public relations officers in large numbers, and professional bodies and big business houses constantly seek publicity. Times have changed, and the battle is to the strong; and it is unfortunately generally felt that the institution or service that does not speak for itself has little to speak about. It may frankly be said that if a service is in a position to enlarge its sphere of influence and esteem it should do so to the utmost of its endeavour. But it will be granted that if its publicity is not justified by performance, there will likely be an unhappy reaction.

This study aims to explore the customer experiences (CXs) of an under-researched luxury client segment, the ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI) in three settings, yacht-made clothing services, chartering a yacht and art collection.

The author conducted 13 interviews with UHNWI, enquiring about their experiences with different services. The author collected and analyzed the data using a recommended three-step approach: in-depth interviews using soft-laddering; coding and purifying data through a systematic approach and hierarchical coding; and using the emerging consensus technique to scrutinize and validate the emerging themes.

This study revealed UHNWI drivers or purchasing and repurchasing behavior as (mis)managing expectations, personal relationships with personnel and achieving convenience-driven time savings. The corresponding conceptual framework is the UHNWI luxury CX.

This study reveals how über luxury brand managers need to carefully manage the UHNWI clientele expectations, focusing their investment on their brand personnel and the way they can save their clients’ valuable time.

This study is the first to explore UHNWI perceptions of their experience with über luxury providers across multiple contexts. This study highlights that the luxury experience, not the acquisition and owning of luxury goods, drives the UHNWI decision-making and purchase behavior.

RARELY has its sense of timing and pragmatic approach to current problems been better employed by the Industrial Society than in organizing a two‐day conference within four days of Britain's entry into the European Economic Community. The aim behind ‘Into Europe—People at Work’ was badly needed. No major policy has been so bedevilled by confusion and uncertainty as our entry, greeted with a fanfare by some and lamented by a dirge from others.

This study aims to address the need to empirically investigate the luxury customer service experiences of the ultra-high-net-worth individual (UHNWI) segment by conducting and analyzing interviews with 20 clients flying private jets. The results lead to a conceptualization of the UHNW private aviation customer experience.

This study applied a three-step method to explore the meaning and domain of the UHNWI luxury service experience. First, the perception and corresponding attributes of customers’ experiences using private aviation services were examined through 20 in-depth interviews and by using the soft laddering technique. Second, this study coded and, subsequently, purified the data by means of a systematic comparison approach and hierarchical coding. Third, a panel of judges, using the emerging consensus technique, scrutinized and validated the emerging dimensions.

The analysis reveals the customer experience (CX) and motivations differ significantly between business and leisure use, moving from a functional toward an experiential value focus. The findings emphasize the lack of social value for the UHNWI CX and introduce time as a new value dimension.

This study provides multiple contributions to the customer experience, luxury and luxury services literature. This study enhances scholarly understandings of the holistic UHNWI CX in the context of an absolute luxury offering, thus providing a needed conceptualization of an underresearched customer segment, namely, the UHNWI. It delivers insights on the different motivations and experience UHNWI are seeking for according to the context. This study proposes a new luxury value dimension: time.

This study highlights multiple opportunities for UHNWI customer experience improvement. The findings reveal that different clients are looking for different experiences in terms of business versus leisure use. The key drivers and expectations shift from functional (price/availability/flexibility) to experiential factors (comfort/onboard experience/relationship with crew and pilot). Communication, marketing and CX management strategies and tactics need to emphasize this important distinction regarding what drives client behavior in the private aviation setting.

The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it defines UHNWI characteristics and overall experiences using the unique über-service of private aviation, thus advancing scholarly understanding of both the luxury customer and the luxury customer service experience beyond the proposed traditional drivers of luxury consumption. Second, this study expands the conceptual foundation for the UHNWI “über-luxury” service experience, which, given the importance of the UHNWI segment, is important. Third, this study contributes to theoretical knowledge by extending customer value perception in the luxury context by introducing the luxury value dimension of time. This study concludes with a discussion of its findings’ implications for luxury research and practice, providing a future research agenda with regard to UHNW.

RETIRING prime ministers are customarily offered an earldom. Because this often involves a change of name and historical oblivion, some of the greatest among them, men like Pitt and Gladstone and Churchill, have declined the honour. They understood that it is not names which give confidence in things, but things which give confidence in names. What would an Earl Chartwell of Westerham mean to future generations compared with the clarion voice we know as Churchill?

For nearly a century, research on economic hardship has demonstrated its negative effects on family relations. However, with few exceptions, this work has focused on the consequences for marital quality and parenting behaviors in early stages of the life course. In contrast, in the present study, we examine how financial distress among adult children in midlife affects their relationships with their mothers in their 70s and early 80s. Specifically, we used quantitative and qualitative data collected from 387 mothers in 2001–2002 and 2008–2010 regarding their adult children’s recent financial problems and their levels of tension and closeness felt toward each child. Multilevel analyses revealed that both children’s financial problems within the past year and earlier problems that had been resolved predicted mothers’ reports of tension in their relationships with their adult children. Contrary to expectations, neither measure of children’s financial problems predicted mothers’ reports of closeness to their children. Examination of the qualitative data suggested that mothers attributed their children’s financial failures to personal failures of the adult children. In addition, the qualitative data revealed clear gender differences. Mothers disproportionately attributed their sons’ financial problems to lack of career success, whereas mothers were much more likely to express disappointment in daughters with financial problems because of marital dissolutions.