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The aim of this paper is to appreciate the difficulties faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in a small open economy such as Singapore where there is very little margin for comfort.

The approach is analytical and statistical. Comparing key ratios over time to reinforce the findings is done.

SMEs in Singapore are price‐takers in the product markets and they are also price‐takers in the input markets. When there is substantial increase in costs, SMEs will be in trouble as they cannot pass the increased costs to the buyers of their products and services.

The implication is that only the government can help SMEs. With more information, the government can be convinced that SMEs can play a big role in the economy.

The paper shows that government and the SMEs' association can find ways to help SMEs.

Advances some hypotheses to explain why there is an excess demand for clerical staff and why the labour market seems to be unable to arrive at an equilibrium through an adjustment in wages. Discusses the hypotheses in relation to two specific cases. The observations which arise from the discussion are: (1) wages are not fully flexible to clear the clerical market owing to the constraints imposed by the need for wage relativity and the existing salary structures; (2) the organization which faces the greater constraint in manpower will have greater incentive to change job descriptions to overcome the manpower constraint; and (3) the restructuring of the duties of clerical staff will affect the work pattern of non‐clerical staff, and the capable administrative entrepreneur will make the necessary adjustments which will enable his organization to function smoothly.

About 10 years ago the Singapore Government realized that entrepreneurial spirit was lacking in its general population. These conclusions were confirmed by an empirical survey, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), an annual assessment of the national level of entrepreneurial activity. The paternalistic and authoritative approach of the government contributed to the general population’s averseness to participating in riskoriented ventures.

Removing impediments to entrepreneurship is a key challenge for the government and the business sector if the island republic is to maintain its national competitiveness. This article explores the various initiatives taken by the government to stimulate risk-taking and attempts to ascertain if the various measures can be used as key factors to strengthen the inherent cultural values that stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit.The observations can serve as a useful tool for academics and managers in recognizing the cultural traits that influence and help foster entrepreneurial tendencies.

A considerable body of literature has shown how the perception of flavor is the result of a multi-sensory combination. Starting with this premise, this paper aims to verify how music impacts on wine flavor.

An experiment was organized as follows: it focuses on the influence of music on the taste of red and white wine, in particular, two kinds of music were transmitted, namely, classical and pop. Participants had to listen to music through headphones tasting, in the meanwhile, 40 mL of wine (an merlot and a chardonnay). After this experience, they had to give an evaluation about some attributes of the wine. The attributes to be evaluated were: sparkling, refreshing, delicate, refined, sweet, sour, alcoholic and pleasant. Data were finally analyzed by using the ANOVA model.

They highlight that a chardonnay is perceived to be more delicate and sweeter if accompanied by a classical music background; in the case of Merlot, on the other hand, it is perceived as less alcohol when high-volume pop music is transmitted. Implications are finally discussed.

The influence of hearing on taste is underestimated in the literature. The originality of this manuscript consists of comparing two different music genders and their impact on wine consumers in an Italian context. Moreover, the analysis of marketing implications represents a novelty for these kind of studies.

Early clinical accounts of psychopathy suggest important relationships between alcohol use and psychopathic traits that lead to fantastic and uninviting behavior. In particular, alcohol was thought to facilitate antisocial behavior, including violence, among psychopathic individuals. The purpose of this paper is to report a review of studies that concurrently examine psychopathy and alcohol in relation to violent behavior.

The authors searched electronic databases (PsycInfo, PUBMED) for all published studies between January 1960 and October 2016 that included the combination of alcohol and psychopathy, antisocial personality and violence, aggression.

The evidence converges to indicate that, in college and community samples, self-reported antisocial lifestyle traits interact with alcohol use to predict violence beyond that accounted for by either construct. However, in correctional and clinical samples, there is no evidence that the use of alcohol increases violence for individuals high in clinically measured antisocial lifestyle traits.

This is the first review of the empirical literature on relationships among psychopathy, alcohol, and violence. The authors provide recommendations for future research designed to fill gaps in the literature and lead to a greater understanding of the interplay among these variables.

In this chapter, I discuss the development of the cannibal picking up from Jennifer Brown’s (2013) study, Cannibalism in Literature and Film. Brown (2013, p. 7) argued that the cannibal is a sign of ultimate difference who ‘reappears in various guises at times when popular culture needs to express real fears and anxieties’. I argue that the most recent version of the cannibal is gendered female and that this coincides with a postfeminist media culture. I explore how the cannibal is positioned as an ambiguous figure which questions both humanity and monstrosity. I argue that this is complicated by gendering it female as women have traditionally straddled the line between human and less-than human in popular culture. I discuss three films: 301/302 (Park, 1995), The Woman (Torino, Van Den Houten, & McKee, 2011) and Raw (De Forêts & Ducournau, 2016) and explore how they use incest, objectification and dehumanization as well as cannibalism to explore the ambiguities of postfeminist subjecthood. I will argue that by performing acts of cannibalism the female cannibals in these films reclaim their subjectivity both by objectifying others and by identifying with their victims. The cannibalism also presents the opportunity for female-oriented families through shared consumption which ironically embraces patriarchal ideals of feminine feeding roles and challenges the patriarchal basis of the family.

Much to the relief of everyone, the general election has come and gone and with it the boring television drivel; the result a foregone conclusion. The Labour/Trade Union movement with a severe beating, the worst for half a century, a disaster they have certainly been asking for. Taking a line from the backwoods wisdom of Abraham Lincoln — “You can't fool all the people all the time!” Now, all that most people desire is not to live easy — life is never that and by the nature of things, it cannot be — but to have a reasonably settled, peaceful existence, to work out what they would consider to be their destiny; to be spared the attentions of the planners, the plotters, provocateurs, down to the wilful spoilers and wreckers. They have a right to expect Government protection. We cannot help recalling the memory of a brilliant Saturday, but one of the darkest days of the War, when the earth beneath our feet trembled at the destructive might of fleets of massive bombers overhead, the small silvery Messerschmits weaving above them. Believing all to be lost, we heaped curses on successive Governments which had wrangled over rearmament, especially the “Butter before Guns” brigade, who at the word conscription almost had apoplexy, and left its people exposed to destruction. Now, as then, the question is “Have they learned anything?” With all the countless millions Government costs, its people have the right to claim something for their money, not the least of which is the right to industrial and domestic peace.

For most people, especially those with fixed incomes, household budgets have to be balanced and sometimes the balance is precarious. With price rises of foods, there is a switch to a cheaper substitute within the group, or if it is a food for which there is no real substitute, reduced purchases follow. The annual and quarterly reviews of the National Food Survey over the years have shown this to be so; with carcase meat, where one meat is highly priced, housewives switch to a cheaper joint, and this is mainly the reason for the great increase in consumption of poultry; when recently the price of butter rose sharply, there was a switch to margarine. NFS statistics did not show any lessening of consumer preference for butter, but in most households, with budgets on a tight string, margarine had to be used for many purposes for which butter had previously been used. With those foods which have no substitute, and bread (also milk) is a classic example, to keep the sum spent on the food each week about the same, the amount purchased is correspondingly reduced. Again, NFS statistics show this to be the case, a practice which has been responsible for the small annual reductions in the amount of bread consumed per person per week over the last fifteen years or so; very small, a matter of an ounce or two, but adequate to maintain the balance of price/quantity since price rises have been relatively small, if fairly frequent. This artifice to absorb small price rises will not work, however, when price rises follow on one another rapidly and together are large. Bread is a case in point.