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The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the HR function can make a significant contribution to the achievement of global strategy and sustainable competitive advantage through identifying, building and deploying differentiating strategic capabilities (DiSCs). The DiSC model has been developed by William Scott‐Jackson over the past 15 years as a practical and strategically valuable development of the “resource‐based view of the firm”.

The paper first considers the strategic implications of global trading and then describes the strategic importance of DiSCs and their criteria – particularly in sales. This is based on applied research and strategic HR consultancy with over 30 global organizations over the past 15 years. Using a case study of a global outsourcing company, it describes the process by which DiSCs can be developed and deployed by the HR function to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in global trading.

The link between global strategic intent and the role of HR is clearly defined using the DiSC model and the examples given show the strategic value that can be achieved using the model to enable global trading.

The DiSC model can be deployed in any organization (profit or non‐profit) by HR to ensure that its global strategic intent can be achieved and to help ensure sustainable competitive advantage. In addition to the well‐understood HR competencies and processes which need to be deployed for global success, this model further allows the HR function to impact strategy development and implementation. This paper shows how DiSCs can be identified, built and deployed.

This study aims to illuminate the way in which consumers question the authenticity and worth of musicians, leading to a classification of selling out. The authors contribute to the debate on authenticity by attending to the question of worth that is under-examined in existing literature, by drawing upon French pragmatic sociology with specific attention to convention theory to understand conflicting interpretations of worth.

The considerations music fans go through navigating whether artists are selling out and the loss of worth were explored through 22 semi-structured interviews, complemented by focus group discussions (20 participants) and analysis of an online video blog.

The study identified three key themes: “Authenticity and Worth in the Inspired World”, “Selling Out as Loss of Worth” and “Signifiers of Selling Out”.

The emergent themes enable us to understand the worth that consumers place on musical artists, and the clash between the ideologies of the market world and the inspired world. The ideas regarding selling out and the signifiers may apply to other consumption experiences where the clash between the inspired and the market worlds exists and the conflicting ethos of each can lead to a loss of worth and selling out.

In this research, the authors examine situations in which consumers stigmatise as “sell outs”, artists who are marketised under the influence of capitalist social relations of production. As a result, these artists lose their authenticity and worth in the eyes of consumers. In doing so, this research contributes to the debate on authenticity by attending to the question of worth that is under-examined in existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the similarity of the reputation of political leaders with those of their parties and to assess the claim of causal links.

A multidimensional measure of brand personality is used to measure the reputation among voters of the three main parties and their leaders in two surveys each prior to British General Elections in 2001 and 2005.

The reputations of leader and party are highly correlated, but statistically distinct in both studies. The leader's reputation appears to influence that of the party more than vice versa. However, the decline in Tony Blair's reputation between 2001 and 2005 appears to have influenced more those loyal to other parties.

Further work would be useful to compare the relative value of cognitive and affective measures of reputation, particularly in predicting voting behaviour.

The findings emphasise the role of the leader's reputation in managing that of a political party. A change of leader will, inevitably, produce a change in party reputation. The two reputations interact and monitoring such effects will require similar ways of measuring both.

Links between the reputations of organisations and their leaders have been claimed but never demonstrated empirically.

Discusses the accreditation of the Avant Hotel, Oldham, Lancashire, UK, the first hotel registered to BS5750, the British Standard for quality procedures. Asserts that now people will know exactly what standard to expect. Outlines how the hotel′s accreditation came about and discusses problems with implementation and what is involved in maintaining the standard. Considers the effects of accreditation on staff and the benefits of maintaining BS5750. Concludes that competition is becoming more acute and guests are wanting value for money and the consistency which standard BS5750 registration ensures.

Investigating corrosion protective adhesive tape systems on steel pipework is one of a multitude of investigations that the Research and Development department at Raychem Technology Europe, based in Swindon, UK have been called upon to undertake.

This review covers those aspects of communications which are relatively new and will probably have a continuing impact for at least two years — although this forecast, like nearly all other forecasts, is likely to be mostly wrong. A small amount of essential basic material is included — such as the section entitled ‘The bandwidth/speed imperative’, So much effort is being devoted to this subject, particularly in the case of POTS ( Plain Old Telephone System) improvements, that a few words about it seems to be in order.

THERE was a rather remarkable statement made at the Royal Institute of British Architects by Mr. Berwick Sayers last month. He affirmed that so far as the recorded issues of the reference libraries in the municipal libraries of London were concerned, only 8,880 books were consulted daily. This, as the statistical account of twenty‐nine public libraries, shows an average of a fraction over 302 books daily. To some this may seem not an inadequate issue, if all the books recorded are books which the student and the searcher for information have used. The point of the meeting at which the remark was made was that the reference libraries of London should do more in co‐operation with industry, and it was argued by the representatives of ASLIB who took part in the conference that our London reference libraries should be strengthened in the science and technology departments, even at the expense of the lending libraries. The experience of the public librarian seemed to be that few people lived in London near their work; and that they had command of the special libraries in London in a way that provincial industrialists had not, and therefore they did not make any use that mattered of London reference libraries. The Chambers of Commerce in the various boroughs of London consist of small traders as a rule whose main purpose is “to keep down the rates,” and who have very little connection with industry on the scale in the minds of the ASLIB representatives. In short, the chief function of the London public libraries is mainly that of home reading. Ultimately the solution of the reference problem may be the establishment of one or two great regional reference libraries supported by the co‐operation of the boroughs. Co‐operation, however, is in its initial stages yet, and it will probably be some time before such an ideal, if it be an ideal, is achieved.

Provides an executive summary of a major conference on simultaneous engineering, held in London towards the end of 1993. Rather than detailing specific presentations, concentrates on highlighting the breadth of issues discussed, thus illustrating the often overlooked complexity of simultaneous engineering.