Frederick G. Kohun and William L. Sipple
The year 2000 computer date problem, although identified since the 1960s, has been sensationalized, commercialized, but not yet universally resolved. Although estimates for…
Abstract
The year 2000 computer date problem, although identified since the 1960s, has been sensationalized, commercialized, but not yet universally resolved. Although estimates for correcting the problem hover around $600 billion in direct conversion costs, there is also an additional $1 trillion in expected litigation costs. While the technical problem of correcting the two‐digit year field sequence in computer programs to a four‐digit year representation is regarded as trivial and tedious, the more important challenges for today’s managers focus on making the date conversion while maintaining a solid bottom line and dealing with the associated communication and legal issues. This problem has finally been recognized as one with organizational strategic concerns and implications far beyond the domain of the IS department.
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At the passing of the Fair Trading Act, 1973, and the setting up of a Consumer Protection Service with an Office of Fair Trading under a Director‐General, few could have…
Abstract
At the passing of the Fair Trading Act, 1973, and the setting up of a Consumer Protection Service with an Office of Fair Trading under a Director‐General, few could have visualized this comprehensive machinery devised to protect the mainly economic interests of consumers could be used to further the efforts of local enforcement officers and authorities in the field of purity and quality control of food and of food hygiene in particular. This, however, is precisely the effect of a recent initiative under Sect. 34 of the Act, reported elsewhere in the BFJ, taken by the Director‐General in securing from a company operating a large group of restaurants a written undertaking, as prescribed by the Section, that it would improve its standards of hygiene; the company had ten convictions for hygiene contraventions over a period of six years.
Historically, public services were provided by public institutions because they were seen as either the best-insulated or most sensitive to public sentiments. Today, the fusing of…
Abstract
Historically, public services were provided by public institutions because they were seen as either the best-insulated or most sensitive to public sentiments. Today, the fusing of public responsibility with private expertise draws on research and theory stretching from Taylor’s scientific management to Osborne and Gaebler’s reengineering of government. This paper focuses on the historical promises and pitfalls that have come to define public service contracting in the twenty-first century. It describes the experiences of the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) with purchase of service contracts. The exploration of LAWA’s approach provides insight on how managers meet the community’s needs for efficiency and equity by capitalizing on contracting for public services.