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Software can be a tremendous aid to companies in complying with quality standards, but it can be a daunting task to select the most appropriate solution. Correct selection should take into account the maturity of a company's management development techniques and its ability to make and absorb changes.

Examines what facilities are provided, and in what way, by current software packages designed to automate BS 5750 documentation procedures in different industries. All the packages are aimed at reducing the paperwork involved in implementing a quality system, but none completely matches any market sector. Details some of the differences and outlines a method for selecting a package for your industry.

Informal social support is often sought by veterans to support reminiscence or cope with traumatic memories. However, it can also encourage unhelpful ways of coping, such as avoidance, or may be absent altogether. This project is borrowed from the growing peer support literature. The purpose of this paper is to explore the suitability of peer support services to enhance the wellbeing for older veterans, when naturally occurring support is absent or unhelpful.

This was a sequentially staged research programme involving a scoping review of current practice and evidence, and a consultation with veterans. In total, ten veterans (nine male, one female) took part in the consultation (M=66 years).

Peer support was considered suitable, particularly in addressing loneliness and social isolation. There was an understandable concern regarding its use with more complex issues such as trauma. An added issue was the implicit assumption that this consultation concerned transition; supporting younger veteran as they move from military to civilian life. This mirrored the focus of current UK policy and affected the focus of the consultation. Issues were also raised around the sustainability of services more broadly.

Peer support is appropriate in supporting older veterans, but must be implemented in a sustainable way. Raising awareness of the needs of older veterans in older adult services is an important implication for service development and delivery.

There is a considerable lack of research concerning older veterans, particularly concerning their formal and informal social support needs. This paper addresses the current gap in the literature.

The study which this paper documents aimed to test nine hypotheses through the use of content analysis of gender stereotypes within the advertising of educational/non‐educational children's games.

A total of 130 UK adverts, fitting the time period of 1970‐2011, were used. Then 17 dimensions of each advertisement were coded and chi‐squared analyses were carried out. Additional comparisons were carried out examining differences in pre‐1990 and post‐1990 adverts, age and game categories.

Nine hypotheses were tested and most were supported, including: males being shown as the main characters in educational adverts compared to non‐educational adverts; gender stereotypes occurring within advertising ‐ adverts aimed at males consisted of males being the main characters, female‐orientated adverts consisted of females presenting the majority of adverts; and young males were displayed alone whereas females were either alone or supervised by another female.

This study is possibly the first to conduct a thorough content analysis of television advertisements for games aimed at children. It reveals the amount of stereotyping found in general advertisements aimed at adults in many western countries.

The development of CRAG's robot technology data base, ADR‐l Expert System, is described and findings from the data base discussed. Relevant characteristics of available robots including accuracy, load carrying capacity, and application capability are reviewed and the role of data base systems for this purpose discussed.

THAT THE NEWSPAPER industry has gone through a tremendous change has been obvious to all by the horrific scenes of violence shown on television over the past several months.

Discrimination matters Volume 22 Number 2 of Health Manpower Management contains an article with this title by Catherine M. Prest, which outlines the changes in legal restrictions on the eligibility of dismissed employees to pursue unfair dismissal claims. Includes a discussion of recent decisions in this area and assesses the impact of these decisions on personnel practice and disciplinary procedures.

This paper aims to examine how metaphors mediate organizational change across space and time.

The data consist of 113 speeches by vice‐chancellors of a distance learning university, recorded in texts. Texts are apposite for this research as they transmit meaning across time and space. Hermeneutics is an appropriate methodology because it enables interpretation across temporal and spatial distance.

The paper finds that textual metaphors mediate organizational change across space and time in five ways: transferring from familiarity to strangeness, providing coherence, “breaking distance” changing reality through changing language, and recontextualising.

The study focuses on formal organizational texts and excludes informal texts and conversation. Change outcomes are not studied; there should be further research on how metaphors affect change over time and space.

Metaphors enable managers to communicate change across time and space. Textual metaphors are continuously available and interactive, enabling dialogue between managers and staff across space and time.

The paper furthers our knowledge of how metaphors mediate change across both space and time. Metaphors translate the organization across distance, fusing spatial and temporal horizons, effecting organizational change by changing language. The organization becomes a metaphor of itself, recontextualising across time and space.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the oil price–bank risk nexus by considering the heterogeneity of bank characters.

This paper empirically tests the effect of oil price movements on bank credit risk by using a sample of 279 banks in the Middle East and North Africa countries from 2011 to 2017.

Authors find robust evidence that the credit risk of bank loan portfolios is negatively associated with increased oil prices. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that the effect of asset quality improvement brought about by rising oil prices is more salient in conventional banks, and banks with small size, low liquidity and whose funding source relies on customers’ deposits.

The results favor the diversification of bank funding sources, the improvement of a country’s financial development, the adoption of explicit deposit insurance and macroprudential policies, such as countercyclical liquidity buffers, to weaken the adverse impact of oil prices declines.

The present paper enriches the literature of oil price–bank risk nexus by analyzing the heterogeneity of bank characters and advances our knowledge on the determined factors of bank riskiness and vulnerability.