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The purpose of this paper was to develop a framework of working-together relations and investigate ways to enhance working-together relations among people, organisations, communities and neighbourhoods using working-together applications. Today, people in communities, neighbourhoods and constituencies often work together in a coalition of public, private and non-profit institutions. The technology used today has enabled new forms of communications and collaboration. The rapid growth of mobile technologies and interactive, collaborative applications based on Web technologies has enabled the development of new approaches to derive and share organisational and local knowledge. Not all of these applications have succeeded; after a certain time, users tend to stop using online applications that do not assist them in developing collaborative practices with their team members.

To better understand the essential characteristics of a successful online application that effectively supports people to work together, the authors undertook an inductive analysis of related literature and existing social media application.

By combining and categorising the findings, it was possible to articulate the characteristics associated with four identified categories of working-together relations: networking, coordination, cooperation and collaboration. The study also identified essential activities that are performed in each working-together category and the factors that enable successful working-together relations: trust, risk and rewards.

Future studies will look into how applications could be further enhanced, so that, for example, an application that is currently classified as “coordination” could be improved and the required characteristics of “collaboration” could be met.

It is expected that the framework derived will assist in the design of successful online applications to support different categories of working-together relations.

The main contribution of this study is a new framework that can now be used to identify how effective an existing application can be in assisting the working-together relations.

This paper outlines the theoretical models of international cash management and assesses their implications for corporate practice. Corporate practice is then reviewed through the analysis of survey research and case studies. It emerges that whilst the implications of theoretical models are captured in essence by corporate practice, there is scant evidence of companies using sophisticated models in international cash management. The practice of international cash management is largely driven by developments in communications and computer technology, relaxation of regulatory and tax impediments, the internationalisation of banking and the development of new banking prod ucts. International treasurers may therefore be able to find appropriate cash management solutions to meet their business needs with the co‐operation of banks and technology providers. Further academic research should evaluate the extent to which corporate practice is consistent with extant multi‐currency balance and net work optimisation models and also explain why particular approaches to interna tional cash management persist in companies.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Campbell postulates that: first, the city as source area should be the focus of study in urban recreation research rather than the destination, which is more often selected by researchers; and that, second, concern should also focus on the spatial interaction of the city with the recreational area (Campbell, 1966, 87). He proposes a model to represent these concerns and in this he suggests that the type of movement pursued is related to the recreational experience desired and that the spatial distribution of the tourist industry is similarly associated.

The product‐mix decision has received considerable attention in management accounting and economics literatures. However, many studies in these literatures are contradicting, inconclusive and lack rigorous analysis of this complex decision. They seek to develop weights for the products in the product mix based on one objective, to maximize the firm’s profit ability. But before developing these weights, the studies must first rank these products, Ranking is a complex endeavor since it is often driven by a multitude of hierarchical financial and non‐financial goals and objectives. Ranking is also difficult due to the use of complex concepts such as time, uncertainty, cost and interdependencies between accounting systems and manufacturing systems and among the products of the product mix. These concepts are inherently fuzzy and coextensively applied often with a confluence of variables operating simultaneously. This paper applies an advanced mathematical model to account for the product mix decision. The model combines the powers of fuzzy‐set theory (Zadeh, 1965) and the analytic hierarchy process (Saaty, 1978). The fuzzy‐analytic‐hierarchical process (FAHP), developed by de Korvin and Kleyle (1999), is sufficiently powerful to account for the ambiguous variables and the web of prioritized strategies and goals of cost leadership, product differentiation, financial objectives of earnings, cash flows and market share and non financial goals such as tradition and owners’ convictions and philosophies underlying the ranking of the products in the product mix. By way of example, the paper applies the FAHP model to rank order four products subject to these strategies and goals.

Approaches to state provision of childcare have typically focused on the relative weight of state or market provision. In this article we follow a new institutional approach to the relationship between states and markets to examine the au pair industry, emphasising the role of states in the creation of markets for childcare. Research on the market provision of childcare has focused on the ambiguity in defining caring as work, which has led to the low value of care work. In this article we propose that those ambiguities also exist at the state level and impact the creation of the market for foreign childcare. Examining the development of au pair policies in the US, UK, and Australia, we find three strategies that involve defining au pairs not as employees, but rather as foreign visitors, exchange students, or family members. These strategies allow for by passing restrictions on immigration, increasing the supply of care providers, and circumventing compliance with labour regulations, thereby reducing the cost to families.

Attempts to understand consumer behaviour through a study of the physiological brain functioning processes. Refers to literature on physiological psychological theory. Provides a brief description of the nervous system and brain centre functions. Tests three models of psychological variables dealing with shopping – the hypothesized developmental state model, hypothesized disposition model, and hypothesized danger model – then integrates these models into one and tests the new model. Tests the models against data gathered during interviews with shoppers in a US shopping mall. Finds some support for Hilgard’s “neodissociationistic theory” of behaviour. Recommends further investigation of the brain’s mechanisms should be carried out.

Tourism benefits from increasing leisure — a reliable mechanism? Several scholars in tourism have been inspired by the end of the decade to engage in forecasting projects. Especially, the Delphimethod has become popular among tourism experts in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. One of the results almost unanimously accepted is confidence in future growth of leisure time and paid holidays, in a rising number of families travelling twice or three times a year and in an overall increase of all tourism/travel categories. Though there is widespread understanding that the growth rate will be diminishing, optimism prevails with respect to the tourism/leisure ratio (i.e. “the proportion of leisure time spent in tourism”. The “lemming” paradigm is still dominating the minds of policy makers and managers: “We do not know why they move, but we know that, at certain times of the year, they all start moving — and we have a fair idea of the destinations.”