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The Pure Food and Health Society of Great Britain held a conference at the Inns of Court Hotel, Holborn, on May 27. Mr. H. E. MORGAN presided, supported by LORD CAMOYS and Mr. S. F. EDGE. The principal objects of the conference were to discuss (1) the best methods of preventing food frauds and substitutions that are injurious to consumer and honest manufacturer alike; (2) some means of educating the public, preferably by advertisement, so that they can discriminate genuine and good from inferior, worthless, and fraudulent articles.

Organizations implement information technology for a variety of reasons. Most often organizations look to information technology to automate existing processes in search of efficiency. We suggest that strategic management of technology allows for efficiency gains, but also holds the potential to create a healthier work environment. Organizational efficiency and effectiveness need not be mutually exclusive in the strategic management of information technology. Organizations can create a competitive advantage by using information technology to create a positive work environment while also automating existing processes. Our analysis begins with a discussion of positive psychology and strategic management. We discuss strategic uses of technology and present a framework for creating a positive work environment through the strategic use of technology. We conclude by developing areas for future research and present applicable strategies managers can use to increase organizational efficiency as well as empower and enhance the well-being of workers

The purpose of this paper is to validate and uncover the key determinants revolving around the Australian residential market downturn towards the 2020s.

Applying well-established time series econometric methods over a decade of data set provided by Australian Bureau of Statistics, Reserve Bank of Australia and Real Capital Analytics, the significant and emerging drivers impacting the Australian residential property market performance are explored.

Besides changes in the significant levels of some key traditional market drivers, housing market capital liquidity and cross-border investment fund were found to significantly impact the Australian residential property market between 2017 and 2019. The presence of some major positive economic conditions such as low interest rate, sustainable employment and population growth was perceived inadequate to uplift the Australian residential property market. The Australian housing market has performed negatively during this period mainly due to diminishing capital liquidity, excess housing supplies and retreating foreign investors.

A better understanding of the leading and emerging determinants of the residential property market will assist the policy makers to make sound decisions and effective policy changes based on the latest development in the Australian housing market. The results also provide a meaningful path for future property investments and investigations that explore country-specific effects through a comparative analysis.

The housing market determinants examined in this study revolve around the wider economic conditions in Australia that are not new. However, the coalesce analysis on the statistical results and the current housing market trends revealed some distinguishing characteristics and developments towards the 2020s Australian residential property market downturn.

In England and Wales the Crown Prosecutor is a lawyer who is independent from the investigation and is charged with assessing evidence and evaluating whether a prosecution should proceed or not. The CPS is intentionally authorised to override the decisions of the police to curb any potentially over‐zealous investigations and evidence gathering that might subsequently tarnish the standards of procedure in the courts when applying the criminal law. The increasingly burdensome rules of disclosure have made demands on the CPS which are akin to the overall requirement on the investigating magistrate of civil law jurisdictions to find the truth by examination of the prosecution and defence evidence. The recent moves to return a limited number of lawyers to police stations is a further indication that the future role of the CPS may include an active rather than solely passive role in evidence gathering. The Serious Fraud Office are directly involved in the investigation and prosecution of complex frauds. This office has statutory and judicial authority to conduct investigations which follow an inquisitorial rather than accusatorial model. The juge d'instruction in France has authority to direct and control police investigations and subsequently to compile a dossier of evidence for presentation before a trial court. This paper points out that there are close parallels emerging in pre‐trial procedures in England and Wales and in France and the criticisms of the role of the investigating magistrate, the ‘sick man’, may hold lessons to be learnt for investigators and prosecutors within this jurisdiction.

Undoubtedly, digital transformation is permeating all domains of business and society. We envisage this volume as an opportunity to explore how manifestations of digital transformation require rethinking of our understanding and theorization of institutional processes. To achieve this goal, a collaborative forum of organization and management theory scholars and information systems researchers was developed to enrich and advance institutional theory approaches in understanding digital transformation. This volume’s contributions advance the three institutional perspectives. The first perspective, institutional logics, technological affordances and digital transformation, seeks to deepen our understanding of the pervasive and increasingly important relationship between technology and institutions. The second perspective, digital transformation, professional projects and new institutional agents, explores how existing professions respond to the introduction of digital technologies as well as the emergence of new professional projects and institutional agents in the wake of digital transformation. The third perspective, institutional infrastructure, field governance and digital transformation, inquires how new digital organizational forms, such as platforms, affect institutional fields, their infrastructure and thus their governance. For each of these perspectives, we outline an agenda for future research, complemented by a brief discussion of new research frontiers (i.e., digital work and sites of technological (re-)production; artificial intelligence (AI) and actorhood; digital transformation and grand challenges) and methodological reflections.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how elite International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) schools in China function as a channel for international student mobility to leading universities around the world.

To achieve this, the authors conducted a mixed-methods study combining quantitative analysis of 1,622 students’ university destinations and qualitative analysis of interview data from five high performing and high tuition fee IBDP schools in China.

Results indicate that the IBDP in China can be conducive to a form of “elite international student mobility” for some students with 30 percent of participants attending one of the top 50 ranked universities globally. As an explanation, interview data points to the strong reputation of the program, the provision of structured opportunities for students to demonstrate “additional skills,” and the abundant resources of elite schools.

The authors provide a critical discussion about the implications of the IBDP’s function for “elite international student mobility” in connection with social contexts surrounding these international International Baccalaureate schools in China. In so doing, the discussion tackles two issues from a critical perspective: the role elite international schools in accelerating educational inequalities and challenges to authentic learning experience when elite schools play the “university admissions game.”

Sound lending procedures in retail financial institutions involve identifying high‐risk applicants, modifying loan conditions such as security requirements, and monitoring repayments post‐loan approval. For managers of credit unions, this procedure is complicated by the need to achieve balance between the institution’s social objective of improving loan accessibility so members can attain lifestyle goals and the possibility of reducing the institution’s viability through loan default. The results of our survey of Australian credit unions, in which 70 per cent of respondents reported experiencing some bankruptcy‐related default on personal loans, indicate managers do not impose more stringent lending conditions on high‐risk borrowers. However, social and viability objectives could be better balanced through careful loan monitoring and timely arrears practices.

Process benchmarking partnerships are emerging as a research tool to help small firms to build a competitive advantage against larger rivals. Managers are now beginning to appreciate the need to benchmark the strategically relevant processes in their value chain. Process benchmarking begins with exploratory qualitative research to determine the core processes to be benchmarked. Quantitative research then follows, using an audit methodology and involving the collection of the costs of core processes from benchmark partners on a standardised computer spreadsheet. Each partner receives the results of statistical analysis comparing the firm’s own cost structure to the average of the benchmark partners in each core process. Strategic planning decisions can then be made about how to generate greater customer value by eliminating excess capacity, outsourcing and modifying existing processes. This paper describes a process benchmarking partnership conducted across four Australian building societies to illustrate the strategic benefits of this research methodology for firms in the new millennium.

Aligned appraisal systems explicitly hold employees accountable for contributing to the accomplishment of organizational goals. Furthermore, appraisal alignment is consistent with both core bureaucratic expectations and New Public Management control regimes, but the efficacy of the policy and its substantive impact have yet to be considered in detail. Over the last decade, federal agencies were encouraged to revise appraisal systems and include alignment. Using the bureaucratic policy adoption literature, an empirical model assesses why agencies choose to adopt and/or implement alignment. The empirical analyses reveal that not all agencies adopting alignment in their appraisal systems fully implemented it for employees and managers. Organizational resources and ideology of political appointees influence adoption, while the strength of strategic program management efforts exhibits a weak association with implementation.