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IT is accorded a central role in Malaysian Industrial Master Plan 2 (IMP2), not only as the foundation for the future development of the manufacturing sector, but also, as the engine of development and growth of other sectors of the economy. To fulfill this central role, what should be the value of IT Products and IT Services? We have computed the necessary capital stock of IT Products at RM21.556 billion in 1978 prices, each unit of which is to produce five times its value in output in the year 2005, for a start. The targeted output of IT Services would be another RM 21.556 billion in 1978 prices, for a total of RM43.112 billion for IT industry in 2005. Bill Gates, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation, holds that Broadband Network Technology (BNT) indispensable to implement the Information Highway would not be available to most US homes for at least a decade. No matter when BNT arrives, an overriding question is: what will be the UTILIZATION of the exploding multimedia content of the Information Superskyway. How will people USE 1,000 times the current content, arriving 1,000 times as fast? The raison d'etre of the Information Superskyway is the Matrix of Learning, with Content as the rows, Context as the columns, and Learning as the Cells. The user has to identify his (her) context of use (entertain‐ment, education, enlightenment, edification). Investment in input (con‐tent) will depend on the answer to the question: By how much will the context be impaired by delay or deficiency of the content (data)? As the capacity of chips increases exponentially, the price drops dramatically — already it is down to $0.14 per megabyte! In the future, a holographic memory of the size of one's fists could hold the contents of the entire Library of Congress. With fast and furious developments in transfer and transformation of multi‐media content, how should one go about investing in IT to reap the bounty of BNT? We have no guarantee of success; we can increase the probability of success in the long‐run using seven IT investment Considerations/Criteria: (1) Choose the “Long‐run” that is realistic: Consider the odds against surviving one year, let alone 10 years; and choose wisely. (2) Choose Your Segment of the IT Industry: Are you most competent in: communications, computers, or content industries? What is your primary product: information, education, enlightenment, shopping, or e‐mail? (3) Choose Your CONCOL competitor/collaborator in the IT Industry: No matter how powerful you are in your chosen segment of the industry, it is almost mandatory that you collaborate with some other(s) in your own industry, and/or in another of the C3 industries. Bill Gates says: “companies must be able to partner on some projects and compete vigorously in others. Few companies in the computer and communications industries are purely friends or purely foes.” (4) Choose the Technology/Territory Area for CONCOL: How will the CONCOLs be formed and dissolved‐in: (1) Technology, (2) Territory? The choice of future technology would depend on the territory: How long would it take for the particular technology to develop a mass market? In IT parlance, should we back advances in: (I) transfer of data, or (2) transformation of data? (5) Choose the Technology Transformation Profile: Visualizing technology say, five generations ahead would indeed be quite hard and hazardous. But we would choose linear extensions of performance characteristics over Quantum jumps. However, PC industry experience suggests that each successive computer generation tended to provide Quantum jumps, little of the earlier models being useable with the new generation. (6) Choose the Technology Transfer Sequence: By establishing a relationship with the techtransferor over the long‐term, and scrupulously observing the mutually‐agreed conditions of techtransfer, the transferee can steadily increase its technical competence. (7) Fiercely Focus on the UTILIZATION of the Exploding Multime‐dia Content: To make IT win in the marketplace, the mere increase in the volume of content or the mere increase in the speed of its transmission is quite inadequate. What will make the difference is the learning that is made possible by the multimedia content and communication.

Outlines new database products appearing in the Gale Directory of Databases, a two‐volume work published twice a year. Provides figures for the distribution and percentage of new and newly implemented science, technology and medicine databases including name, vendor and medium. Briefly discusses these by each medium.

The purpose of this study is to seek to investigate the impact that perceived risk and trust have on online purchasing behavior, in particular the nature of purchasing associations within the expensive, complex, high risk and credence products such as gemstones.

An online survey of purchases of Thai gemstones was used to collect the data. Partial Least Squares was used to test the conceptual model of the study.

The results of this study suggest that the type of internet marketing strategy used by the seller (the place strategy) and the buyer's privacy and security practices influence a buyer's perceived risk to purchase gemstones online. Furthermore, the study showed that perceived risk reduces trust and perceived risk reduces online purchases.

The implications of these results are that privacy and security concerns of online buyers must be addressed in order to reduce perceived risk and thereby increase trust which is fundamental to the amount purchased online.

Online marketers of highly risky products need to consider that policies that promote trust and reduce risk are important means of increasing purchases. In particular, the use of multichannels will reduce perceived risk.

This is a rare study which examines purchases of expensive, complex, high risk and credence products such as gemstones. It is also a study which examines the behaviour of organisational buyers. Also actual reported online purchases are investigated rather than just intent.

Lifelong learning is high on the Government's agenda. More than at any other time, there is a need for libraries from all sectors to work together, in particular to exploit the potential of the National Grid for Learning to make information and learning accessible to many more people. In this article, Vilas Edwards describes the distinctive partnership between library services in the City of Sunderland to support learning communities, focusing on IT developments and in particular, the provision of a City‐wide electronic journals service.

This study aims to apply a Lean Six Sigma framework to support continuous improvement in the maritime industry (shipbuilding, logistics services and shipping companies) during COVID-19 pandemics. By applying the concepts of Lean Six Sigma and supply chain resilience, the most suitable continuous improvement method for the maritime industry is developed to maintain a resilient supply chain during COVID-19.

A specific shipbuilding, logistics services and shipping company in Indonesia is chosen as the research object. The Lean Six Sigma framework reveals the wastes through the supply chain resilience concept, and implements internal business processes to maintain optimal system performance.

The paper identifies important implementation aspects in applying Lean Six Sigma to shipbuilding, logistics services and shipping. The DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and control) approach is applied to achieve supply chain resilience. Resilient measures are generated for the case companies to maximize performance during the pandemics.

This paper provides a new insight for integrating Lean Six Sigma and resilience strategies in the maritime industry during COVID-19 disruptions. The authors provide some insights to sustain the performance of the maritime industries under study.

This study is part of the first research in the maritime industry that focuses on continuous improvement during COVID-19 using Lean Six Sigma and supply chain resilience.

There is widespread acceptance that information technology (IT) is a central component of business operations and extensively used in marketing. Aligned to this is the belief that marketing is experiencing radical and dynamic changes, many of which are IT driven. Reports a study of 204 Irish firms, which seeks to discover the level of transformation in the marketing function as a result of IT. Reviews whether marketers’ use of IT has progressed from simply automating existing marketing systems to actually using IT to transform their marketing capabilities. Aims to ascertain if marketing is achieving significant benefits from IT.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of cultural factors (concern for face and stability of attribution) in the relationships among service recovery quality, postrecovery satisfaction and repurchase intention. Based on the politeness theory, this paper proposes a theoretical model for understanding how concern for face and stability of attribution may affect collectivists’ consumption behavior.

Data were collected in a field survey of 600 Hong Kong consumers who had experienced a telecommunications service failure. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the theoretical hypotheses.

A cultural factor of concern for face is found to negatively moderate the relationship between service recovery quality and postrecovery satisfaction. Face also positively influences the relationship between postrecovery satisfaction and repurchase intention. Another cultural factor, stability of attribution, is found to negatively moderate the relationship between service recovery quality and postrecovery satisfaction and to negatively moderate the relationship between postrecovery satisfaction and repurchase intention.

This study contributes to the understanding of the relevance of concern for face and stability of attribution in collectivists’ consumption behavior. The findings have significant implications for managers in a position to exploit the cultural value mechanisms of collectivist consumers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this has been the first research to examine the impact of concern for face and stability of attribution among service recovery quality, postrecovery satisfaction and repurchase intention.