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This paper aims to examine impediments to the adoption of sustainable water-efficient technological innovation in agriculture. Farming is the largest water consumer and food production expansion in response to global population growth, combined with increasing droughts from climate change, threatens water and food insecurity for many countries. Yet, climate smart agriculture (CSA) innovation adoption has been slow, and in this regard, governments and the agricultural sector are not fulfilling their social responsibility and sustainability obligations.

Barriers to water-efficient drip irrigation (DI) adoption in Australia were investigated via 46 depth interviews with agricultural stakeholders and a survey of 148 farmers.

While DI water efficiency is recognised, this is not the key determinant of farmers’ irrigation method selection. Complex interrelationships between internal and external barriers impede DI adoption are identified. These include costs, satisfaction with alternative irrigation methods, farmer characteristics that determine the suitability of the innovation and the extent it is incremental or radical, plus various multidimensional risks. Government support of alternative, less water-efficient irrigation methods is also a critical barrier.

A conceptual framework for understanding barriers to sustainability oriented innovation adoption is presented. Its insights should be applicable to researchers and practitioners concerned with understanding and improving the adoption of socially responsible and sustainable innovation in a wide range of contexts. Recommendations for overcoming such adoption barriers are discussed in relation to the research focus of water-efficient agriculture and encouraging uptake of DI.

Managing the customer experience is critical for hospitality businesses because business viability can depend on the delivery of valued guest experiences. The industry lacks research that can assist in developing the specific measures and tools to design experiences that meet guests’ expectations. The purpose of this paper is to identify the constructs and generators of memorable experiences (ME) from the perspectives of luxury hotel hosts and guests.

Data were collected in two sequential phases. In the first phase, non-probability sampling was used to engage luxury hotel experts in a Delphi study. This was followed by in-depth, face-to-face interviews with frequently staying luxury hotel guests.

In total, 40 value generating factors emerged from the host data. These were validated with guests; however, guests also revealed a further 19 value generating factors that develop ME. These factors were clustered into five constructs and formulated into a ME framework that presents the constructs and supporting variables that can facilitate memorable luxury hotel experiences.

Guests were asked to recall previous luxury hotel experiences and it is acknowledged that recall of past experiences can be inaccurate. The sample size was also relatively small.

Critical, value generating factors were identified that hotel operators can employ to actively engage luxury hotel guests and ensure their experiences are memorable.

The study extends our understanding of the constructs and variables that contribute to the development of ME identifying the importance of sensory generators and the role of authenticity and destination specific culture in creating unique, ME. These key drivers can be used to increase guest satisfaction, loyalty and repeat visitation.

The wine industry is a multi‐billion product value category worldwide with a significant part being sales through hospitality service providers. Although wine sales add considerably to the profitability of many restaurants, hotels, bars and other hospitality establishments, few studies have been conducted into wine purchasing behaviour within hospitality settings. This study identifies the factors that influence consumers to purchase wine and attempts to demonstrate how the basic demographic characteristic of age is a useful variable for segmentation purposes. The study reveals that there are six dominant factors that influence wine purchasing behaviour and that significant differences in purchase motivation exist between three age segments, 18 to 25 years, 26 to 34 years and 34+years. The results of this research have significant implications for hospitality operators who, with a basic knowledge of the demographic characteristics of their guests, can develop marketing strategies to maximise the sale of wine and wine products.

IT is surprising that in these days of universal research the subject of library Fittings should have remained to all intents and purposes a virgin one. It is neither an unimportant nor an uninteresting subject; to the librarian it is one naturally of peculiar interest. Yet, if we except slight and largely incidental treatment of ancient and monastic libraries and accounts of present day fittings—and the latter mostly of the trade catalogue order—there has been almost nothing written on the subject. It is therefore a matter of congratulation that so capable a writer and scholar as Mr. John Willis Clark should have seen proper to devote much time and learning to the investigation of this subject. In his handsomely produced and profusely illustrated volume entitled “The Care of Books,” in which the evolution of library fittings is traced from the classic period to the end of the eighteenth century, Mr. Clark has made one of the most valuable contributions to library economy that has been issued for many a day, and has earned the gratitude of all librarians. Mr. Clark has already treated the subject in his valuable essay on “The Library” in “The Architectural History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge,” and in his Rede and Sandars lectures on the monastic and Greek and Roman libraries respectively, and these with much fresh material he has embodied in this monograph of over 350 quarto pages. Mr. Clark's descriptions of the mechanical appliances used in the libraries of olden time, such as, for example, the methods of chaining books and the details of the chains and their fastenings, are wonderfully clear, supplemented as they are by photographs and drawings, even to the most non‐mechanical reader. The many plans and elevations given are enhanced in value by being drawn to and accompanied by the scale, and altogether we have nothing but praise for this book. At least, if we have a grumble, it is that Mr. Clark has not been so full on the “wall system”—which brings us of course to our own fittings of to‐day, and which is therefore not merely of antiquarian value—as he is on the “press” and “lectern” systems. We should therefore be glad to see an expansion of chapter viii. in a new edition.

This paper describes the development of an evaluation framework to document the process, impact and outcomes of a community‐based mental health promotion project. This initiative, the Rural Mental Health Project, is concerned with the promotion of positive mental health in rural communities in the Republic and Northern Ireland. As a community‐based initiative, this project involves multi‐component interventions that are implemented with diverse target groups across a range of community settings. Assessing the process of programme implementation is critical in order to capture and document the realities of programme planning and implementation. The evaluation approach adopted in this project is based on a logic model research paradigm (Scheirer et al, 1995). This model gives equal emphasis to process and outcome evaluation and seeks to relate the realities of programme implementation to intended programme outcomes. Project activity is tracked prospectively in order to examine the detail of actual programme delivery and its influence on expected project outcomes. This paper outlines the model as applied in this project and explores the methodological and practical challenges in evaluating complex community interventions.

This paper aims to provide context for papers in this special issue on Australasian e‐learning. The paper aims to examine the background to Australian flexible and transnational education and to evaluate the educational and intuitional flexibility of three typical products of the Australian educational software industry.

The history of Australian distance education is summarised and drivers for flexible education are presented. A model of flexible educational software is introduced with three dimensions: educational, institutional and support/training. Three educational software products are informally reviewed using this model to establish that the current generation of Australian educational software offers significant educational and institutional flexibility.

The three examples of Australian educational software rate highly in both educational and institutional flexibility and also offer excellent support.

The existence of hot spots of educational technology innovation in relatively isolated areas such as Perth and Tasmania warrants further investigation.

The Australian educational software industry produces extremely flexible products with excellent support that are worthy of consideration by international customers. Policy makers in Australia are alerted that current policies in ICT off shoring and the Australian Research Quality Framework (equivalent to the British Research Assessment Exercise) may threaten this industry, which contributes to sizable exports in transnational education.

The paper brings the flexible nature of Australian educational software to light for an international audience.

As the twenty‐first century beckons, the competitive terrain of the UK food retailing industry is set to change. A host of forces signal the need for food retailers to embark on programmes of strategic change in order to find a defendable position within an increasingly competitive industry. Highlights the strategies adopted by successful retailers in Northern Ireland which reflect adaptation to environmental forces. Identifies some of the opportunities which are available to food retailers in other regional centres throughout the UK, together with suggestions for their exploitation through a focus on shopping in provincial towns.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and compare three different principles – the culpability, capacity and concern principles – for allocating responsibility for governance in a multi‐level context of addressing sustainable development.

The principles are first analysed from a theoretical and normative standpoint, linking to earlier literature on for example, the contribution principle, subsidiarity and global citizenship. Then the three principles are analysed in an empirical setting. The selected case is the issue complex around the health and environmental concerns from pesticide use in developing countries. Document analysis and semi‐structured interviews were carried out with relevant stakeholders from local, national and global governance levels on themes which enabled analysis of the workability and justness of the principles and whether they were already applied to some degree.

Analysis of the case shows the mutual complementarity of the three principles for allocating responsibility for governance, especially when culpability and capacity are dispersed across different agents and levels. However, the concern and capacity principles emerged as more important and promising. The results indicated the need for moving the value basis of agents towards more selfless global concern in order to create an effective multi‐level governance system.

The results may help policymakers at different levels to analyse more systematically who should assume responsibility for sustainable development governance and why.

Extends the analysis of principles for allocating responsibility for global issues.

The purpose of this paper is to examine travellers' experiences with public houses in Colonial Victoria, to determine how the hospitality industry in the colony was transformed from primitive hospitality provision to sophisticated, well managed hotels in a relatively short time.

The article reviews public records, newspapers of the period, eye‐witness accounts and key texts to chart the development of the hospitality industry in Colonial Victoria and to demonstrate how primitive inns became modern hotels within the space of three decades.

This paper highlights how the discovery of gold in 1851 prompted an unprecedented influx of travellers whose expectations of hospitality provision led to the transformation of existing hostelries from crude and primitive inns to modern, sophisticated hotels.

The research is confined to Colonial Victoria and therefore, not necessarily a reflection of the colonies in general or general trends in hospitality provision at that time.

Tracing the roots of hospitality provision and the traditions of hospitality management can provide a greater understanding of modern hospitality practice. As O'Gorman argues “[…] with historical literature contributing to informing industry practices today and tomorrow: awareness of the past always helps to guide the future”.

This paper adds to the body of knowledge in relation to the roots and evolution of commercial hospitality.