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In the United States it is estimated that five million people have serious debt problems. In this country the credit explosion has reached nothing like the intensity of its American counterpart. Nonetheless, retailers are finding that customers are responding favourably to the promotional use of credit. But it must be a system which is operated with as little risk as possible to the retailer. New technology means that retailers will be able to implement the principles of credit sanctioning more effectively.

Contact centers for patient and referring physician are important to large medical-centers such as the Mayo Clinic's Central Appointment Office (CAO). The aim of this case study is to report the process and results of a major process improvement effort, designed to simultaneously improve service quality and efficiency.

Discrete-event simulation and optimization are used and linked to significant service improvements.

The process improvement efforts led to about a 70 percent improvement in patient service performance as measured by average answering-speed (ASA) and average abandonment rate (AAR). This was achieved without adding additional staff, despite call volume increasing by 12 percent. Evaluating process improvement projects is difficult owing to the “phased” implementation of changes. Thus, there is no true control against which to compare. Additionally, the results are based on a single case study.

Evaluation of process improvement projects is difficult due to the “phased” implementation of changes. Thus, there is no true control to compare against.

Contact center data and operations research methods, such as discrete-event simulation and optimization, can be integrated with change management, which results in significant process improvements in medical call-centers.

Structured quantitative modeling of contact centers can be an important extension to traditional quality and process improvement techniques.

The authors investigate the joint effects of two environmental variables, performance-based pay (PBP) and performance monitoring (PM), on behavioral dishonesty in a setting where the controls subsequently are absent. In a laboratory study using 88 participants in a 2×2 experimental design, simulating a work environment, the authors manipulate the presence of PBP and PM. Once the participants are accustomed to their assigned work environment and have completed contractual tasks unrelated to the dishonesty experiment, the authors allow them to privately roll dice to determine the size of a bonus gift card. Dishonesty levels are inferred from differences between treatment groups in the prizes claimed. The authors find an interaction effect, where inferred dishonesty in the performance-based-pay group is higher than the fixed-pay group when there is no PM, but lower when there is PM. Although theory and existing literature did not lead us to hypothesize these exact results, they offer important insights into a complex relationship. By jointly examining the effects of worker contracts and workplace monitoring on dishonesty, this research extends the understanding of the potential consequences of formal controls. As the workplace grows more complex, employers increasingly rely on information provided by frontline employees and managers. Thus, unintended effects of managerial controls on honesty are an important topic in the business literature.

The College for the Distributive Trades library took a gamble in the Summer of 1987 and chose an automated library system that had never been tested in the UK although it was being used widely in the United States and in the Republic of Ireland. The system selected was the Data Trek Card Datalog system . It was installed on the College's main site at Leicester Square, London a year ago and this article shares the College's experience of the planning, installation and management of this system.

ABE and the International Society for Business Education (SIEC). The fundamental purpose of this Society is to form a bridge between business education and business life on an international basis. It provides an international forum for the presentation and discussion of issues of significance in business education, including teacher training, curriculum development and implementation, and continuing education. International conferences are held annually in a different country each year, offering the cultural, economic and educational aspects of the host countries to enhance the debates.

In March 1969, Brisbane student and political activist Margaret Bailey was suspended from Inala High School – ostensibly for “undermining the authority” of her teacher – prompting claims of political suppression. Through a case study of the subsequent campaign for Bailey’s reinstatement, the purpose of this paper is to explain the emergence of the high school activist as a new political actor in the late 1960s.

The paper draws on newsletters and pamphlets produced by Brisbane activists, alongside articles from the left-wing and mainstream press, to reconstruct the key events of the campaign and trace the major arguments advanced by Bailey and her supporters.

Initiated by the high school activist group, Students in Dissent (SID), the campaign in support of Bailey lasted over two months, culminating in a “chain-in” staged by Bailey at the Queensland Treasury Building on 8 May. Linking together arguments about students’ rights, civil liberties and democratic government, the campaign reveals how high school activism was enabled not only by the broader climate of political dissent in the late 1960s, but by the increasing emphasis on secondary education as a right of modern citizenship in the preceding decades.

This is the first study of the campaign for Bailey’s reinstatement at Inala High School and one of the only analyses to date of the political mobilisation of high school students in Australia during the late 1960s. The case study of the Bailey campaign underlines that secondary school students were important players in the political contests of the late 1960s and, if only for brief periods, were able to command the attention of education officials, the media and leading politicians. It represents an important historical precedent for contemporary high school activism, including the global School Strike 4 Climate movement.

The need for efficient handling of large items of stock has led to the home‐improvement equipment vendor investing in robotised plant. Brian Rooks reports.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of oral history for marketing historians and provide case studies from projects in the Australian context to demonstrate its utility. These case studies are framed within a theme of market research and its historical development in two industries: advertising and retail property.

This study examines oral histories from two marketing history projects. The first, a study of the advertising industry, examines the globalisation of the advertising agency in Australia over the period spanning the 1950s to the 1980s, through 120 interviews. The second, a history of the retail property industry in Australia, included 25 interviews with executives from Australia’s largest retail property firms whose careers spanned from the mid-1960s through to the present day.

The research demonstrates that oral histories provide a valuable entry port through which histories of marketing, shifts in approaches to market research and changing attitudes within industries can be examined. Interviews provided insights into firm culture and practices; demonstrated the variability of individual approaches within firms and across industries; created a record of the ways that market research has been conducted over time; and revealed the ways that some experienced operators continued to rely on traditional practices despite technological advances in research methods.

Despite their ubiquity, both the advertising and retail property industries in Australia have received limited scholarly attention. Recent scholarship is redressing this gap, but more needs to be understood about the inner workings of firms in an historical context. Oral histories provide an avenue for developing such understandings. The paper also contributes to broader debates about the role of oral history in business and marketing history.