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The research takes a comprehensive evaluation of hospitality students’ perceptions towards small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) employment and explores whether the current recession and labour market changes influence hospitality students career-related decisions. Such exploration would provide vital information as to how the new economic environment has modified the nature and context of hospitality students perceptions towards SMEs. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The research focuses on a constructionist philosophy in order to interpret how hospitality students construct of career choice. The qualitative methodology adopts semi-structured interviews in order to explore the socially constructed views of hospitality students’ perception of SMEs employment.

In spite of recessional challenges which particularly affect the graduate labour market, the research confirms the original academic arguments that socially constructed barriers and influencing factors do not highlight SMEs as an attractive first employment destination.

This research recognises the need to reconsider the curriculum for hospitality students to embed the notion of SMEs as a possible career choice.

Socially SMEs have not either historically or in the present day been seen as providing adequate resources for graduates entering the world of work. Such an implication has a considerably impact upon the supply and demand side of SMEs graduate labour market.

The economic downturn now poses a real challenge for new graduates as it is difficult to predict and discuss future labour market issues and trends. The research allows key stakeholders in graduate employment to understand the effects of the economic environment to graduate SMEs perceptions and take measures in improving SMEs-graduate employment in hospitality.

Reports on the International Conference on “Design for Competitive Advantage – Making the Most of Design”, organized by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Advises that UK companies need to design and sell more products worldwide in order to reverse the UK′s economic trend. Details talks from the conference given by speakers from large manufacturing organizations. Stresses the importance of the customer; assessing customer needs; providing suitable products; listening to the customer′s voice and designing products which fulfil those expressed needs; supporting products through the life cycle; adopting a world class approach; reducing lead times and being creative; and how to avoid pirfalls and learn lessons.

The purpose of this paper is to explore UK consumer perceptions of trust, risk and perceived usefulness of mobile payments through the use of sequential mixed methods.

A post-positivist philosophy is used with a social constructionist ontology with a questionnaire as the first survey instrument using an empirical sequential mixed methods approach. Summary quantitative analysis of the questionnaire data is undertaken followed by semi-structured interviews that produce qualitative data on which content analysis is undertaken to assess and explore UK consumer perspectives. The technology acceptance model is used as the underlying framework on which a conceptual model is developed.

UK consumers have significant risk and trust concerns with mobile payments, although these concerns can be overcome when clear consumer benefits are identified whilst bank supported mobile payments have an increased level of trust compared to new market entrants and other established companies. Furthermore, perceived trust positively influences perceived usefulness and mitigates perceived risk, whilst perceived risk negatively influences perceived usefulness. In addition, perceived usefulness significantly and positively influences UK consumer attitude which can lead to adoption.

Whilst 120 completed questionnaire responses are received, only 101 questionnaires are used for analysis. In addition, ten semi-structured interviews are undertaken using a purposeful sample to minimise any imbalance (Oakley, 1981) which increases the reliability of the research findings (Hackley, 2003). This mobile payments research does not have a statistically secure universalisation of the findings, which negates the application of these research findings to other groups and to different social settings (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).

Mobile payment organisations will need to focus on identifying the specific benefits of mobile payments to UK consumers as mitigating risk and increasing trust do not compensate for the absence of usefulness.

UK consumers indicate a lack of awareness of existing contactless payment guarantees provided by UK banks, although these payment guarantees significantly increase UK consumer trust.

Both quantitative and qualitative empirical data are obtained on UK consumer perspectives of risk, trust and perceived usefulness of mobile payments using sequential mixed methods.

Grounded on approach/avoidance behaviour theory, the purpose of this paper is to develop a typology of grocery shoppers based on the concomitant perceived advantages and disadvantages of shopping online and in store for a single cohort of consumers who buy groceries in both channels.

A survey design was employed using a sample of 871 UK shoppers who had purchased groceries online and offline. The survey instrument contained items that measured the perceived advantages and disadvantages of grocery shopping online, and items relating to the perceived advantages and disadvantages of grocery shopping in traditional supermarkets. Items were selected from the extant literature and subjected to content and face validity checks. Cluster analysis was used to develop typologies of online and offline grocery shoppers. The inter-relation between the two typology sets was then examined.

The results of the research provide several insights into the characteristics, perceptions and channel patronage preferences of grocery shoppers. In particular, profiling e-grocery shoppers on the basis of their concomitant perceptions of shopping online and in store suggests that the choice of whether to shop online or in store may be driven not by the perceived advantages of one channel vs the other, but by the desire to avoid the greater disadvantages of the alternative. These perceptions differ somewhat between different consumer groups.

This study makes a noteworthy contribution to the internet and general shopping literature by providing a profile of grocery shoppers based on their concomitant and often conflicting perceived advantages and disadvantages of shopping online and their perceived advantages and disadvantages of shopping in traditional supermarkets. The use of a single cohort of consumers overcomes the bias in previous studies that employ separate cohorts of online and offline shoppers and reveal important insights into the complex perceptions and behaviours of multichannel grocery shoppers.

When school leaders advance strategic plans focused on improving educational equity through data-driven decision making, how do policies-as-practiced unfold in the daily work of science teachers? The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This ethnographic study examines how data-centric accountability and improvement efforts surface as practices for 36 science teachers in three secondary schools. For two years, researchers were embedded in schools alongside teachers moving through daily classroom practice, meetings with colleagues and leaders, data-centric meetings, and professional development days.

Bundled initiatives created consequences for science educators including missed opportunities to capitalize on student-generated ideas, to foster science sensemaking, and to pursue meaningful and equitable science learning. Problematic policy-practice intersections arose, in part, because of school leaders’ framing of district and school initiatives in ways that undermined equity in science education.

From the perspective of science education, this paper raises an alarming problem for equitable science teaching. Lessons learned from missteps seen in this study have practical implications for others attempting similar work. The paper suggests alternatives for supporting meaningful and equitable science education.

Seeing leaders’ framing of policy initiatives, their bundling of performance goals, equity and accountability efforts, and their instructional coaching activities from the point of view of teachers affords unique insight into how leadership activities mediate policies in schools.

Shorter product lead times are rapidly becoming the main‐stay of an organisation's competitive edge. Gould Electronics is utilising, among other quality techniques, project teamworking to help achieve this goal.

Asserts that a manufacturing strategy can provide more than reduced production costs. Contends that, effectively implemented, it will prove a competitive weapon to ensure company growth and improve customer related performance. Discusses how five of Britain′s top factories have been successful in achieving this goal, thus remaining competitive with the world′s best. Asserts that TQM has been a major element in all the companies′ strategies. Concludes that defining culture change is hard but common to all five companies was the way they aimed to be the best. Asserts that companies must introduce culture change before facing annihilation by the competition.

The fair trade system was established as an alternative to the free trade system. In the case of fair trade apparel, certification standards are nascent and there is no consistent logo or labelling to aid consumers in their quest to purchase fairly‐made garments. The purpose of this paper is to examine the practices and marketing strategies of three fair trade apparel businesses based in a metropolitan city in the USA, where there are no clear standards to follow. The interviews taken for these case studies were conducted before the launching of a certification program for fair trade apparel by TransFair USA.

This research comprised three case study fair trade apparel companies – two wholesale and one retail. The case studies are based on in‐depth interviews, the examination of documents provided by business owners, and publicly available information on each of the companies.

These three case studies revealed differences in fair trade practices. The wholesalers communicated that they perceived a hierarchy of importance in fair trade practices, placing an emphasis on labour standards and workers’ rights and considering environmental standards to be secondary. The lack of a standardized logo for labels on fair trade apparel has meant that the businesses have had to find creative ways to communicate their fair trade practices to consumers. None of the participants felt that this lack of standardization negatively impacted their businesses.

There is need for a standardized label to make fair trade apparel easily identifiable for consumers and for the further development of standards for fair trade apparel and the marketing of fair trade apparel.

Standards for fair trade apparel are currently being developed and the paper provides valuable information about the process by which fair trade standards are formed and marketed in practice.

Religion and religious people have been viewed as detrimental to human and social progress. In a now classic case, Edward Gibbon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire held the blame for the decline of the Roman Empire squarely upon Christianity. But, among the great variety of denunciations of religion, perhaps the most acerbic criticism came from the pen of Karl Marx. He wrote:

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of quality management training by reviewing commonly used critical success factors and tools rather than the overall methodological approach.

The methodology used a web‐based questionnaire. It consisted of 238 questions covering 77 tools and 30 critical success factors selected from leading academic and practitioner sources. The survey had 79 usable responses and the data were analysed using relevant statistical quality management tools. The results were validated in a series of structured workshops with quality management experts.

Findings show that in general most of the critical success factor statements for quality management are agreed with, although not all are implemented well. The findings also show that many quality tools are not known or understood well; and that training has an important role in raising their awareness and making sure they are used correctly.

Generalisations are limited by the UK‐centric nature of the sample.

The practical implications are discussed for organisations implementing quality management initiatives, training organisations revising their quality management syllabi and academic institutions teaching quality management.

Most recent surveys have been aimed at methodological levels (i.e. “lean”, “Six Sigma”, “total quality management” etc.); this research proposes that this has limited value as many of the tools and critical success factors are common to most of the methodologies. Therefore, quite uniquely, this research focuses on the tools and critical success factors. Additionally, other recent comparable surveys have been less comprehensive and not focused on training issues.