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Screen printing is a traditional low cost technique for production of electronic circuitry. Conventionally, screen printing is capable of no smaller than 200‐250 micron line and space (500 micron pitch) geometry in anything other than low volume production. In recent years, ERA has been developing a novel approach to screen printing which circumvents the problems with a traditional mesh screen and thereby allows dimensions down to 50 micron line and space to be printed consistently. A major European Commission sponsored project ‐ HIDENIMP ‐ has just commenced with the objective of transferring this manufacturing technology to European industry across a broad range of applications. These include microwave devices (where control of edge definition and gap is important), displays (where minimising track width enhances appearance), precision resistors (where the more controlled deposition characteristics of the μ‐Screen can be used and trimming minimised) and environmental sensors.

This paper provides an overview of the main results of a Department of Health‐funded research project which investigated the quality and costs of residential supports for people with learning disabilities. The main findings were that the adjusted costs of community‐based supports were higher than residential campuses and village communities; within community‐based provision there were no statistically significant differences between the adjusted costs of supported living, small group homes and group homes for 4‐6 people; community‐based provision and village communities offered better care than residential campuses; there appeared to be distinct benefits associated with community‐based provision and village communities; within community‐based provision there were benefits associated with smaller size and supported living arrangements.

Research in escalating commitment has shown that escalation situations are primarily a function of psychological traits such as self‐justification and risk propensity. However, the extent to which these factors affect decision making is dependent upon a number of variables which include the situation, the level of commitment, and the cultural norms involved No studies to date examine the relationship between escalating commitment and cultural values. The purpose of this paper is to extend the work on escalating commitment by examining it from an international perspective. Research propositions explore cultural values and their impact on the escalation of commitment process.

This paper examines a common presentation to primary care and specialist drug services. Often patients who are experiencing opioid dependencies when stabilising on methadone often increase their consumption of alcohol. Also, increasingly so, polydrug use is a growing presentation with heroin, crack and alcohol use used in dependent patterns when presenting for treatment.There is often a lack of alcohol detoxification treatment packages given to those who are on methadone, and often some prescribers in the area of substance use regard an alcohol detoxification programme when prescribing methadone as too risky. This has led to a reluctance in general to prescribe an alcohol detoxification programme for many patients who request it. This is the case in Islington, London.This paper looks at a new service set up in Islington, London and looks at the way it has treated the cohort of patients who have presented with polydrug use, including alcohol. It has seen that patients who were more stable on their methadone and had longer histories in treatment were more likely to complete an alcohol detoxification programme with some ‘dry’ time off alcohol. It proposes that while there is a risk of prescribing alcohol detoxification regimes with methadone, there is a cohort of patients were this can be prescribed with a favourable outcome.

This paper aims to detail the policies and practices that helped Creditsafe UK, a provider of online company credit reports, to earn 23rd place in the latest Sunday Times Best 100 Companies to Work For.

The paper focuses on the areas of recruitment, induction, training, empowerment, teamwork, management style, flexible working and promotion from within. It includes the personal stories of three employees of the company.

The paper explains that the culture built from day one has been conducive to high levels of employee engagement. Significant emphasis has been placed on creating an environment that welcomes dynamic, motivated and hard‐working people and gives them the opportunity to grow to the best of their ability.

The paper highlights the importance of creating a friendly, high‐energy, engaged environment with opportunities for personal growth and advancement.

It stresses the key role of promoting employees from within the company.

The paper details a number of unusual HR practices, including the provision of activity areas with table‐tennis or football tables, plus a disco ball adorning all sales departments, with the sales floor being affectionately referred to as the dance floor. It advances the view that, through creative employment‐engagement strategies, companies can derive measurable and tangible business benefits. Companies can improve their profitability by investing in employee development, through productivity gains and reduced employee churn.

The purpose of this study was to assess equity investors satisfaction with stockbroker services. Four components emerged from a factor analysis of 14 variables of retail equity investors’ satisfaction with stockbroker services. According to the findings, these elements have a substantial impact on investors’ trust and confidence in stockbrokers.

By physically visiting stockbrokers’ offices in Punjab, including Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Mohali, 1,000 questionnaires were distributed to retail equities investors. Stockbrokers were chosen using a simple random selection process due to their large number. Questionnaires were filled out by personally visiting stockbrokers’ offices and handing over surveys, instructing them to fill them out with information from their clients and personally visiting stockbrokers’ offices and instructing their clients to complete the questionnaires. The respondents completed 373 surveys. A total of 45 surveys were determined to be incomplete and were removed from the study. The remaining 328 surveys were used to conduct the analysis. The study uses ordinal regression to assess investors’ trust and confidence in stockbrokers’ services.

The findings of the study highlighted the importance of variables evaluated by respondents when seeking stockbroker services. These criteria included the accuracy of stockbrokers’ information, the speed with which accounts are settled and the brokers’ willingness to give valuable service to investors. These 14 variables, which measure investor satisfaction with stockbroker services, were subjected to factor analysis. With the use of component analysis, four factors were identified: satisfaction with stockbroker services, stockbroker regulations, stockbroker transactional services and stockbrokers’ image in the eyes of investors, which explained 72.55% of the variation in the data. With the use of ordinal regression analysis, it was discovered that these four criteria have a considerable impact on investors’ trust and confidence in stockbrokers.

The current study, which is being conducted at the state level, might be expanded to include the entire country. It might be possible to look into the impact of retail capital market investment on rural investors. The research might be expanded to include a look at how reforms affect the functioning of stock markets. A study on the awareness of retail investment trends among women investors could be conducted. It is possible to investigate the ramifications of internet stock trading in India. It is possible to investigate the impact of technical innovation on capital markets. In this study, a survey has been conducted, in the future, the behavior of the investors can be observed to analyze whether they are satisfied with the services of stockbrokers or not.

This research would be extremely beneficial to investors who make investment decisions and employ stockbrokers to help them make those selections. Because with the aid of the factors revealed investors can match the service quality of their own intermediary and only if they will be satisfied they will trust their intermediary.

This research will aid stockbrokers in providing investors with efficient and effective services. As they will have knowledge about the needs and aspirations of their clients, they will try to render their services as per their expectations. This will ultimately lead to the satisfaction of the retail equity investors, and they will have trust and confidence in the services provided by the stockbrokers. The present study helps the stockbrokers in understanding the fact that the qualitative aspects of their services are crucial for building investors’ trust and confidence otherwise investors will not be satisfied with their services. This study is extremely important for government as well. They can also take cues from witnessed the positive impact of their regulations on the quality of the stockbrokers’ services. This improvement in the quality of stockbroker services has further enhanced the trust and confidence of investors. Regulations are essential for improving the quality of stockbrokers’ services.

This paper reveals that a variety of factors, i.e. satisfaction with stockbroker services, stockbroker regulations, stockbroker transactional services and stockbrokers’ image in the eyes of investors influence retail equities investors’ trust and faith in brokerage services.

The purpose of this paper is to combine notions from the POST Model of Economic Geography and Learning Theory from International Business to study how firms may enhance their responsiveness to institutional processes and changes through different forms of international learning. Focussing on one form of institutional changes, namely pro-market reforms, the paper analyzes how firms may boost the potential benefits from such changes through international strategies that increase their access to knowledge spillovers and absorptive capacity. These strategies include international product diversification, enhancing innovation capabilities, informal institutional exposure, accumulated internationalization knowledge, and overall experiential knowledge.

The hypotheses are tested using generalized least squares models with AR(1) panel-specific autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity correction. Based on the preliminary analyses performed in these studies, the author also executes a Hausman test, Bartlett’s test, and James/Alexander’s test. The results of these analyses indicate that the use of random effects is appropriate; that moderating effects are present; and that multivariate analyses using these moderators are suitable, respectively.

The results indicate that pro-market reforms have a positive and significant effect on the profitability of firms from developing countries. Furthermore, they provide support for the positive moderating effects of international product diversification, innovation capabilities, informal institutional exposure, accumulated internationalization knowledge, and overall experiential knowledge. Together, these findings suggest that through their international strategic decisions, MNEs can enhance their access to knowledge and become more responsive to institutional changes in their home market.

This paper contributes to the economic geography literature by linking the POST Model with the classification of types of knowledge from Learning Theory. The paper analyzes how characteristics of place, organization, space, and time play a different role for each of the three basic types of knowledge that is relevant for international firms: institutional, business, and internationalization. Furthermore, the paper contributes to the literature on reforms and firm profitability by delving deeper into the moderating effect of strategic decisions on the relationship between reforms and firm performance. This allows us to have a deeper comprehension of how various sources of international learning may enhance the responsiveness of firms to institutional changes.

The paper provides several important contributions to the international strategy literature. First, it contributes to Learning Theory by combining it with the POST Model of Economic Geography to study how each of the three sources of knowledge (and their subcomponents) can be further broken down into factors of place, organization, space, and time. Second, it contributes to the literature of institutional change by studying how knowledge acquired through vastly different means can provide firms with sources of competitive advantage over other local competitors when responding to institutional changes in their home market. Third, it contributes to the literature on reforms and profitability by studying five novel moderators of this relationship.

This paper aims to investigate the factors that influenced seven graduates in the creative and digital industries to start their own businesses in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK – an area with lack of employing establishments and locally registered businesses.

Questionnaires and semi‐structured interviews identified the constraining and enabling factors graduates may encounter when attempting to start a business, and explored the impact of support provided.

Perceived constraining factors were: lack of general business knowledge, contradictory advisory support from external agencies, lack of sector‐specific mentors, lack of finance, and experience of familial entrepreneurship. Perceived enabling factors were: co‐mentoring from business partners, course content, financial gain, creativity and innovative ideas, control and risk taking, and the overarching package of support. Linkages between internal and external support could be improved.

The study provided insights into constraints and enablers to self‐employment for a small cohort of recent graduates looking to start‐up in the creative and digital industries. Further studies are required to explore the suggested effect of the “creative identity”, and of sector‐specific family entrepreneurial background.

The support provided by universities can facilitate the transition from early stage ideas to actual graduate business start‐up. Issues such as provision of specialist advice and links with external parallel and follow‐on support need to be considered.

University start‐up units provide an important contribution to the development of graduate entrepreneurs and their role in the growth of national and global economy. Suggestions for improvements in performance, such as closer links with external business development agencies and support providers, are discussed.

The case is based on a real $25 million project at a major U.S.-based computer manufacturer. For confidentiality reasons the company has been disguised as A&D High Tech. The Web-based online ordering system project is required by sales and marketing for the fall holiday season. If the project misses this window, the firm will lose substantial market share to competitors. The A&D High Tech case examines how to create and analyze a project plan in Microsoft Project. Specifically, data is given to build the project plan step-by-step and then analyze the plan using the Microsoft project management tool. In order to make the case manageable for students we reduced the size of the project, and corresponding number of resources, to approximately $1 million, but retained all of the features of the original project. The project plan that students construct from the data given in the case is fraught with risks, and students must apply risk management techniques to diagnose the plan. Ultimately, students must answer the management question: Will the project be completed for the holiday shopping season? This case is the first in a series; the second is the case entitled “A&D High Tech (B): Managing Scope Change.” The case can also be taught using other project management software tools, such as Primavera.

The case teaches students how to build a project plan in Microsoft Project (or other project management software tools). More important, the case teaches prospective executives how to analyze a project plan and identify risks of the plan, and define strategies to mitigate these risks. Students learn that in the planning stage of any project the risks are highest, but this is the best opportunity for proactive management intervention.

The case is based on a real $25 million project at a major U.S.-based computer manufacturer. For confidentiality reasons the company has been disguised as A&D High Tech. The Web-based online ordering system project is required by sales and marketing for the fall holiday season. If the project misses this window, the firm will lose substantial market share to competitors. Part (B) takes place three months into the original project plan. The project manager has just been fired and the management challenge is to find out what is wrong with the project and recommend fixes. In addition, the scope of the project has changed: the VP of marketing has an additional promotional bundle requirement. A&D High Tech (A) examines how to create and analyze a project plan in Microsoft Project. In order to make the case manageable for students we reduced the size of the project, and corresponding number of resources, to approximately $1 million, but retained all of the features of the original project. Part (B) gives actual work done on each task three months into the project. Students must answer the management questions: Can the project be fixed and completed in time for the holiday season? Can the additional requirements be incorporated, and if so, what is the best approach? In order to answer these questions, earned value data can be extracted from Microsoft Project and analyzed. These data provide important insights into the root cause of problems with the project. The next step is to reduce the scope of the project and reassign resources. However, one must be aware that indiscriminately adding people can slow a project down, not speed it up. Finally, the additional promotional bundle requirement from the VP of marketing provides an important outsourcing management discussion. The case can also be taught using other project management software tools, such as Primavera.

The case teaches students how to analyze a project in trouble using Microsoft Project (or other project management software tool). More important, the case teaches prospective executives how to manage a project in trouble by first accurately diagnosing the problems, then reducing scope where necessary, and finally replanning the project with reallocated resources. In addition, students will learn the tradeoffs of outsourcing to highly specialized professionals vs. average contractors.