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The aim of this study was to determine whether customer satisfaction can be used as a reliable measure of the performance of the management of a research and development (R&D) department. A study of a research and development department of an Australian manufacturing company was undertaken in 1995. R&D performance and external customer satisfaction were measured using seven dimensions of technical performance and seven dimensions of service quality. Expectations of external customer satisfaction were measured from the internal (staff of R&D department) and external customers’ (production, sales and administration) points of view. This was to highlight the gap between the staffs’ perceptions and the external customers’ perceptions of service provided. The study provides research and development managers with an additional tool for measuring their management performance.

Examines some of the issues faced by South African manufacturing concerns and considers in particular the chemical industry. Considers the macro‐environmental factors with particular reference to the political environment, unemployment and violence, and the effect of the removal of sanctions. Examines the South African chemical industry in terms of its past history and present structure. Discusses the new challenges faced by the industry and potential new strategies which can advance the South African chemical industry.

Three themes dominate Hunting Causes. The first is that cause is a plural concept. The methods and metaphysics of causation, Cartwright believes, are context dependent. Different causal accounts seem to be at odds with one another only because the same word means different things in different contexts. Every formal approach to causality uses a conceptual framework that is “thinner” than causal reality. She lists a bewildering variety of approaches to causation: probabilistic and Bayes-net accounts (of, for example, Patrick Suppes, Clive Granger, Wolfgang Spohn, Judea Pearl, and Clark Glymour), modularity accounts (Pearl, James Woodward, and Stephen LeRoy), invariance accounts (Woodward, David Hendry, and Kevin Hoover), natural experiments (Herbert Simon, James Hamilton, and Cartwright), causal process accounts (Wesley Salmon and Philip Dowe), efficacy accounts (Hoover), counterfactual accounts (David Lewis, Hendry, Paul Holland, and Donald Rubin), manipulationist accounts (Peter Menzies and Huw Price), and others. The lists of advocates of various accounts overlap. Nevertheless, she sometimes treats these accounts as if they were so different that it is not clear why they should be the subject of a single book. And she fails to explain what they have in common. If, as she apparently believes, they do not have a common essence, do they have a Wittgensteinian family resemblance? She fails to explore in any systematic way the complementarities among the different approaches – for example, between invariance accounts, Bayes-nets, and natural experiments – that frequently make their advocates allies rather than opponents.

A YEAR having now elapsed since I concluded the sale of Clive Bingley Ltd, and the contract of sale having contained, at my insistence, a provision that I would remain with the company for not less than six months (to ensure a satisfactory transfer to the new regime) and not more than twelve months (to prevent the new regime being lumbered with an old fuddy‐duddy), I have now resigned my employment with Clive Bingley Ltd, and with the associated companies set up last year to encompass its projected expansion, namely K G Saur Ltd and KGS Reference Services Ltd. In lieu of my former directorships, I have agreed to act as a consultant to these companies for as long as either of us thinks I can be of service to them, a status which recognises the role 1 have in practical terms been playing during the months since the companies abandoned Pembridge Road for plushier new offices in the West End of London.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a General Systems Theory (GST) risk management framework and conducts a preliminary investigation into its potential benefits.

A risk management framework with four domains is developed by applying GST to property. Risk management in five listed Australian Real Estate Investment Trusts (A‐REITs) is benchmarked against the GST ideal using public web‐sites information. A‐REIT volatility‐adjusted returns are calculated using Treynor ratios for the year to May 2010. The link between risk management score and entity performance is then investigated.

The GST framework directs attention to risks involving surveillance, capacity and controls. However, as predicted by the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), the study found no link between assessed risk management and volatility‐moderated annual returns to May 2010.

The risk scoring was predicated on publicly available data, with limited analysis of financial statements. The sample size was restricted.

Successful entities are well governed, focused and innovative. Robust finances allow exploitation of emerging opportunity when business conditions become favourable. Planning and environmental management capabilities are essential.

The paper makes conceptual and practical contributions. Conceptually, it develops a GST risk management framework. Practically, albeit for a handful of entities, the paper illustrates how the GST approach to risk management could be effectively deployed. The paper also outlines a pathway for more refined risk management research.

The East India Company was a hybrid corporation. This hybridity refers to the merchant-state function of the Company, designed as a joint-stock corporate established to trade and make profit, whilst simultaneously exercising public state governance over India. As the Company strived for profits, this was inherently detrimental to ruling a state of people. Its increasing public role alienated both Indians and the British government as it faced increasing criticism. Eventually British state intervention increased until the Company operated as an agent for British imperialism, and its corporate status continued to decline until the Company was replaced by British rule. Ultimately, the legacy of the East India Company represents the incompatibility of private actors taking on state responsibility.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the limitations and potential usefulness of a “knowledge city” concept as diversification vehicle for property investors.

The paper first dissects the “knowledge city” concept and then investigates whether it inoculates against economic turbulence as measured by growth and jobs recovery. The paper also looks at the protection offered by middle class population growth.

The idea of the “knowledge city” comes from earlier economic constructs but concentrated at the urban scale. There are two versions – a technical and one enriched with institutional and social dimensions. The limited analysis of selective secondary data suggests that “knowledge city” and strong middle class population growth provide some protection from economic and, presumably, property market instability.

Statistical limitations include arbitrary sample frames; lack of data and unclear spatial resolution, short time frames for aggregate analysis. Further research requires, first, a structured grading of knowledge precincts and, second, randomised sampling of individual properties to investigate any links between total risk‐adjusted performance is measured over a decade.

To mitigate risk, investors should consider re‐weighting their portfolios to increase exposure to knowledge cities and second‐tier but fast growing cities in emerging countries.

A knowledge‐city cannot be imposed by infrastructure, technology or place configuration alone. It involves multiple precinct configurations and subsidiarity. Institutions and people matter. A broader knowledge‐city conceptualisation helps inform planning, management and oversight for regional second‐tier cities.

Dissecting, noting the limits and drawing out the practical implications of the “knowledge city” concept.