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Explores the increasing co‐operation between higher education and industry in the area of research and development and concludes that success is more likely, if both parties agree on the benefits of co‐operation as opposed to each working separately.

Since Britain joined the European Community, there has been growing recognition of the importance of foreign‐language training to help companies make a success of their closer links with Europe. But many British businesses appear to be under‐prepared. Reports on a survey of what 435 universities and colleges across Britain are doing to rectify the situation. The institutions offer business language training in almost 70 languages and a wide range of specialisms. Also provides a checklist, drawn up by the Association of Language Export Centres, which should help businesses to ensure that they get quality language training.

Makes the point that many UK small and medium‐sized business are probably misguided in supposing the single European market will not affect them significantly. The DTI provides information but trade associations and professional bodies have a key part to play. Reports on a survey of such bodies and their “readiness” for guiding their members into 1992 by: publishing bulletins, providing advice, setting up a document “bank” and training.

An innovative programme to teach postgraduate students studying for a Diploma in Personnel Management the skills of creating computer‐based training material is described. Key features of the adopted teaching/learning strategy are illustrated and issues and implications which have emerged thus far are highlighted. The case for inclusion in the teaching programme, the authors believe, does not rest solely on the assumption that personnel and training officers will increasingly require skills of designing a computer‐based training material. Assessed learning outcomes together with an evaluation of student views suggest a value to the teaching programme over and above the specifically stated objectives.

In Great Britain, the ‘”Management Standards” were launched in 2004 and formally published in 2007 by the Health and Safety Executive to help organizations manage work‐related stress. The purpose of this paper is to examine how these Standards are translated into organizational practice.

The research uses case studies carried out in five large organizations drawn from the public and private sectors in Great Britain.

Senior management commitment and worker participation are key to managing work‐related stress and are commonly reported across organizations, although to variable form and depth. The solution chosen to identify stress issues is a short assessment of all staff via annual staff surveys, coupled with in‐depth assessments of groups at risk. Common practice also includes combining individual and organizational interventions. One significant challenge emerges as the translation from identified stress issues to focussed interventions and their evaluation.

The implementation processes outlined in this study are by no means exhaustive due to the small sample size but are consistent with previous research.

The findings suggest that the HSE Management Standards approach for dealing with stress issues is do‐able. Refining the information in the HSE guidance on implementing and evaluating interventions and broadening the current focus on organization‐level interventions is needed.

Publication of case studies of the implementation of the Management Standards has been limited. This paper illustrates the efforts made by large organizations to integrate national guidance on stress and this could be used for guiding and improving stress management in similar work settings.

This paper aims to complement a more conventional positive accounting theory (PAT)‐based study of accounting method choice in Egyptian firms by examining three alternative computational reasons for depreciation method choice: simplicity; compatibility with industry norm; and suitability for class of asset.

The paper draws on a questionnaire survey, sent to Egyptian companies, in which managers were asked to indicate their reasons for choosing depreciation methods as well as the actual depreciation methods used.

The paper finds that technical reasons were frequently given in survey responses from managers. However, the available evidence on the actual depreciation methods used by their firms and industries is in fact more consistent with PAT‐based theories of accounting choice than with such alternatives. This suggests that the responses to the survey reflected managers' rationalisations of decisions made for self‐interested purposes.

Most recent work on managerial decisions concerning accounting choices utilises data gathered from databases of published financial information and is undertaken within a PAT context. This study extends that approach by utilising the results of a questionnaire distributed in Egypt to test some additional hypotheses that reflect possible technical accounting reasons for justifying depreciation methods.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.

This paper aims to use embodied theory to analyze consumer experience in a retail brandscape, Hollister Co. By taking a holistic, embodied approach, this study reveals how individual consumers interact with such retail environments in corporeal, instinctive and sensual ways.

The primary source of data was 97 subjective personal introspective accounts undertaken with the target age group for the store. These were supplemented with in-depth interviews with consumers, managers and employees of Hollister.

The authors offer a conceptualization of consumers’ embodied experience, which they term The Immersive Somascape Experience. This identifies four key touch points that evoke the Hollister store experience – each of which reveals how the body is affected by particular relational and material specificities. These are sensory activation, brand materialities, corporeal relationality and (dis)orientation. These may lead to consumer emplacement.

The authors propose that taking an “intelligible embodiment” approach to consumer experiences in retail contexts provides a deeper, more holistic understanding of the embodied processes involved. They also suggest that more anthropological, body-grounded studies are needed for the unique insights they provide. Finally, they note that there is growing consumer demand for experiences, which, they argue, points to the need for more research from an embodied experience perspective in our field.

The study reveals the perils and pitfalls of adopting a sensory marketing perspective. It also offers insights into how the body leads in retail brandscapes, addressing a lack in such approaches in the current retailing literature and suggesting that embodied, experiential aspects of branding are increasingly pertinent in retailing in light of the continued growth of on-line shopping.

Overall, the study shows how an embodied approach challenges the dominance of mind and representation over body and materiality, suggesting an “intelligible embodiment” lens offers unique insights into consumers’ embodied experiences in retail environments.

Outlines various positive achievements by the British Library during 1994. Suggests that for the British Library, 1994 was marked by continuing controversies over the new St Pancras building. Discusses the arguments surrounding the St Pancras development in relation to three documents issued during 1994. The hostility of the British Library Regular Readers Group to losing the Round Reading Room in Bloomsbury was reexpressed in a new edition of its pamphlet. The whole project was examined by the National Heritage Committee; discusses its conclusions. Finally, the chairman of the British Library Board, Sir Anthony Kenny, produced a pamphlet outlining the background to the development of the new British Library building, its present state and future prospects. Discusses this in relation to the other documents and development of British Library policy.