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Previous research has revealed that sales trainers have been reluctant to incorporate distance education training methods into their programs. This study investigated the effectiveness of six different teaching methods in delivering one sales training course to a national salesforce from one organization. Training methods ranged from no‐tech to high‐tec and included: an on‐site instructor, a written manual, a manual plus videotape, video‐conferencing, audio‐graphics and an interactive multi‐media computer‐based training program. Pre‐ and post‐training evaluations of course content indicated significant improvements. Media were evaluated in terms of training required, number of participants to be trained and other technical considerations. Measures of course content revealed no significant differences in terms of delivery methods. Strengths, weaknesses and situations for optimal utilization of media and delivery method were identified. Findings should assist sales training managers in making more informed choices among distance education delivery options.

Construction and development firms are going through major reorganizations in trying to define a profitable structure – including deciding whether to include construction operations as part of the firm or to outsource it. This paper aims to analyze the relationship between firm size, construction management strategy and performance.

The paper reviews relevant strategic management literature and reports the results of an empirical survey research study of 80 US real estate developers.

The results showed that there was no significant performance difference between firms that performed construction activities in‐house as opposed to those that outsourced it. However, the impact of construction strategy on performance may occur through its effect on size and size was negatively associated with performance. In addition, among the smaller firms, the ones that outsourced construction outperformed those that did construction in‐house.

The results are in line with the findings of similar studies from other industries. In order to add to the generalizability of these findings, future studies should include larger samples and non‐US firms.

The study links the general strategic management literature to organizational issues of construction and development firms. Findings suggest that the scale of operation of the industry is such that even large development firms have too small a market share to take advantage of vertical integration of construction.

The forensic nursing role is complex, creates tensions within itself and is underpinned by core values, knowledge, skills and personal attributes; often referred to as ‘good nurse’ characteristics (Smith & Godfrey, 2002). Forensic nurses perform unique, multifaceted roles; they are viewed by patients as ‘a source of treatment, comfort and advice’, but also as ‘part of the system that deprives them of their liberty’ (United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting & University of Central Lancashire (UKCC & UCLAN), 1999: 42). This is problematic both for nurses and patients. Although appearing as opposites, security and therapeutic characteristics of nurses can and do co‐exist in forensic nursing (Peternelji‐Taylor & Johnson, 1996). Through critical analysis of dialogue from interviews and focus groups, this paper depicts forensic practice with people with a learning disability through a study that explores apparent ‘truths’ about such people detained in forensic settings (here referred to as ‘the men’) and the staff who work with them. Beliefs about nursing characteristics were exposed through discourses present in dialogue between the men and the staff. General research questions included: (1) What are the discourses related to learning disability and forensic practice? (2) What ideologies underpin and justify forensic practice? (3) What in particular are the positive discourses? Related discussion is primarily concerned with the way that staff and men share relationships and with characteristics of the nursing staff. Findings generally suggest that the staff may be viewed as prison wardens, leading to relationships of mistrust. Paradoxically, there are also positive discourses identifying warm and therapeutic relationships and good nurse characteristics of the staff. This may have practice implications, such as enabling staff to hear positive views expressed by the men and begin to develop metrics of ‘good’ forensic nurse characteristics that may positively affect treatment.

This exploratory study, a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Western Ontario in 2013, examines the materially embedded relations of power between library users and staff in public libraries and how building design regulates spatial behavior according to organizational objectives. It considers three public library buildings as organization spaces (Dale & Burrell, 2008) and determines the extent to which their spatial organizations reproduce the relations of power between the library and its public that originated with the modern public library building type ca. 1900. Adopting a multicase study design, I conducted site visits to three, purposefully selected public library buildings of similar size but various ages. Site visits included: blueprint analysis; organizational document analysis; in-depth, semi-structured interviews with library users and library staff; cognitive mapping exercises; observations; and photography.

Despite newer approaches to designing public library buildings, the use of newer information technologies, and the emergence of newer paradigms of library service delivery (e.g., the user-centered model), findings strongly suggest that the library as an organization still relies on many of the same socio-spatial models of control as it did one century ago when public library design first became standardized. The three public libraries examined show spatial organizations that were designed primarily with the librarian, library materials, and library operations in mind far more than the library user or the user’s many needs. This not only calls into question the public library’s progressiveness over the last century but also hints at its ability to survive in the new century.

This chapter presents a very broad synopsis of the intensification of education governance. It opens by narrating the multifaceted nature of governance and in what way it has developed as the axiom for professed policy problems that national educational systems are experiencing. The chapter chronicles the amplification of education governance and it explicates the metamorphosis and myriad typographies that “governance” has taken in responding to perceived endogenous and exogenous policy problems. It explains how managerialism and neo-corporate reforms sought to destabilize the activities of education governance and the results. In making this argument, it suggests that new public management policy prescriptions in education were part of the earliest form of disruptive innovation in education. It advances that educational managerialism, in hollowing out national educational systems, has generated the perfect breeding ground for the rise of newer modus operandi (or modes, styles, and arrangements) that governs and regulates education systems through the use of different techniques and mechanisms. The second half of the chapter discusses five different modus operandi that are inchoate in the post-managerialist era and highlights that in education, we have progressed beyond the movement from government to governance across national education systems and these systems are now employing additional modes of governance (vertical and horizontal) across different scales. The chapter concludes by drawing on the concept of a “Wicked Problem” (an unsolvable or difficult problematic, that is, fluid, paradoxical, and unfinished) to insinuate that education governance is an example of a wicked problem that has been and continues to be shaped by the ideological contours of endogenous and exogenous policy influences.

In the “What’s Hot in 2019: Expanded and Interconnected Notions of Literacy” survey (Cassidy, Grote-Garcia, & Ortlieb, 2019), Early Literacy was identified as a “very hot” topic. This chapter addresses how literacy practices in homes and in schools contribute to early literacy achievement; neighborhood realities are acknowledged. A brief list of expectations for early literacy learners is discussed, and competencies not always found in standards lists are described. Examples of current community activism efforts are noted, and there is a call for literacy academics to speak out against inequities in literacy learning.

This paper aims to present a survey of published literature about various quality costing approaches and reports of their success in order to provide a better understanding of cost of quality (CoQ) methods.

The paper's approach is a literature review and discussion of the issues surrounding quality costing approaches.

Even though the literature review shows an interest by the academic community, a CoQ approach is not utilized in most quality management programs. The evidence presented shows that companies that do adopt CoQ methods are successful in reducing quality costs and improving quality for their customers. The survey shows that the method most commonly implemented is the classical prevention‐appraisal‐failure model; however, other quality cost models are used with success as well.

The paper shows that the selected CoQ model must suit the situation, the environment, the purpose and the needs of the company in order to have a chance to become a successful systematic tool in a quality management program.

Forced eviction is a topic of growing importance globally, and the purpose of this article is to investigate a much‐publicised recent case involving Gypsies and Travellers in the United Kingdom (not usually a country associated with such actions).

After setting the context of planning enforcement law in the UK, Green Belt and other planning policies, and the status of Gypsies/Travellers as a disadvantaged minority group, the paper traces the history of the Dale Farm eviction over a 25‐year period and analyses the legal arguments put to the High Court in unsuccessful attempts to defer and over‐turn the eviction, against the context of internationally agreed guidelines.

The research found that the judiciary gave full consideration to all aspects, in accordance with ECHR case law, and upheld the Green Belt and planning objections. The UK government was determined to proceed, resisting various offers of mediation, and the site was cleared even though no appropriate alternative accommodation was available, and notwithstanding that the occupiers owned their own plots.

The case is a new development in a long‐running history of forced eviction of Gypsies by local authorities, and is of interest in comparative study of treatment of Gypsies in other European countries, particularly in the context of the recent European Union Roma Inclusion Strategy.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

This case is intended to introduce undergraduate entrepreneurship students to business models via an entrepreneur who has two businesses: a used-car dealership, which he owns with his father, and a used-sport-bike dealership, which he solely owns. Although these businesses seem similar, there are subtle differences in business model that make the sport-bike business much more attractive. Case analysis involves a step-by-step comparison of the two firms' revenue models, cost structures, and investment needs and leaves students with two decision: first, how to best grow the sport-bike business, and second, whether to continue operating the used-car business once his father retires.

Primary interviews, company document review, secondary market research.

Undergraduate introduction to entrepreneurship.