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Reports on a seminar entitled ‘‘Future trends in robotics'' organised by the UK's Institution of Mechanical Engineers, outlines recent developments in subsea robotics, reviews the evolution of surgical robotics, discusses the current state of application and research relating to mobile robots and looks at the progress being made in the development of climbing robots.

The paper aims to explore themes in Drucker's work which provide messages for current turbulent times. Based on a literature review of both Drucker's work and contemporary studies in the field of complexity theory the paper's aim is to explore turbulence as a feature of levels of agreement for objectives and predictability of outcome. Drucker's concept of management as a social enterprise is seen as central together with his warning that the tools and techniques of management should not obscure its purpose.

The paper provides a literature review and a brief case study. The review identifies that contemporary complexity theory can be used to explore Drucker's work on turbulence. The case study shows how approaches based on dialogue can enable conflicting objectives to be explored and agreed outcomes achieved.

The paper concludes that in turbulent times Drucker's concept of management as a social enterprise forms a core framework that can be used within complex situations to agree objectives through dialogue.

This paper uniquely links Drucker's work with contemporary complexity theory.

There can be no doubt that the small and medium sized enterprise (SME) plays a pivotal role in most if not all economies, and that social policy makers have an interest in ensuring the viability of this sector of the economy, which plays a crucial role in the contract culture of national and international competitiveness. Quite apart from the essential symbiosis between the large multinationals and public limited companies and this sector, the sustainability of unemployment benefit payouts would be jeopardised should the sector experience a significant downturn. There are already worldwide concerns about the ability to continue to finance state pensions at anything like the present scale, and any loss of viability of the SME sector will simply exacerbate this situation. There are also useful reciprocations to be achieved by comparisons across sectors, including in significant areas such as internal control (Vinten, Lane, Hayes, 1996). The recent flurry of activity has included initiatives of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales 1996) and the information needs of owners (Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales 1996a), an Auditing Practices Board (1996) Practice Note, and a Department of Trade and Industry Consultation Document (DTI 1996).

Those left behind after a company has been reorganised and others have been made redundant may need counselling; survivors can feel guilty especially when feeling concern about how redundancies are handled. They may experience a sense of loss, a sense of realism and a sense of being ill‐equipped as a company to meet the complexity involved in implementing a support scheme. Key personnel may even leave. Management of transition states requires care and a sense of mission.

Redundancy is a risk to all employees, and needs careful handling and counselling. Less recognised are the needs of those left behind. On the analogy of major disasters, they too demand meticulous attention to avoid deleterious effects both to themselves and to their organisations. The mishandling of a redundancy situation is presented as a case study. Drawing on survivors to disasters who overcome the trio of trauma, life crisis and loss, a study was undertaken of 50 senior and middle managers in private and public sector organisations which had recently undertaken major restructuring resulting in substantial loss of posts. The management of restructuring, redeployment or redundancy is important, not simply to be humanitarian, or for good public relations, but also because the effectiveness, vision and mission of the organisation that survives is at stake. Survival tips for both the individual and the organisation are indicated.

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the existence and strength of the relationship between proactive environmental policies and brand equity for the winery. Results of this study suggest that consumer perceptions about product quality, consumer trust, consumer perceptions about pricing, and positive expectations for the consequences of the winery's actions undertaking the pro‐environmental policies, all have strong, positive relationships with the winery's brand equity. Trust in the winery and brand equity for the winery increased significantly when the winery in this study adopted proactive environmental business policies.