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The structure of the retail trade in Holland has been compared to that in the UK; certainly they have the same apparent dominance by declining independents and a relatively large proportion (20.3%) in the hands of steadily growing multiples — although they are necessarily much smaller than ours. In this article Dr Kirby looks specifically at retail planning policies and at direct government involvement.

One of the outcomes of the fiercely competitive business environment of the late 1980s and early 1990s has been the increasing attention which has been paid to logistical issues in many types of business. The demands of the customers of manufacturing concerns for greater flexibility, faster reaction and greater reliability in respect of delivery times and quality levels have forced producers to act. And their action in most cases has involved the search for more effective ways to manage material flows. Meanwhile, retailers have become increasingly aware of the competitive edge which they can gain by exerting greater control of the input to their businesses. As a result it is now quite common, for example, for retailers to require their suppliers to deliver goods within a one hour ‘window’ on a specified day. In addition, the most powerful have required their major suppliers to become E.D.I. (Electronic Data Interchange) connected with them.

I have accepted the task of presenting a paper on British official publications because the House of Commons Library, in which I have had the advantage of working during the last 28 years, provides a good base from which to survey the whole field. We are strong in the older publications. During the last century, the main initiative came from Parliament, and in particular from the House of Commons. A hundred years ago the Civil Service was relatively small. Nearly all official documents were published by the authority of Parliament. Parliament was concerned with the pre‐legislative stage, identifying problems, examining witnesses, and bringing dark areas into the full glare of publicity. Much has changed. Our Civil Service is now large and powerful. It is for that reason that, like many other legislators, British Members seek to arm themselves against the Executive. Their Library plays a small part in the struggle. Because we are all librarians, it may be of interest to let one of my predecessors, Thomas Vardon, speak for himself:

In this review, the aim is first to define horizon scanning and then outline the general approach currently employed by many organisations using web‐based resources. It then aims to discuss the benefits and drivers of horizon scanning, to identify some organisations currently undertaking activities in the field, and explain in detail how the web‐based horizon scanning approach is implemented. The aim is then to conclude with a discussion of good practice and areas for further research.

The basis for this review is a symposium held at the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in March 2010, where groups undertaking horizon scanning activities shared practices and reviewed the state of the art. Practitioners from both public sector and private organisations attending this symposium, as well as others, were invited to contribute to the manuscript, developing this as an iterative exercise over the last year.

Structured processes of web‐based horizon scanning, underpinned by strong technical understanding and principles of good practice described in the review, can add significant value to organisational decision making.

While a growing number of private and public sector organisations have already embarked on the use of the web as a key information resource, no detailed explanation of the web‐based horizon scanning approach has been published. The review therefore makes an original contribution to this field, with collaborations by horizon scanning practitioners, discussing what constitutes good practice and highlighting areas where future research is needed.

All items listed may be borrowed from the Aslib Library, except those marked, which may be consulted in the Library.

In discussing the merits and demerits of infants' foods, it is impossible to avoid reference to the physiological problems connected with infantile digestion, because, of course, the whole question of suitability or otherwise turns upon the degree of digestibility of the preparations. Appearance and flavour, although of great importance in the case of adults generally, and invalids in particular, here play only a minor part. Unfortunately the views of medical men are based mainly on clinical experience, and the teachings of pure physiology are of comparatively little help.

Over the past eighteen months plans have been laid in Britain which will revolutionise the business of education, training, recruitment and employment. The planning stage is coming to an end and the implementation stage is taking over. REVIEW is an attempt to co‐ordinate all this information in a form that will help those with the decisions to make and the action to take: company managers, staff in education establishments, trade unionists, careers officers and so on. It is a situation paper setting the scene for a massive two year period of implementation and appraisal. It describes the new provisions and sets out the issues to follow through and the judgments to be made. REVIEW starts with THE YTS STORY: how what was originally a rescue operation for Britain's unemployed juveniles was, along the way, turned into something else and eventually became a blue‐print for an entirely new pattern of training and employment. REVIEW explains why this potential revolution can be made into a reality only by imaginative and bold action on the part of employers. But there are other factors at work which will influence the final form of the new pattern and so REVIEW describes and analyses a series of recent announcements which will have their own formative influence on this new pattern.

The study tests the hypothesis that following the arrival of news in the forex market, the trader/dealers demonstrate two kinds of biases which makes markets volatile: “Recurrence bias,” the belief that news which formerly led to volatility, will again generate volatility (i.e. volatility is recurring), and “Volatility Perception Bias,” the belief that increased volatility following the arrival of a news would persist.

The author uses a preliminary survey and three simulated trading game experiments involving professional foreign exchange dealers to understand these heuristic-led biases and the biases' impact on market volatility.

The paper finds evidence supporting the presence of both “Recurrence Bias” and “Volatility Perception Bias” and a statistically significant, positive impact of participant biases' on market heterogeneity.

The paper makes two important contributions: first, the use of simulated trading game experiment involving professional dealers and second, the incorporation of dealers' biases and heuristics in understanding forex volatility.

This study aims to elucidate reference points and organizational identity in letters to shareholders (LTSs) of publishing companies and develops propositions on their relation to strategic adaptation. This study examines how characteristics of reference points (number, temporality and specificity) and organizational identity (focus, discontinuity and distinctiveness) relate to strategic adaptation. This research advances performance feedback theory and behavioral strategy by presenting rich data on how managers use reference points. This study also theorizes on the role of organizational identity as an observation frame. Finally, this study informs managers on how they can adapt reference points and organizational identity to drive strategic adaptation in their organizations.

This paper uses text analysis of LTSs of eight companies in the global publishing industry over six years. The research design is an exploratory, comparative case study.

The authors present the findings of rich empirical data analysis of reference points and organizational ideology, develop a typology and propose three proposed relationships. This paper develops three propositions on how characteristics of reference points (number, temporality and specificity) and organizational identity (focus, discontinuity and distinctiveness) relate to strategic adaptation.

This study elucidates reference points that managers use when they make sense of performance feedback. This study further develops a typology of reference points and suggests propositions on how reference points and organizational identity relate to strategic adaptation. The novel linguistic approach to revealing reference points-in-use and the study of decision-making in its empirical context contribute to a better understanding of the micromechanims of decision-making that are central to behavioral strategy.