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Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.

This research is the first study to evaluate and compare alternative service positioning matrices using rigorous statistical analysis and a common data set based on a variety of service processes. The matrices are evaluated based on five guidelines: clarity of construct definitions, conceptual independence of the two axes of each matrix, clarity in specifying the direction of causation from one axis to the other, axis unidimensionality, and correlation between the two axes of each matrix. These five guidelines provide a more rigorous approach to evaluating current and future positioning matrices, and contribute to the literature by defining more specifically than past research what constitutes a good positioning matrix. The difference between a classification scheme and a positioning matrix are also explained. The results indicate that while there is a statistically significant level of association (correlation) between the axes (Guideline 5) of each of the service matrices studied, meeting the requirements of the other four guidelines is a challenge for some service matrices.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories:

This chapter describes how conversational computer agents have been used in collaborative problem-solving environments. These agent-based systems are designed to (a) assess the students’ knowledge, skills, actions, and various other psychological states on the basis of the students’ actions and the conversational interactions, (b) generate discourse moves that are sensitive to the psychological states and the problem states, and (c) advance a solution to the problem. We describe how this was accomplished in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) in 2015. In the PISA CPS 2015 assessment, a single human test taker (15-year-old student) interacts with one, two, or three agents that stage a series of assessment episodes. This chapter proposes that this PISA framework could be extended to accommodate more open-ended natural language interaction for those languages that have developed technologies for automated computational linguistics and discourse. Two examples support this suggestion, with associated relevant empirical support. First, there is AutoTutor, an agent that collaboratively helps the student answer difficult questions and solve problems. Second, there is CPS in the context of a multi-party simulation called Land Science in which the system tracks progress and knowledge states of small groups of 3–4 students. Human mentors or computer agents prompt them to perform actions and exchange open-ended chat in a collaborative learning and problem-solving environment.