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Merger activity will continue to gain momentum in 2004 and integration will remain a “hot topic” with senior executives. The authors have distilled the critical success factors underlying integrations that drive shareholder value. These success factors are brought to life through best practice examples, including: (1) synergies that make the merged company better able to increase revenues and gain market share than either company could on its own; (2) the importance of early, detailed planning in conjunction with clean teams, active senior management commitment and an “adopt‐and‐go” attitude; (3) a focus on growing the existing business, companies that apply the 80/20 rule – spend only 20 percent of the time on the merger – don’t lose sight of their business and customers; (4) communicating early and often to customers, employees, partners, investors and the media with a realistic assessment of the facts rather than being overly optimistic; and (5) envisioning the desired culture they are looking to create for the new entity and building the sense of community among employees of both organizations.

As has been widely recognized in the literature, the post‐war economic boom which drew to a close by the early 1970s has been followed by an intense period of industrial restructuring characterized by marked instability in all three major spheres of economic activity: production, distribution, and finance. This process has taken place both at the global level and at the level of national economies (Cardenas, 1990). It reflects a profound change in the mode of capitalist accumulation. Prior to the current round of restructuring, accumulation was taken to be principally the inward‐oriented task of each nation's own economy. Now, it seems that successful capital accumulation (i.e. development) depends most upon a nation's competitive integration into the world market for goods and services (Garrido, 1995). The present mode of accumulation implies an opening of national economies to international trade in commodities and capital, both among the advanced industrial nations and between the industrialized and the newly‐industrializing countries. This has generated a heightened degree of competition among countries and among firms, given that the easy movement of capital, goods, and services has allowed for real competition to emerge among dispersed places around the globe based upon their comparative financial and productive advantages.

Attempts to explain the limitations and constraints of government policy makers in the regulation of street vending. Looks at ways that street vendors in Mexico City create alternative forms of regulation that complement and challenge the state’s attempt to impose a “one size fits all’ form of regulation for the national economy. Cites two distinct forms of regulation and how these resppond to the different needs of vendors depending on their ability to negotiate their status with the state. Covers the organizations which the vendors have formed to assist them and question the “Mafia” status applied to these by the establishment.

Originating in the USA and Northern Europe, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) found on the internet its fertile environment. In more recent years, FOSS is becoming an increasingly important element in strategies for development and implementation of information and communication technologies also in developing countries. Mainstream research on FOSS has catered to the underlying principles or freedom, open organizational forms, and on its economical aspects. The purpose of this paper is to shed new light on the actual consequences of FOSS, often left in the background.

The paper examines where FOSS principles' assumptions are likely to be more evident: in contexts of developing countries, which are geographically and organizationally far from the original environment of FOSS. A mixed methodology characterizes this work: quantitative and qualitative methods bring readers' attention to unusual empirical settings and downplayed organizational processes of information technology (IT) implementation and adoption.

The consequences of FOSS on IT implementation and actual use are ambivalent. It is argued that FOSS adoption does not happen spontaneously, neither by decree, and that the relevance of open technologies as public goods remains in the different role of local actual technical and organizational capabilities, and environment conditions.

Such a focus complements existing studies on the economical relevance of FOSS, which are not the focus of this paper.

There is a relationship between eating behaviours and the development of speech-language competences during childhood. This study aims to evaluate the impact of interdisciplinary sessions on food and speech-language education with children’s parents.

The session was focused on healthy eating habits and behaviours that may improve or impair child speech competence. Using a self-administered questionnaire, before and immediately after the session, parents from 11 preschools, answered 12 questions, on a five-point Likert scale. Questionnaires from the final sample (n = 96) were statistically analysed using the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test.

Statistical analysis revealed statistically significant differences in answers to six questions between pre and post intervention: items 1 (Z = −5.04; p < 0.001), 2 (Z = −3.68; p < 0.001), 3 (Z = −4.12; p < 0.001), 4 (Z = −5.87; p < 0.001), 9 (Z = −2.73; p = 0.006) and 12 (Z = −2.00; p = 0.046). The questionnaire responses after the session showed that parents became more aware of the relationship between the two areas addressed. In addition, the subjects presented more assertiveness in their answers after the educational intervention of the nutritionist and the speech therapist.

The study showed the importance of associating topics on food and speech-language education and both being addressed simultaneously to parents. The empowerment of parents and other caregivers about feeding and speech-language development may increase their motivation to foster child healthy eating behaviours. It is also desirable to extend this kind of interdisciplinary intervention to other preschools.

This study fulfils an identified need to study the perceived knowledge of parents about the food-related behaviours influencing speech-language competences of children.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights and implications for hospitality management and education through an interview with an entrepreneur, leader, hotelier, and philanthropist in Central Florida – Mr Harris Rosen.

The study takes a qualitative approach along with a personal interview, which was used as a tool for data collection. An open‐ended interview protocol was designed to facilitate data collection.

The study presents insights of Mr Rosen on several key issues in hospitality management and education, including: entrepreneurship, leadership, education, and philanthropy. Implications and discussions are provided based on his perspective.

The study provides fresh ideas and perspectives on many relevant issues related to hospitality management and education. The insights and discussions provide prompt critical thinking on hospitality industry career development and various existing education systems.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how accountability practices can enable sociopolitical emancipation.

The authors explore the emancipatory potential of accountability from a Bourdieusian perspective. The study is informed by a two-month socio-ethnographic study of the participatory budgeting (PB) process in Porto Alegre (Brazil). The field study enabled us to observe accountability and participatory practices, conduct 18 semi-structured interviews with councillors, and analyze survey data gathered from budgeting participants.

The paper demonstrates how PB both strengthened the dominants in the Porto Alegrense political field and changed the game played in this field; was characterized by accountability practices favouring the election of councillors with distinctive capitals, who were “dominated-dominants dominating the dominated”; brought emancipatory perspectives to councillors and, by doing so, opened the path to social change but also widened the gap with ordinary participants.

The research supports Shenkin and Coulson’s (2007) thesis by demonstrating that accountability, when associated with participative democracy, can create substantial social change. Significantly, by investigating the emancipatory potential of accountability, the authors challenge the often taken-for-granted assumption in critical research that accountability reinforces asymmetrical power relations, and the authors explore alternative accountability practices. Doing so enables us to rethink the possibilities of accountability and their practical implications.

The authors study the most emblematic example of participatory democracy in South America; and the authors use Bourdieu’s theoretical framework to approach accountability at a community level.

Geographic information systems (GIS) are used in business and government and have potentially powerful applications to the library, specifically “interior GIS” mapping of the collection itself. This paper seeks to argue for the implementation of GIS software in library collection analysis.

The paper explains GIS history, the technology, design with spreadsheet and ILS database, statistical advancements, power of the GIS connection, and the importance of “democratizing” technology for libraries.

GIS is a powerful tool for any business or organization that keeps inventory and monitors transactional usage. GIS is going to be implemented in libraries sooner rather than later. The libraries that implement GIS early will have an intellectual advantage over those coming on‐board late. GIS should be part of collection librarian technology.

Librarians can benefit from visually analyzing the collection and its use trends. GIS will allow librarians to forecast demand for future allocations, uncover collection strengths and weaknesses, and monitor statistics in a way that is impossible with current spreadsheets. Managers will be able to track interlibrary loan trends, branch and neighborhood use volumes and will be able to match use maps with building layout and design for better functionality and loss prevention.

GIS will revolutionize statistical analysis in every field it enters. It is argued in the paper to be the first modern tool for the twenty‐first century librarian, the first piece of technology to serve the librarian first, with system and user as beneficiary of the product of GIS analysis.

This paper introduces GIS to a new audience and to those familiar with GIS, applies GIS in a new direction, to the interior space of the library and its items as subject.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the transnational entrepreneurial activities of Colombian emigrants to the USA in the context of the Colombian government’s policies and initiatives aimed at encouraging and facilitating emigrants’ transnational entrepreneurship. It examines the profile of Colombian emigrants, the entrepreneurial transnational activities they pursue and the actual and potential role of the government in instigating and shaping these activities.

The paper analyzes data obtained from focus groups with migrant families and interviews with governmental officials and an expert researcher. It also evaluates secondary data sources relevant to the subject of the paper.

The impact of transnational activities of Colombian migrants upon Colombian economy and society is much lower compared with the activities of migrants in other countries and with the potential these activities could have for contributing to the economic development of Colombia. Possible causes of this include: the specific characteristics of the Colombian emigrant and entrepreneur profile, the fragmentation of transnational networks of the migrants and the lack of governmental strategies to support the development of transnational activities of migrants.

The paper contributes to the debates on emigrant–state relation through offering an analysis of migrant entrepreneurship, technology and knowledge transfer and investment activities of Colombian emigrants in the home country. It also provides recommendations for policy action and concrete government programs that might encourage greater involvement of Colombian migrants in high value-adding activities that could benefit the country’s development.