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Within the past few years, responsible educators, librarians, parents, counselors, social workers, therapists, and religious groups of all sexual persuasions and lifestyles have recognized the need for readily available reading material for lesbian and gay youth. Unfortunately, this material is often buried, because it is embedded in larger works. To meet this need, I have compiled and annotated 100 of the best works for young homosexuals, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. I have also included a few of the best works currently available on heterosexuality as a much needed source of knowledge for all young adults whether they are gay or straight, whether they remain childless or eventually become parents.

ERIC GEORGE JOHNSON has been appointed secretary to the British Airways Board. He leaves the position of BEA manager, station handling.

Offers the personal interpretations of authors as participant‐observers together with a data‐based analysis of the evolution of the services marketing literature. Bibliographic analysis of more than 1,000 English language, general services marketing publications, spanning four decades, provides an additional resource. Using an evolutionary metaphor as the framework, traces the literature through three stages: Crawling Out (1953‐79): Scurrying About (1980‐85); and Walking Erect (1986‐present). Shows how the literature has evolved from the early services‐marketing‐is‐different debate to the maturation of specific topics (e.g. service quality, service encounters) and the legitimization of the services marketing literature by major journals. Presents a classification and summary of publications and authors. Closes with discussion and speculation on the future of the services marketing literature.

The value of postponing product differentiation until final distribution for manufacturers who market a family of product derivatives through multiple channels is examined. A model is developed of a supply chain that distributes many short‐lived products through different channels. Using the model, we find the postponement is particularly valuable for managing short‐life products. Postponement increases distribution service levels while reducing costs and order fulfillment risk. Postponement is particularly valuable when there are many derivative products and forecast error is high. Trade‐off curves are presented, that allow managers to evaluate the benefits of investing in postponement strategies.

Purpose: We examined whether the five-service quality dimensions described by SERVQUAL (SQ) and SERVPERF (SP) are consistent with perceived dimensions of management accounting (MA) service quality and we compared responses from users and providers.

Design/methodology/approach: We surveyed experienced providers and users of MA services to learn their perceptions and expectations of accounting service quality using SQ/SP adapted to an MA context. We used principal components analysis (PCA) to investigate service quality dimensions.

Findings: Participant responses identified three dimensions of MA service quality. There was a high degree of correspondence in dimensions of service quality between users and providers, but with notable differences in service priorities. A performance-only (SP) approach seems to provide a better measure of overall service quality than performance minus expectations (SQ).

Research limitations/implications: Participants self-selected to participate. Respondents were not matched by organization. The SQ/SP instrument may not capture important organization specific attributes. Our approach may serve as a guide for future studies of accounting service quality.

Practical implications: SP may be more useful to managers who wish to evaluate overall service quality. SQ may be more useful to identify specific gaps between user perceptions and expectations. SQ/SP assessments may help to improve the quality of MA service delivery and provider-user communications.

Originality/value: This is the first empirical study to our knowledge that reports on MA service quality dimensions using both the SQ and SP instruments. This study investigated perceptions and expectations of MA service users and providers. Our sample is a cross-section of experienced professionals.

The following is an annotated list of materials that discuss the ways in which librarians can provide library users with orientation to facilities and services, and instruct them in library information and computer skills. This is RSR's 11th annual review of this literature, and covers publications from 1984. A few items from 1983 have been included because of their significance, and because they were not available for review last year. Several items were not annotated because the compiler was unable to secure them.

Corporate marketers have jumped on the micromarketing bandwagon, but many have discovered that the path to profits contains a number of potholes. This article details three companies' niche marketing mistakes; the author suggests how to avoid them.

This paper aims to outline the misguided underpinnings of the “word gap” concept promoted by Hart and Risley (1995). This concept posits that a “30 million word gap” between children of poverty and those from affluent households accounts for widespread academic disparities. Based on this premise, there has been a recent surge in educational programs that are based on a deficit view toward the language patterns of families from economically impoverished backgrounds.

This paper is a discussion piece to debunk the “word gap” concept.

Describing the language patterns of families in poverty as inferior is linguistically false and culturally insensitive. The aim of this paper is to explain why this is and suggest alternative approaches for supporting students who live in poverty.

This paper is an original look at the so-called “language gap” and suggests strategies for helping students who might otherwise struggle to reach their potential.

This paper presents a method for estimating the macro‐economic cost of a firm‐level information system disruption within a supply chain.

The authors combine field study estimates with a Leontief‐based input‐output model to estimate the macro‐economic costs of a targeted internet outage that disrupts the supply chain.

The authors find that supply chain vulnerability or resiliency to cyber disruptions is not necessarily dependent on the types of technology employed, but rather how the technology is used to enable supply chain processes and the type of attack experienced. The authors find that some supply chains like oil and gas could be significantly impacted by certain cyber disruptions. However, similar to other causes of supply chain disruptions such as labor disputes or natural disasters, the authors find that firms can be very resilient to cyber disruptions.

The validity of the approach is limited by the accuracy of parameters gathered through field studies and the resolution of government economic data.

Managers should examine how information technology is used to enable their supply chain processes and develop capabilities that provide resilience to failures. Lean supply chains that focus on minimizing inventory may be more vulnerable to major information system failures unless they take special steps to build resilience.

This paper provides a new approach to estimating economic vulnerability due to supply chain information failures.