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The purpose of this paper is to provide the results of a case study that examined the application of platform design to improve the integration of patient care services across the continuum of care. This paper is designed to spark discussion and encourage further research in this area.

The research in the paper involved a case study of a large health care provider in a major metropolitan area. The authors of this paper worked with directors of case management departments and other managerial personnel within the enterprise to study the case management interface services between different inpatient and outpatient facilities to examine existing processes, identify deficiencies, and to recommend improvements in case management.

The paper finds that the current case management system of the provider, as structured, was not fulfilling its potential for achieving medical quality, operational cost, or patient satisfaction. A number of areas where improvements could be made were identified, and an integrated case management approach based on modular platform design was recommended as a key approach to realize such improvements.

The paper shows that this study involves only one major provider and therefore the direct application of an integrated case management approach based on platform design to other providers would have to be further researched. However, the proposed integrated, cross‐continuum model of case management appears to be a novel way to both improve care and achieve financial cost efficiencies.

The case study in this paper demonstrates how innovative thinking and the use of techniques typically associated with “Platform architectures” can have direct application in the health care sector.

The paper shows that as health care providers are continuously working to improve the quality of care within specific areas of clinical care, improvement in the interfaces between these specific areas may also improve the quality and cost of care. This case study applies modular services design to show how the planning and delivering patient services across the entire “Continuum of care”, which includes the transfer of patients, care coordination, and medical information management can achieve that desired result.

The goal of this paper is to provide insight into how global social responsibility is performed through economic, mental and even physical investment and engagement by consumers and organisations.

An illustrative analysis from the corporate website and blogs of an ethical organisation is undertaken. The analytical approach is communicative and inspired by discourse and legitimation studies and more particularly based on the framework of legitimation in discourse and communication developed by Theo van Leeuwen.

The paper claims that new forms of value creation and a new relational logic of ethics – a so-called “logic of matter” – are emerging. From the three types of relational logic of matter ethics – an ethics of care, an ethics of reversibility and an ethics of activism – the ethics of activism plays the most important role in our material.

The analytical examples presented in this paper demonstrate how the new relational ethics seem to transcend the dichotomy of self-interest and the interests of the other.

The paper provides insights into understanding how new forms of relational and reversible relationships are constructed.

To the authors' knowledge, similar studies on the emergence of new relational studies in light of the new economy have not previously been undertaken.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

.Counter Competition. SUPERMARKETS and private shopkeepers battle for business in every High Street. In all shopping centres the private trader competes for the customer's cash with chain and departmental stores. He finds life increasingly difficult in face of rising overheads and shrinking profit margins.

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

Good companies innovate. In the process, they consider target markets, target customers, new product or service offerings, and the positioning of these relative to competitors. This forms a basic strategy for the innovation. However, the lesson of competitive dynamics today is that innovation effort stops short of its ultimate potential if it does not also embrace the business model possibilities provided by the innovation itself. This short article provides a strategic lens for considering the efficacy and power of a business model for a product or service innovation.

The current paper is grounded in the empirical results of an ongoing longitudinal study (undertaken by the authors team in the U.S., Canada and Ukraine) aimed at exploring the structure, characteristics, evolution, and performance outcomes of organizational business models.

The business model’s key characteristics are customer value (the “effectiveness side” of the equation, i.e., doing right things for customers that the latters are ready to appreciate and pay for, but not always to the focal firm) and business value (the “efficiency side” of the equation, reflecting translation of the customer value into profit). Importantly, our evidence strongly reveals the dynamic nature of the business model construct, implying that the companies evolve in terms of these two dimensions.

The recommendations part of the article is primarily based on the in-depth analysis of the recent history of large companies that were struggling to: sustain customer value, and develop and apply internal product and production platforms to increase operating efficiency, and hence business value. All these firms had either slipped into or were in the danger of slipping into Impostor status, and were seeking ways to regain and sustain their Innovation advantage, often over newer entrants in their respective industries.

Introduction of the Business Model Value Matrix allowing to analyze the current company’s business model; practical recommendations regarding getting to and remaining in the Winner quadrant

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

MISS ANNE SHAW's presence on the platform at the annual general meeting of the Management Consultants Association was a solid assurance that work study still lies within its scope. The initial impression was weakened, however, when the chairman, Mr. D. J. Nicolson, mentioned that the bulk of consultancy work was no longer concerned with work study. Instead, it gave more than half its attention to policymaking and the broad aspects of organising financial, manufacturing and marketing resources.

That ice‐creams prepared with dirty materials and under dirty conditions will themselves be dirty is a proposition which, to the merely ordinary mind, appears to be sufficiently obvious without the institution of a series of elaborate and highly “scientific” experiments to attempt to prove it. But, to the mind of the bacteriological medicine‐man, it is by microbic culture alone that anything that is dirty can be scientifically proved to be so. Not long ago, it having been observed that the itinerant vendor of ice‐creams was in the habit of rinsing his glasses, and, some say, of washing himself—although this is doubtful—in a pail of water attached to his barrow, samples of the liquor contained by such pails were duly obtained, and were solemnly submitted to a well‐known bacteriologist for bacteriological examination. After the interval necessary for the carrying out of the bacterial rites required, the eminent expert's report was published, and it may be admitted that after a cautious study of the same the conclusion seems justifiable that the pail waters were dirty, although it may well be doubted that an allegation to this effect, based on the report, would have stood the test of cross‐examination. It is true that our old and valued friend the Bacillus coli communis was reported as present, but his reputation as an awful example and as a producer of evil has been so much damaged that no one but a dangerous bacteriologist would think of hanging a dog—or even an ice‐cream vendor—on the evidence afforded by his presence. A further illustration of bacteriological trop de zèle is afforded by the recent prosecutions of some vendors of ice‐cream, whose commodities were reported to contain “millions of microbes,” including, of course, the in‐evitable and ubiquitous Bacillus coli very “communis.” To institute a prosecution under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act upon the evidence yielded by a bacteriological examination of ice‐cream is a proceeding which is foredoomed, and rightly foredoomed, to failure. The only conceivable ground upon which such a prosecution could be undertaken is the allegation that the “millions of microbes ” make the ice‐cream injurious to health. Inas‐much as not one of these millions can be proved beyond the possibility of doubt to be injurious, in the present state of knowledge; and as millions of microbes exist in everything everywhere, the breakdown of such a case must be a foregone conclusion. Moreover, a glance at the Act will show that, under existing circumstances at any rate, samples cannot be submitted to public analysts for bacteriological examination—with which, in fact, the Act has nothing to do—even if such examinations yielded results upon which it would be possible to found action. In order to prevent the sale of foul and unwholesome or actual disease‐creating ice‐cream, the proper course is to control the premises where such articles are prepared; while, at the same time, the sale of such materials should also be checked by the methods employed under the Public Health Act in dealing with decomposed and polluted articles of food. In this, no doubt, the aid of the public analyst may sometimes be sought as one of the scientific advisers of the authority taking action, but not officially in his capacity as public analyst under the Adulteration Act. And in those cases in which such advice is sought it may be hoped that it will be based, as indeed it can be based, upon something more practical, tangible and certain than the nebulous results of a bacteriological test.

IT is important to open this editorial with an affirmation of faith. It is this: