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There are many accepted ways in which the economist may look at the business enterprise, each of which involves a different blend of theory and empirical evidence. Unfortunately, one gets the impression that many microeconomists have had no direct contact with firms: their experience of the very object on which some lavish such intricate mathematical analysis is entirely second‐hand. Happily, such isolation from the proper object of analysis, the firm, is by no means typical of the history of economic analysis. Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, was well acquainted with the business community of Glasgow. He was on good terms with the leading merchants of the day including, most notably, Provost Andrew Cochrane who assisted Smith in the acquisition of statistical and institutional information later to be used the The Wealth of Nations. Alfred Marshall too had a serious concern for the realities of business activity. In 1885 he made an extended visit to the United States which took him into many factories and provided the basis for his paper “Some Features of American Industry”. Even ten years later “his zeal for field work remained unimpaired”, and the months of August and September saw Marshall undertaking extensive tours of English mines and factories. One hundred years later, one notices scarcely any enthusiasm on the part of economists for fieldwork of the sort that would take them into the business enterprise. A welcome sign of the possibility that this parlous state may yet be modified is contained in an article by Lawson, where it is argued that “more resources should be allocated, and attention paid, to the results of forms of case‐study, to personal histories, and to the study of primary sources. At the very least a re‐evaluation of research priorities and methods may be in order”. Such an attitude is in sympathy with the line of argument pursued in this article.

1. Introduction There exists substantial evidence that price leadership is a common form of market structure. By contrast, theoretical treatments of this phenomenon are rare. This paper attempts to extend in three directions the existing treatments of the price leadership model. Firstly, it provides a mathematical statement of the model, generalizing existing geometrical and literary approaches, and extending the mathematical version of Hadar (1971, pp. 115–117). Secondly, it admits of the possibility of many followers, rather than adopting the conventional assumption of just one follower, or an anonymous aggregate of followers regarded as a competitive fringe. An essential feature of the analysis is that the output of each firm is a significant part of total market output. Thus the smooth continuous supply curve which emerges when followers are massed together in a competitive fringe is no part of the analysis. Thirdly, the paper attempts to take seriously the problems of discontinuity which arise in this type of market when a follower is forced out of business: a matter which is frequently ignored in the theorizing of economists.

To express and illustrate in verse ubiquitous problems of organizational, auditing and trading malfunctions, thereby stimulating the imagination to contemplate alternative approaches.

Poetic expression of the following design: I. “Putting out work”. Three nine‐line stanzas of syllabic verse, mythic in tone, otherwise of irregular, free form. Expression approaches prose poetry. II. “The happiest days of your life”. Three seven‐line stanzas of free verse, mythic in tone. III. “The exchange”. Twelve six‐line stanzas in free verse; a narrative prose poem.

I. Asks whether the discredited putting‐out system is not lurking yet in modern “home‐working”, but with more subtle drawbacks, and even closer control. II. Finds that pressures to permit labour abuses are persistent, even in alleged “advanced” economies – its incidence and its form are just more surreptitious. III. Develops an alternative metaphor for North‐South economic relations, and suggests exploring an ethics of “gift exchange”, in contrast with the so‐called “anonymity of the market”.

The limitation of verse in this context is that it is a stimulus to the imagination, but not a vehicle for empirical investigation as such. However, what verse does here is to suggest three areas for research that are novel and challenging, but may otherwise be neglected without this stimulus.

I. Finds an emerging “new putting‐out system” II. Shows how the motivation for child labour is persistent, even in “advanced” economies. III. Points to an alternative approach to exchange, as a mutual process of gifting.

This paper reports on the importance and use of information technology in a sample of 150 new small firms. It provides statistical evidence to show that the greater the use of IT, the higher the firm’s performance. By contrast, the owner manager’s belief in the importance of IT to the management of their business is not correlated with performance. Empirical evidence is then presented to confirm that IT use is increasing, in general, year on year, and is being implemented as a management information tool. Finally, a profile is presented of the typical components of a young management information system, within the context of a management accounting framework. It is suggested that, given the proven importance of IT to the new small firm, a management information system should be developed that takes advantage of the opportunities offered by new technology, and that this, in turn, should lead to enhanced performance.

This paper aims to investigate the potential challenges that governments in the Commonwealth Caribbean are likely to face combating crimes facilitated by the dark Web.

The “lived experience” methodology guided by a contextual systematic literature review was used to ground the investigation of the research phenomena in the researchers’ collective experiences working in, living in and engaging in research with governments in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

The two major findings emerging from the analysis are that jurisdictional and technical challenges are producing major hindrances to the creation of an efficient and authoritative legislative framework and the building of the capacity of governments in the Commonwealth Caribbean to confront the technicalities that affect systematic efforts to manage problems created by the dark Web.

The findings indicate the urgency that authorities in the Caribbean region must place on reevaluating their administrative, legislative and investment priorities to emphasize cyber-risk management strategies that will enable their seamless and wholesome integration into this digital world.

The research aids in developing and extending theory and praxis related to the problematization of the dark Web for governments by situating the experiences of Small Island Developing States into the ongoing discourse.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if personal identification could explicate the black box between participative leadership and employee ambidexterity. Also, the authors aim to explore how and why the top-down effects of higher-level leadership styles affect lower-level outcomes.

The authors collected multilevel and multisource data from top manager teams, and unit managers and employees of research and development, marketing and sales, and operations from Taiwanese technology firms.

The results revealed that individual-level personal identification partially mediated the relationship between firm-level participative leadership and individual-level employee ambidexterity, and individual-level coworker social support moderated the effect of firm-level participative leadership on individual-level employee ambidexterity through individual-level personal identification.

This paper demonstrated the importance of participative leadership and personal identification. It contributed to profound comprehension for potential mechanisms of individual-level personal identification and an enhancer of individual-level coworker social support why and how affects firm-level participative leadership on individual-level employee ambidexterity.

As neoliberal reforms take hold in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia, there is renewed interest in the quality of teaching practice. However, despite the value of practitioner inquiry to the quality of teaching in schools, scholarly practice in higher education, and established links between the quality of teaching and outcomes for learners and between practice-based inquiry and pedagogic innovation in VET, the practices has received little attention. The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of a college-wide culture of scholarly activity to learners, enterprises, VET institutions, educators and the national productivity agenda.

Drawing on the education literature, empirical examples of scholarly activity drawn from the authors’ experiences of working with VET practitioners, this paper asks what constitutes research and inquiry in VET, why should these practices be integral to educative practice and what value do they bring to the sector? In addressing the questions, the authors explore how research and inquiry is defined in the literature and draw on three empirical examples of scholarly activities to provide a national, institutional and individual view. A discussion about the value of scholarly activities to VET stakeholders and how the practices might be fostered and sustained concludes the paper.

The paper concludes that practice-based scholarly activities in VET cultivate rich potential for renewed and innovative pedagogies that improve outcomes for learners, respond to industry demands for innovative skills, build “pedagogic capital” for VET institutions, enrich the knowledge base of policy makers and build resilience and professionalism. The authors conclude by positioning VET educators as scholars in their own right along a continuum of scholarly activity and posing the proposition that when valued, scholarly activities are practices for new times that will build a strong and vibrant profession for the future.

This paper brings together the authors’ experiences of working with VET practitioners as the authors engage in scholarly activities. While each vignette was drawn from a formal research project in each case, the paper itself was not structured around a formal research activity, although a small survey was undertaken for vignette 1. This poses limitations to the findings of the study. However, the purpose of the paper is not to be conclusive but to forward an argument for more scholarly activity in VET in order to promote further research and debate.

This paper contributes to the current debate in Australia about the quality of teaching in VET and the sectors’ capability to produce “work-ready” graduates. It brings to the fore the value of scholarly activity for educators, learners, industry and communities, VET institutions and the broader national innovation agenda. As such, it has relevance to all VET stakeholders, most particularly policy makers, leaders and practitioners in VET.