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Kirklees Early Years Services encompasses all early childhood services from nursery education, day nurseries, and regulation and support of the private and voluntary sector – playgroups, childminders and private and voluntary day nurseries. Reflects on the financial difficulties of running an integrated early years service, difficulties compounded by the lack of comparable financial statistics and conflicts about cost effectiveness across different kinds of services.

This paper was intended to explore the concept of learning in networks using recent literature from this emerging field. In order to do so, it takes as a case study a pan‐European e‐learning project, which required collaborative working and learning within a distributed team.

The approach has been qualitative and exploratory. Data have been collected via interviews with project partners and participant observation of the steering group meetings. Analysis has similarly been qualitative in nature.

Analysis suggests that there are links with earlier literature on inter‐organisational learning networks, particularly around culture, management style and leadership in virtual collaboration. Interestingly, even supposed “experts” in the field of e‐learning technologies showed a preference to work face‐to‐face.

The research to date has been exploratory and small‐scale. More work is required to test the findings in a wider context.

The findings are believed to have considerable practical value, both for the European Union, as the funding body, but also for one's own practice, and that of others as they attempt to facilitate learning and collaborating in networks.

The paper adds value as it is one of only a small number to approach networked learning from a non‐experimental standpoint. It is also original in its application of the frameworks around network learning and learning in networks, as advanced by Knight in 2002 and Knight and Pye in 2002.

The purpose of the paper is to show that smart item technologies, like RFID and sensor networks, are considered the next big step in business process automation. Through automatic real‐time data acquisition, these technologies can provide benefits to a variety of industries by improving the efficiency of their operations. A service‐oriented infrastructure is proposed that enables the integration of RFID, wireless sensor networks and embedded systems technologies with existing business processes.

This paper discusses the system requirements of a smart items infrastructure in detail. Based on these requirements, the overall infrastructure and the constituting components are introduced. Also, using two real‐world scenarios, it is shown how the proposed infrastructure can be used.

The paper found a set of technical requirements for a smart items infrastructure. The research resulted in the architectural design presented.

To the best of one's knowledge, this paper is the first to identify and explain the technical requirements for a holistic smart items infrastructure. The service‐oriented system architecture provides a new approach to a flexible/adaptable infrastructure for ubiquitous computing. By pointing out requirements and open issues, the paper identifies interesting topics for future research in this area.

This paper aims to explore the real-life examples made by a single small and medium-sized enterprise to address organisational inequalities and develop a more inclusive culture.

This paper considers the approach taken by Punter Southall Aspire to manage their gender balance through a case study of documents, policies and interviews.

There is still plenty of work to do, but the multiple actions taken by the leadership have been positive, well-received and importantly progressive. By taking a focused approach to manage gender equality within an small and medium-sized enterprise, the outcome has been far reaching.

By showcasing the leadership and positive action within a single small and medium-sized enterprise, the authors hope other organisations are able to take inspiration to make their own changes.

This paper aims to examine customer experience value orchestrated by non-banks' financial touchpoints to understand how they enhance the financial inclusion of low-income consumers.

Two independent but related studies were conducted using qualitative comparative analyses (QCA) research design with semi-structured interviews to compare and contrast customer experience value at two rural locations in Southern Africa. The interview transcripts were analysed using ATLAS.ti, which is a powerful operating system for analysing qualitative data.

The results indicate that non-banks in the two countries design financial services that include functional, economic, humanic, social and mechanic customer experience value dimensions.

The data for this study was collected from financial services customers of retailers and mobile phone network operators in only one research setting in each country. Further research could extend the comparative context for qualitative studies across similar markets. Other limitations are discussed in the paper.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by highlighting the salient and germane dimensions and components found to be important in understanding financial inclusion using customer experience value. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that incorporates customer experience value dimensions in understanding the financial inclusion of low-income consumers at the base of the social and economic pyramid in emerging markets.

The emergence of social media as a corporate disclosure channel has caused significant changes in the production and dissemination of corporate information. This review identifies important themes in recent research on the impact of social media on the corporate information environment and provides suggestions for further explorations of this new but fast-growing area of research. Specifically, we first review the evolution of Internet-based corporate disclosure and related regulations, and then focus on three recent streams of research: 1) companies’ use of social media; 2) information produced by non-corporate users and its impact on capital markets; and 3) the credibility of corporate information on social media platforms.

Informal learning is seen as the most important way to acquire and develop the skills and competencies required for work. The Dutch Defence organisation (DDO) aims to use the opportunities for development of employees that informal learning offers better and is looking for suitable interventions. Four possible interventions to improve informal learning were developed, based on factors that influence informal learning. The purpose of this paper is to assess how Dutch Military personnel rate these interventions and to gather their opinions and preferences per intervention.

A total of 96 employees completed an online mixed-method vignette study. In the questionnaire, the four interventions were introduced by a visualisation in the form of a “comic strip” (vignette), and respondents’ perceptions were measured with multiple choice and open-ended questions.

Respondents clearly indicated a preference for two of the four interventions, i.e. informal mentorship and safe learning environment. They provided numerous advantages and disadvantages per intervention. They also indicated that all four interventions could be used throughout the entire Dutch Defence Organisation.

The results contribute to a thoughtful design of interventions that can be used in practice; also, the interventions can be improved based on the advantages, disadvantages and suggestions formulated by the respondents in this vignette study.

The designs of interventions are studied in a systematic way by the target population before they are actually developed and implemented. In addition, the use of “comic strips” and visualisations in vignette studies is quite original.

International trade shows have increased in importance for the promotion of goods and services overseas. Relatively little is known about participation by firms in these shows. The International Marketing and Purchasing Group′s interaction model is an appropriate analytical tool for investigating trade shows in international marketing strategy. Explains why the interaction model is useful in this context and provides directions for research about international trade shows. Also suggests managerial implications for developing international trade show strategy.

The inability of college‐educated men and women to find and utilize information relevant to a given problem has become a matter of increasing concern to librarians and others, including members of the United States government. The skill that is required for such proficiency has been called “information literacy.” So serious has the problem become that a large and growing body of literature on the subject has emerged.