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Leading organisations expect that all business processes, including facilities management (FM), achieve world‐class standards. This paper presents the results of an international, collaborative investigation, on behalf of a UK‐based blue chip company and a member of the Facilities Management Foundation, to identify organisations that are recognised as exemplars of world‐class FM (WCFM) and to understand the processes that underpin world‐class performance. Much FM practice remains cost focused, rooted in operations and concerned primarily with maintaining the steady‐state position of an organisation. In contrast, most authors propose that facilities should be strategically planned, aligned to business needs and demonstrate contribution to achieving explicit business objectives. They argue for a common language and for conditions that ensure that facilities add value to the business. Very little is known about how these conditions are created in different organisational contexts. The paper describes a heuristic study of three cases, selected as exemplars of WCFM, focusing on the underlying processes. Project partners in Australia, Norway and the UK conducted the case studies to a common brief. The paper presents the framework that was created to enable comparison of FM processes in the case studies and a matrix of business drivers and FM outputs that was adapted for the project. The investigation identifies three FM roles ‐ as translator, processor and demonstrator. Facilities management identifies business needs and translates strategy into workplaces, owns the processes of providing those workplaces and demonstrates their impact on organisational outcomes. The paper develops a WCFM framework to provide a management tool for considering and relating FM projects at different levels in an organisation. The study highlights the importance of reframing FM projects as business projects, and concludes that participation at senior management, business unit and individual levels in the organisation is an important factor in obtaining value. The study also highlights the need for effective change management processes continually to adapt the workplace to changing business needs, and shows how FM provides value through sustaining the organisation through business cycles.

One of the arguments used against British entry to the EEC was the loss of sovereignty; that Parliament would not be able to fully control all the statutory measures which would be applied to the people. EEC regulations apply without implementation by national governments, but since member‐states, through their representatives on Council and Commission, have participated, it is considered that national governments have in effect enacted them. EEC Directives as the name implies requires national governments to apply the provisions of the EEC measure; transitional exemptions up to five years are usually included for individual provisions, where internal adjustment is required. MAFF food regulations, implementing EEC Directives, have been made after this pattern for a number of food additives. The statutory measures are unlikely to present any greater difficulties than usual, but in interpretation, courts in this country have to consider EEC law above that of English and Scottish courts. The Court at Luxemburg exists mainly for interpretation, but courts and litigants have been advised against reference owing to the lengthy delays and the high court or court of sessions should make is interpretation based on EEC law.

This chapter draws on qualitative data and observations from a range of projects seeking to use football to support mental health recovery. The authors conceptualize recovery as a fluid ongoing process that while supporting individuals to manage and deal with mental illness, may not result in the reduction or remission of clinical symptoms.

The research discussed in the chapter is drawn from interviews with male participants aged 18–40 years, who participated in four different football and mental health projects.

The chapter outlines three key ways in which participants perceived that football contributes positively to their recovery. Participants discuss football as providing a “safe space,” free from stigma, and as a setting where they can develop productive and engaging social relationships with medical professionals, support staff, coaches, and peers. Finally, they perceive football as a context in which they can begin to rework and redefine their identities, to move away from identities constructed around illness and vulnerability.

The chapter concludes by considering both the value and limitations of football as a mechanism for supporting recovery.

Climate change is a global threat to social, economic, and environmental sustainability. In an increasingly urbanized world, homeowners play an important role in climate adaptation and environmental sustainability through decisions to landscape and manage their residential properties.

In this chapter, we review the potential impacts of climate change on environmental sustainability in urban ecosystems and highlight the role of urban and suburban residents in conserving biodiversity. We focus extensively on the interactions of homeowners and residential landscapes in urban coastal and desert environments.

Understanding how human-environment interactions are linked with a changing climate is especially relevant for coastal and desert cities in the United States, which are already experiencing visible impacts of climate change. In fact, many homeowners are already making decisions in response to environmental change, and these decisions will ultimately shape the future structure, function and sustainability of these critically important ecosystems.

Considering the close relationship between biodiversity and the health and well-being of human societies, understanding how climate change and other social motivations affect the landscaping decisions of urban residents will be critical for predicting and enhancing sustainability in these social-ecological systems.

This paper aims to examine whether the characteristics of boards are more important in determining dividend policy than management characteristics. The authors show that as the final declarers of dividend policy is a firm’s board, the composition of a firm’s board significantly subsumes the effect of management characteristics that may also influence dividend policy.

Using the dividend declaration dummy variable, the authors run a fixed effect logistic regression of the dividend indicator on board characteristics, and managerial characteristics with firm level controls, year effects and industry effects while clustering standard errors at the firm level. For dividend yield variable which is censored at zero, they use a fixed effect Tobit regression.

The results of the study show that board characteristics such as average age, female presence and size have a strong positive significant effect, whereas board independent chair and voting right of directors have a negative significant effect on the likelihood of dividend declaration. For dividend yields, the results suggest that the presence of directors with financial expertise and the board size are the main influencers of dividend policy. Managerial characteristics are subsumed by director characteristics for determining dividend policy. The results overall support the evidence on the monitoring role of boards on management.

The originality and value of this study lies in the approach of including a comprehensive number of board characteristics unlike previous studies which makes the study of the influence of board composition on dividends more encompassing.

It is seven years ago since I first took up the estimation of dirt in milk samples; there had been numerous complaints about dirty milk sold in Chester, and the Public Health Committee asked me if it would not be possible to estimate the dirt, so that proceedings could be taken against the milk sellers.

A biography of Mary Parker Follett (1868‐1933) who was one of the most profound philosophers on business management. Her education, career and philosophies are described and the relevance of her teaching to present‐day management practices discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to bring to readers' attention the importance of cognitive development, how it comes into play within the world of organizations and that there are resources available for bringing it about.

Having indicated the author's own recognition of the need for a way to assist managers in their cognitive development, the paper covers the approach of Reuven Feuerstein who has been working for years in this area, though mainly with young people. The paper provides some indication of the elements within Feuerstsein's approach, emphasizing the importance of mediated learning experience.

The exploration in the study led to finding an approach to cognitive development and one which has proved useful in organizations.

The practical implications are that those concerned with learning and development might put more attention on the cognitive aspects of development and that, as a field, we might explore the available resources for assisting us in this process.

This paper alerts readers to the likelihood that cognitive development will become a much more significant focus of the learning and development field in the future. This is less likely to be recognized while there is unawareness of the existence of resources that can assist in this. Through focussing on one such resource, the work of Reuven Feuerstein, the paper indicates that a good deal of work has already been accomplished in this field and, further, that it aligns significantly with aspects that developers will be familiar with from their own practice.

What follows forms part of an important article by Mr. H. H. Bagnall, B.Sc., F.R.I.C., City Analyst for Birmingham, and Mr. F. G. Stock, M.Pharm., A.R.I.C., which appeared in The Pharmaceutical Journal of April 16th, 1955. The British Food Journal is indebted to the authors and to the Editor of The Pharmaceutical Journal for permission to reprint a large portion of the article.