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In assessing the contribution made by telecommunications in India by the state and civil society to public service, this article aims to identify the state's initial reluctance to recognise telecommunications provision as a basic need as against the robust tradition of public service aligned to the postal services and finds hope in the renewal of public service telecommunications via the Right to Information movement.

This article follows a history of telecommunications approach that is conversant with the political economy tradition. It uses archival sources, personal correspondence, and published information as its primary material.

The findings suggest that public service telecommunication is a relatively “new” concept in the annals of Indian telecommunications and that a de‐regulated environment along with the Right to Information movement holds significant hope for making public service telecommunications a real alternative.

This article provides a reflexive, critical account of public service telecommunications in India and suggests that it can be strengthened by learnings gained from the continual renewal of public service ideals and action by the postal services and a people‐based demand model linked to the Right to Information Movement.

This paper provides an account of how family carers were involved in a longitudinal research study that aimed to investigate the needs of ‘new’ family carers of stroke survivors. An account of how the researcher involved carers is provided, followed by one carer's description of the benefits and negative consequences of being involved in the study. Suggestions are made about how to develop good practice with regard to involving people in research. The conclusions highlight that, although rewarding, being involved in research is not without its challenges. However, research participants have much to contribute to the entire research process and its products. It is important therefore to learn lessons about how best to maximise the expertise that carers and others have to offer.

Sex offenders who refuse a place on a sex offender treatment programme are estimated to make up about half the prison sex offender population in England and Wales. It is important to motivate refusers to participate in treatment to reduce the likelihood of their re‐offending. In this pilot study we used the Personal Concerns Inventory‐Offender Adaptation (PCI‐OA), a semi‐structured motivational assessment, further adapting it for treatment refusers. We examined the effectiveness of the PCI‐OA (TR) with nine prisoners who had refused sex offender treatment (the treatment group) compared with nine refusers who received no intervention (the control group). The treatment group were at least 0.6 times as likely to show a positive motivational shift towards sex offender treatment as the untreated group. The practice implications of these results are discussed, and further evaluation of the PCI‐OA (TR) is recommended.

A review in depth of Policy Studies Issue 13:1 considering the progress made to date by the Training and Enterprise Councils in the UK. It provides an informed and valuable backdrop to the varied and interesting papers which go to make up this special issue. The papers consider the TECs from a variety of perspectives and are themselves considered from the standpoint of an adviser to their Boards and senior management teams. Argues that this critical stage of the TECs is one which is given scant consideration in the publication and that TEC managers are frequently overstretched and under resourced. While this is a common characteristic of work in the 1990s, the committed and hard working managers and staff of TECs should not become political footballs, becoming overburdened by initiative overload but should be permitted to get on with their very important task within a realistic strategic framework.

This study was undertaken to discover working public thoughts about roles of United States women in leadership positions and to test the relationship between managerial leadership styles and organizational effectiveness. A survey of perceptions of leadership roles and effectiveness distributed 700 randomly selected entities from industries in the United States. Findings suggest approximately 50% of women leaders perceive barriers that prevent women for entering management positions and lower advancement rates for women. This study shows that aspiration in women exists whether or not they take action and motivate themselves to advance for top management positions. However, barriers like discrimination, family-life demands, prejudice, and stereotyping result in fruitlessness in many cases. The majority of women and men felt education and training could increase the preparedness of women for leadership roles. Respondents expressed overwhelming support for a participative leadership style. A positive association existed between participative leadership style and organizational effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and examine the antecedents that enable or constrain the adoption and diffusion of eLearning in higher education (HE). The key focus of the study is on the examination of how the organisation's diffusion structures, systems or processes influence the individual adoption of eLearning. The findings from this literature review contribute to practice through providing a better understanding of the issues associated with institutional diffusion mechanisms that aid the adoption of learning technologies.

An extensive search of the literature was conducted. The selected references were analysed into a number of categories; macro-level studies examining HE context of eLearning, micro-level studies focusing on individual and social factors and articles focusing on management issues of adoption and diffusion of technological innovations. Finally, over 300 articles were used to compile the findings of this paper.

The paper argues that future research studies should not model the adoption and diffusion of eLearning based primarily on either an individualist (Micro) or structuralist (Macro) perspective, but by using a more interactive approach to examine the complexity and multiple levels and dimensions of social reality.

A significant exclusion and one which clearly calls for further research, is the aspect of institutional structures such as library systems, virtual learning environments, administrative support systems and other technical systems such as enrolment, registration, assessment and students, with respect to the adoption of eLearning. Future studies may want to explore the interplay between these structures and agency.

The study findings contribute to practice through providing a better understanding of the issues associated with institutional diffusion mechanisms that aid the adoption of learning technologies. Considering the slow and often disappointing adoption of eLearning within higher education institutions (HEIs), the study reveals the nature of adoption that may inform the development of institutional eLearning diffusion structures.

The paper identifies that the importance of individual factors influencing the adoption of eLearning has been acknowledged by the above studies, and the underlying message has emerged that levels of eLearning adoption would be higher if strategic managers recognised the social dimensions of eLearning innovation and diffusion, such as: academic and professional goals, interests and needs; technology interests; patterns of work; sources of support; and social networks. The argument is that currently eLearning is geared towards technically “literate” and innovative staff, and this strategy reduces the likelihood of mainstream faculty actually adopting instructional technology for their own teaching.

A review of the eLearning literature shows that there only a few substantive theoretical accounts which adequately integrate multiple levels of analysis and explain adoption and diffusion of eLearning in terms of the interplay between structural influences and individual action. The paper argues for future research to be integrated in a general analytical framework.

The purpose of this study is to illustrate how means‐end chain theory can inform communications that effectively convey the health messages of vegetable consumption to various publics.

Laddering interviews were conducted with 61 participants who consumed at least two serves of vegetables a day and were responsible in part or whole for shopping in their household. A means‐end chain value map was then constructed using mecanalyst software.

Using means‐end theory, an example communications strategy was developed from the dominant chain. The health and wellness features that respondents associated with vegetables were “freshness”, a “source of vitamins and minerals”, and “high nutritional value”. In the mind of the consumer, these features were linked to the benefit concept “maintain energy and vitality”, which in turn was connected to the consequence “maintain an active life”. The end‐states or goals participants ultimately connected to the health and wellness features of vegetables were that of “enjoy life” and “achieve goals”.

The research is limited in so far as subjects who consume less than two serves of vegetables are not recruited for this study.

It is suggested that social marketing initiatives designed to increase vegetable consumption may base messages on health‐related values or end‐states of being to resonate more effectively with consumers.

High vegetable consumption is associated with a reduced risk of chronic disease. Effective strategies designed to increase vegetable consumption amongst populations may reduce the burden on health systems.

This study illustrates how consumers' cognitive processes can inform social marketing communications.

The phenomenon of economic specialization of Malaysians along racial lines was probably the most important colonial legacy that was left behind by the British when the country attained its independence in 1957. At the time of independence, the indigenous Malay people, collectively termed as bumiputeras, were engaged in the declining or at best stagnant peasant sector, while the non‐indigenous communities were engaged in the buoyant plantation and mining sectors, as well as in commerce and industry. The imbalance obvious in this arrangement tended to be self‐perpetuating and cumulative because the Malays had low income and low capacity to accumulate capital to invest in their education or to move to urban areas, where the growth industries were located.

The planners of Aslib's 46th. Annual Conference—to be held from 24th to 27th September in Ranmoor House, University of Sheffield—have chosen to be strictly practical this year. Their theme—the role of external information services of all kinds (not only computer based systems) in relation to the work of the local information unit and library—is a problem of some urgency and the development of these services in a form that will best serve the information community is of concern to more and more people in the library and information world.