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The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors explaining the success of Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and the challenges which it faces in maintaining that success.

Utilising a review of primary and secondary sources, a syndrome of success characteristics is developed and analysed against a backdrop of recent high-level scandals involving corruption and unethical behaviour.

The paper concludes that the institutionalisation of key structures and processes has enabled the ICAC to perform successfully to date but that the prospect of political interference may represent a significant future challenge.

Although there has been widespread attention to ICAC success factors, some important features have been neglected and little academic attention has been devoted to recent political challenges to its position.

Provides some practical ways forward for those responsible for preparing subject teams in meeting the needs of the teaching quality assessment (TQA) exercise for the subject of business and management. Details the process of how this is occurring in a large multi‐site business and management faculty in a northern university. Defines a process whereby a higher educational institution, with multi‐site provision of business and management, can: strategically plan for the TQA exercise in the academic year 2000/2001; provide support from the strategic apex; attempt to give departments autonomy and responsibility for the TQA process; and address issues of both standards and enhancement. Provides also a practical framework for the management of the process and guidelines on how to manage that process. Suggests that the longitudinal model (institutional and subject review and continuation audit) should provide greater opportunities for the integration of maintenance and enhancement activities at subject level.

Part 1 of this paper provides an overview of a research project currently being undertaken at the Polytechnic of Wales, engaged in investigating the suitability of expert systems for the valuation of vacant possession residential property for mortgage purposes.

Discusses the components of valuation expertise as applied to the residual mortgage valuation domain and considers the different levels of analysis at which this expertise is exhibited. Explores the difference between ′true′ valuation expertise and expertness, the implications of the consultant′s ability to work across different domains of specialization by using analogies and the use of both individual and multiple experts in producing a ′domain theory′ which could be utilized in the production of an expert system for the mortgage valuation problem.

Part 1 of this paper, published in the last issue of Property Management provided an overview of the research project currently being undertaken at the Polytechnic of Wales investigating the suitability of expert systems for the valuation of vacant possession residential properties for mortgage purposes. This paper will address some of the practical difficulties which developers of expert systems can expect to encounter, and offer a possible solution to the thorny problem of ‘domain appraisal’; ie, the investigation of a particular application to discover whether an expert system might be feasible.

Examines the ability of an expert computer system to evaluate uncertainty within a valuation context and thus emulate the professional skill of the valuer. Shows that because property valuation programs based on regression analysis require data input for each variable, they are unable to evaluate uncertainty and hence to apply the rational judgement which enables the human valuer to produce a valuation in the light of uncertain or incomplete information.

Expert systems are currently being developed in many and varied professions. A major problem however is the extraction of knowledge from the required expert in order that it can be represented within the system. This paper will summarise the problems of knowledge elicitation, outline the methods currently used to acquire expert knowledge and describe the method we have refined from these general principles as the most suitable for ‘capturing’ the expertise of a practicising residential mortgage valuer. The basis of this paper is a research project investigating the application of expert systems to the valuation of vacant possession residential properties for mortgage purposes continuing at the Polytechnic of Wales.

The implicit assumption underlying the work of most anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) is that they need to change public attitudes toward corruption to ensure a cleaner future. The means of achieving this objective usually rest on sanctions, prevention, and sermons. Changing attitudes is seen to be largely a matter of prosecuting the corrupt, putting preventive measures in place, emphasizing the negative social and criminal consequences of corruption, and exhorting the public to achieve higher moral standards. Engaging the public is rarely undertaken directly. If it were, it would entail a community relations approach based on face-to-face, decentralized interaction between the ACA and the public. In principle, this approach might have three significant advantages. First, it could enable the anti-corruption message to be communicated more directly and, possibly, more effectively. Second, it might assist the ACA in identifying groups within the community which have developed, or are developing, attitudes which are potentially antithetical to its objectives. Third, it could serve as a springboard for local anti-corruption initiatives which might help to embed desired practices in the community or groups within it. In this chapter, we examine the extent to which one of the few agencies to adopt a full-blown community relations strategy – Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) – has been able to achieve those benefits.