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Judging from the enormous amount of case law which has taken place on unfair dismissal claims since its initial introduction by the Industrial Relations Act 1971, this branch of the law of dismissal has proved more popular than the common law of wrongful dismissal which, though significantly less sought after, is still of importance in certain circumstances. The implications and functions of the law of wrongful dismissal have already been treated. Nothing further need be added; the reader is therefore referred to the appropriate monograph.

The administration of social assistance benefits is devolved to local agencies in Belgium, which raises questions about how much variation in spell lengths of benefit receipt is associated with differences across agencies. We address this issue by analysing the monthly hazard of benefit exit using administrative record data for 14,270 individuals in 574 welfare agencies. Our random-effects model allows for differences in both the observed and unobserved characteristics of beneficiaries and of local agencies. There are large differences in median benefit duration for individuals serviced by different welfare agencies: the range is from two months to more than 24 months. We find strong associations between beneficiary characteristics (sex, age, foreign nationality, citizenship acquisition, work history and being a student) and spell length. The estimates show higher odds of exiting social assistance receipt in bigger municipalities and in agencies which provide more generous supplementary assistance, and also strong evidence of shorter episodes in agencies where active labour market programme participation rates are higher.

The concept of corporate social responsibility of the enterprise covers a vast territory! This paper proposes to limit the analysis and evaluation of this concept to three distinct aspects. The first will treat the comparatively new and evolving common law implied term in corporated into the contract of employment relating to the enterprise’s social responsibility of respect towards the employee. The second will analyse an other generically linked recent common law development in the field of the enterprise’s social responsibility of respect towards the employee, namely the implied over‐riding term. Thirdly, the novel and developing wider concept of corporate social responsibility will be addressed and assessed. Some concluding thoughts will follow.

This paper provides an extensive review of surveys and data-collection programmes focused on urban goods movement (UGM). Surveys investigating passenger urban travel have a decades-long tradition. The same is not true for UGM. The first specific UGM surveys appeared about 10 years ago in response to the rapid growth of car traffic, congestion, pollution and lack of space. Most of the time, these surveys have been carried out to resolve specific, local problems concerning traffic. Only a few of them have taken a global approach to urban logistics by including all logistics operators (own-account and carriers), all delivery vehicles (heavy and light vehicles), all deliveries and pickups (from express to full payload) and an entire metropolitan area and surroundings. Due to various European programmes, an inventory has been created to analyse urban goods data collection according to spatial level and methodology of capture. With this inventory, European urban freight indicators can be described, along with the units in which they are measured and their purposes. The relevance of urban goods transport surveys lies in their capacity to give decision-makers an account of urban freight transport functioning, ratios and data, so as to help in formulating planning, regulation and forecasting. It appears that focusing on the movement (delivery/pick-up), as the unit of analysis in establishment-driver surveys is the most efficient approach to describe the generation of vehicular flow in the city. This fact is revealed in the French UGM surveys, which take into account the complexity of urban logistics.

Much research has been reported on the possibilities of using various heuristic priority rules to sequence batches through a job shop. The SPT (Shortest Priority Time) heuristic, or modifications to it, has been proved useful in many studies. This paper reports on the results obtained when simulating the work flow through a real machine shop. The simulation model has been used to test the effect on well known priority rules of releasing batches into the shop in order of decreasing expected throughput time. The important effect of this “phased release” of batches was to increase the percentage of batches delivered in finished parts stores on time, particularly in the case where priority rules were in use which might otherwise have resulted in poor delivery. This has important repercussions for management because it implies that by “phased” release of batches in the manner discussed, a large proportion of batches will be delivered on time whatever priority rule is in operation in the shop.

Urban consolidation centre (UCC) is a popular initiative targeting the challenge of negative environmental and social impacts from freight transports in cities. Despite this, UCC often fails in practice, which indicates a knowledge gap. Furthermore, research within the field can be described as fragmented, transdisciplinary and fast growing. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the field by describing dominant categories and themes within the area, identify gaps in order to propose a future research agenda, and provide insights into the needs of practitioners.

A systematic literature review (SLR) targeting journal articles based on UCCs has been constructed with a supplementary snowball approach. A content analysis was performed to categorise themes in the research on UCCs and to identify research gaps, both within and outside the categories identified.

Despite substantial research on UCC, very little research ends up in academic journals. In all, 56 articles address UCC. The most common topics were the role of stakeholders, design of distribution structures and transport resources, environmental and social consideration, and economic considerations. Much focus is directed towards finding “optimal” solutions and designs for potential initiatives with very little, if any, consideration to financial viability or the management of the UCC initiative.

This research points out existing gaps in the literature and proposes a future research agenda with UCCs as the focus. For example, although environmental and social arguments are often applied to justify the implementation of UCCs, few studies measure or evaluate their impact. Another important research gap is the economical consideration, both how to generate revenue and how to consider economies of scale.

The practical contribution of most studies is directed towards municipalities. Few findings are presented in a way to support companies. Additionally, by bridging the gaps related to how stakeholders can collaborate and describe what is happening in a UCC, practitioners can use such information as guidelines.

The results provide a research agenda for the fragmented research targeting UCCs, supporting the viability of future initiatives.

Urban consolidation centres (UCCs) are often conceived to improve services in retail stores and potentially reduce costs. However, few studies have examined how retail stores perceive the services a UCC could provide. The purpose of this paper is to explore retail stores’ potential demands for different services that a UCC could provide in order to foster the development and implementation of UCC solutions aimed towards more economically feasible business models.

Structured interviews were conducted with employees at 72 retail stores. Qualitative, as well as quantitative analyses, were conducted to identify the potential demands of the retail stores.

The authors have provided arguments why retail stores might be interested in UCC services, and thereby potentially pay for them. Improved customer service to stores’ customers might not be a valid argument. The authors point to the cost aspect: stores expend resources that a UCC could provide in a more cost-efficient manner.

The findings contradict previous studies to some extent, as it indicates that a UCC may actually not enhance customer service in retail stores. Instead, the findings point to the importance of considering the potential advantages according to economies of scale that are facilitated by UCC services.

Taking the perspective of the stores is important in order to identify arguments for why they should pay for the services provided by a UCC.

Financially viable UCC solutions are needed in order for the initiatives to be maintained and thereby provide a long-term decrease in the environmental and social footprints caused by urban freight.

This study answers the call for research addressing retailers’ perspective in urban logistics, as it takes a demand-driven perspective of the development of UCC services. Furthermore, by highlighting services requested by retail stores, it can guide the financing of UCC initiatives, an aspect that has been lacking.

Introductory anatomy and physiology provide a core knowledge base to students within clinical health science courses. Increased student numbers, as well as reduced access to laboratory-based cadaveric resources, have created a need for enhanced learning approaches to support learning. The streamlining of courses has also resulted in the need to effectively engage course sub-groups within large units. The purpose of this paper is to utilize the eLearning activities to investigate engagement and satisfaction levels within students undertaking an anatomy and physiology unit.

A total of 19 formative quizzes were made available to students. Online practical anatomy laboratories covered anatomical content, and physiology quizzes covered physiological content. Student engagement was compared using frequency analysis across students studying varying courses. Satisfaction was determined by analyzing student’s feedback using frequency analysis.

Students accessed the learning activities 29,898 times over semester, with the peak access (37 percent) prior to the closed book exams. The resources were utilized primarily as an exam preparation tool rather than consistently throughout semester. Out of the various courses, the Paramedicine, Physiotherapy and Podiatry students were the most engaged, with the highest percent of “engaged/highly engaged” students. Students from various courses shared very similar views of the perceived benefit of the eLearning activities.

These results indicated a difference in engagement levels between the students of various course sub-groups, and therefore suggests that the development of course-specific eLearning activities is necessary in large, streamlined units to achieve a more focused approach to support students’ learning, engagement and success, so that positive and beneficial learning experiences are ensured for all students.

These results suggest that in the future, development of eLearning activities is necessary to achieve a more focused approach to support students’ learning, engagement and success, so that positive and beneficial learning experiences are ensured for all.

Urban logistics pooling is seen as a serious alternative to imposed urban consolidation centers. However, such strategies are quite new in urban distribution and merit to be evaluated using adapted methods that take into account the group decision nature of resource pooling. This chapter aims to propose, via an experimental collaborative decision support method, to define a grid of indicators and a reference situation database to measure the sustainable performance of urban logistics pooling systems.

The proposed methodology combines a systematic literature analysis of Key Performance Indicators and a group decision support method to choose a suitable set to define a dashboard. First, we identify the main sustainability indicators from an overview of the literature, and class them into the categories of the 4As Sustainable Transport vision (i.e., Awareness, Act and shift, Avoidance, and Anticipation). Then, a group of 20 experts is solicited for an iterative experimental group decision-making method to converge to the concordance of a set of indicators.

The method allowed us to define a hierarchic dashboard agreed by all experts with seven main indicators and nine secondary indicators. Moreover, the experts signaled the need of defining a unified basis of comparison to estimate initial situations. To do this, we proposed a database of urban routes from the French Surveys on Urban Goods Transport.

The proposed dashboard is an example, and to provide a more unified one, the experience has to be iterated using different groups of decision-makers.

This method has the advantage of proposing a dashboard agreed by all involved stakeholders. Therefore, this chapter shows the patterns to reproduce it since the method is able to be replicated in any context of group decision in urban logistics.

The originality of the chapter arises on the use of an experimental group decision method using a group with a majority of practitioners, and to validate it by consensus.

With an increasing urbanization trend over the last decades, urban agglomerations are facing different challenges that affect its inhabitants: pollution, traffic congestion, thriving population growth rates, and economic uncertainty. In the context of Latin America, where less than 20% of its inhabitants live in rural areas and with a projection to decrease to close to 10% by the year 2030, providing solutions to reduce the impact of this increase of population, on at least one of the issues, seems logical.

This study focuses on the urban logistics component to propose a classification method for homogeneous areas, using Factor Analysis (FA) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) as the main supporting tools. The proposed methodology builds up on the square kilometer (KM2) methodology developed by MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, applying it in a neuralgic section of the downtown area of a mid-sized city in Latin America: Córdoba, Argentina. The selection was made considering the logistic restrictions, commercial density, and the relevance of the area for the city. Our proposed methodology uses relevant variables for urban logistics to perform the statistical analysis. The main goal is to develop a data-driven methodology to identify clusters to guide Córdoba's urban logistics policy and decision-making processes.

The results suggest a clear relationship between the different commercial activities and the location inside the area, splitting the area under study clearly into two main sections with similar overall characteristics and two subsections inside each one of them, which should be considered as a basis for further urban logistic analysis and implementation of specific best practices that fit the particular needs.