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BRIEF news of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers' Tribology Group visit to China as guests of the Chinese Mechanical Engineers Society (CMES), appeared on the “Comment and opinion” page of our September/October issue last year. It was the first since the initial trip in 1979. We asked for a more detailed account and a report of the 3,500 mile journey through the country of a thousand million people, many anxious to know more about the new industrial technologies, now comes from S.J. Crampton, BSc (Eng), FIMechE, FInst Pet, manager, Projects and Research, IMechE, who was a member of the eight‐man party.

In recent years, electronic performance monitoring (EPM) has increased dramatically. The managerial decision to implement an EPM system is important for it has significant implications for an organization. Even so, little attention has been paid by researchers to this decision. The present paper reviews the published research on EPM and identifies factors that probably impact this decision. A model is offered to help researchers identify relevant psychological and organizational variables that may impact the decision to implement an EPM system. Psychologically, issues of trust, privacy, social facilitation, justice beliefs and stress reactions must be considered. Organizationally, a firm's Human Resource strategy, organizational culture, and anticipated consequences of EPM (i.e., increasing performance, reducing theft) are also discussed.

Because of their relationship‐oriented values, avoiding conflict is thought to be particularly prevalent and appropriate in collectivist societies like China Although research in the West has assumed that avoiding conflict is one approach and a largely ineffective one, collectivists may use conflict avoidance in different ways, including protecting the other protagonist. Eighty‐five managers and employees in six State Owned Enterprises in South China described concrete incidents when they avoided conflict and responded to specific items to measure the prior relationship, motivation, strategies, and consequences. Results identify major motivations and strategies used in conflict avoidance. Findings indicate that Chinese managers and employees relied upon the other person, promoted task productivity, and strengthened the relationship when they had a prior strong relationship and cooperative goals. Cooperative goals and fear of revenge were both found to underlie outflanking (trying to work around the other). Results were interpreted as indicating that avoiding conflict can be useful and even reaffirm an already effective relationship, but like open conflict, it must be managed constructively.

In this paper, we build a complete information bargaining model of collective negotiation that can explain delays in reaching agreements. We structurally estimate the model using firm-level data for large Spanish firms. For this type of firm, the assumption of complete information seems a sensible one, and it matches the collective bargaining environment better than the one provided by private information models. The specification of the model with players having different discount factors allows us to measure their relative bargaining power, a recurrent question in the theory of bargaining. Our model replicates the data on delays at the sectoral and aggregate level. We also find that both entrepreneurs and workers have high discount factors, and no evidence that entrepreneurs have greater bargaining power, as usually assumed.

Since 9/11, the world has been on alert and it is just a matter of time before a sports facility is targeted. No empirical studies have examined the stress levels of employees in sports facilities. Tangential studies will show, stress symptoms, changes in behavior and life style continued long after 9/11 to the point that it became a habit and no longer an isolated event. However, there is still the question of a secure work environment for the employees of these sports facilities. The current level of security being implemented in sport facilities is no longer sufficient to ensure the safety of employees, participants and spectators. Recommendations have been chosen carefully and are budget dependent. The implementation of biometrics will potentially reduce the stress levels of the targeted work environments by making it a safer place. The increased level of stress in the work environment has been partially reduced by several stress management techniques that include: task redesign, flexible work schedules, participative management, increased employee autonomy, employee fitness programs and open lines of communication to voice on going concerns to insure the safety of fans, athletes and employees. A conclusion is there is still a major concern of a secure work environment for the employees of these sports facilities at this date. This is the challenge.

Stress is a mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influences and capable of affecting physical and psychological health. Stress is intangible. However, it comes with some symptoms such as weight gain or loss, easiness to anger, sleeplessness, frequency headaches, strained relationships, fatigue, and low productivity (Hanes, 2002).

Recently, the Department of Labour’s Fairpay Overtime Initiative was enacted to revamp the previous Fair Labour Standards Act (FLSA) rules governing employee overtime benefits. This legislation is a significant departure from the past regulations in determining overtime eligibility. In an effort to clarify these new FLSA guidelines, the authors have prepared a detailed model, outlining the process necessary to establish an employee’s exempt/non‐exempt status. Particular attention is apid to the process of correctly classifying employees by recommending the use of functional job analysis procedures in order to administer the newly created job duties test. Comments are then made about some shortcomings of the legislation and issues for managers to consider.