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This paper reports on a project which aimed to ascertain current and anticipated use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in museums in Wales. The project also traced the primary ICT trends in the museum community worldwide, and listed relevant contemporary policy and project initiatives and funding sources in the UK. The main findings – applications, the resource and other issues, barriers to development, the perceived value of ICT in museum work, and the main project outcomes and recommendations are listed.

In working to develop multiagency adult protection policy and procedures in West Sussex, we were looking for ways to increase engagement and ownership across agencies, agree roles and responsibilities and consult in a collaborative way on the draft policy and procedures. A large‐scale event was organised with a ‘whole system approach’, as distinct from a traditional conference. Here we describe the origins, purpose, process and lessons from this approach.

This study attempts to analyze the various factors which may have led an individual living in 1995 and 1996 in the canton of Geneva, Switzerland, from regular employment to reliance on social welfare via a stage where unemployment benefits are received and another one where the individual may have a temporary job financed by local public authorities. The individual characteristics affecting the transition from one status to the other are analyzed using a logit model while the main features of the groups constituting the subpopulations of individuals holding temporary jobs and of those obtaining social assistance are determined on the basis of cluster analysis.

LETTER FROM AMERICA Valspar Unit to Acquire Cargill The Valspar Corp. has announced that it has reached an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission that will allow its subsidiary, McWhorter Inc., to acquire Cargill Inc.'s Resin Products Division.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY may seem to many to be as dry as dust and I must admit to having subscribed to that view about some bibliographies in the past. This is one, for a number of reasons, about which I feel differently. For me, after nearly a quarter of a century's involvement in a particular area of librarianship, browsing through the pages is an evocative experience, like a meeting with friends. Some whose work is recorded here I never knew but reading about them and studying their writings over the years has produced an illusion of their being old and close companions; and there are those who were friends whose voices can still be heard in memory. Some authors cited I hope yet to meet because their views and ideas are challenging and awaken a sympathetic response or make me want to start an argument. Still others are former colleagues from whom I learnt much and whose example has been inspirational, and then there are those who are staunch friends, without whose support and co‐operation my professional existence would be very dull indeed.

The British countryman is a well‐known figure; his rugged, obstinate nature, unyielding and tough; his part in the development of the nation, its history, not confined to the valley meadows and pastures and uplands, but nobly played in battles and campaigns of long ago. His “better half”—a term as true of yeoman stock as of any other—is less well known. She is as important a part of country life as her spouse; in some fields, her contribution has been even greater. He may grow the food, but she is the provider of meals, dishes, specialties, the innovating genius to whom most if not all British food products, mostly with regional names and now well‐placed in the advertising armentarium of massive food manufacturers, are due. A few of them are centuries old. Nor does she lack the business acumen of her man; hens, ducks, geese, their eggs, cut flowers, the produce of the kitchen garden, she may do a brisk trade in these at the gate or back door. The recent astronomical price of potatoes brought her a handsome bonus. If the basic needs of the French national dietary are due to the genius of the chef de cuisine, much of the British diet is due to that of the countrywoman.

This paper aims to focus on the effects of human capital composition, innovation portfolio and size on manufacturing firms’ performance. Moreover, it seeks to empirically identify the levels of education that are significant in labour productivity.

The resource-based view (RBV) theory is applied using data gathered from the National Innovation Survey in the Manufacturing Industries of Peru. Using the ordinary least squares method on a sample of 584 Peruvian manufacturing firms, the effects on firm performance of two subsamples according to innovation portfolio and firm size are determined.

The direct effects of human capital composition on productivity show that the higher the workers’ educational level, the higher the productivity. However, if this relationship is analysed in terms of the innovation portfolio, the authors find that labour productivity in companies with product–service innovation is greater (i.e. more significant) than in traditional manufacturing firms with only product innovations. Similarly, if this relationship is compared in terms of company, the authors find that large companies are more significant than small and medium-sized enterprises.

The study furthers the understanding of how the relationship between human capital composition, innovation portfolio and size of manufacturing firms positively affects labour productivity. Hence, it can help managers to craft their innovation portfolio according to the educational level of their human capital. This could require that not only human resource management innovates, but also that strategic partnerships be developed with educational establishments to boost training towards product–service innovation.

This study’s results provide confirmation that the configuration of human resources, innovation portfolio and size plays a significant role on manufacturing firms’ performance, particularly in the context of developing countries.

This chapter addresses a five-year phase of protest activity set in motion by fathers’ rights and shared parenting groups’ resistance to the Federal Child Support Guidelines, which were incorporated into Canada’s Divorce Act in 1997. Drawing upon Department of Justice discourses, parliamentary hearings and debates, and advocacy websites it examines the dynamics and outcomes of the protest cycle. It argues that the government’s legislative response signals a failure of fathers’ rights activism in Canada. This failure is a consequence of the collective identity that advocates and their supporters enact and celebrate in various public arenas, the effectiveness of feminist counteraction, and the contingencies of governance in Canada’s left-of-centre advanced liberal democracy.

This study aims to delineate the phenomenon of stressful eating within generation Z due to the times they are living in and to extract propositions which elucidate phases of stressful eating within Zers.

Based on relevant literature on consumer obesity, theories of pure impulse buying and reasoned action, cognitive constructs eminent for reasoned conditioned behaviour are extracted. Followed by extraction of the reasoned conditioned behaviour and its cognitive constructs within Zers. Thereafter, a conceptual framework is developed with propositions of stressful eating within Zers.

Zers indulge in reasoned conditioned behaviour initially owing to their healthy understanding insights, and the activations of cognitive capacities within them due to the law of effect. The law of effect is cyclical after the first reasoned consumption among Zers, leading to obesity and constricting self-controlling behaviour.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that provides a deep understanding of the cognitive mechanism orienting generation Z’s stressful eating indulgence even though they have higher healthy lifestyle understandings.

Purpose – Due to an absence of dialogue between sociology and the neurosciences, the scientific study of morality largely ignores cultural and structural influences. This chapter offers a synthetic approach integrating these separate disciplines to aid a more complete understanding of morality.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter reviews morality's bonding (a sense of groupness and belonging) and bounding (reproducing and reinforcing group boundaries) qualities across disciplines, and proposes three provisional principles to systematize an interdisciplinary model of morality. We then offer a preliminary illustration of how this model might be operationalized with functional MRI data.

Findings – Our proposed principles (as exemplified by our illustrative example) suggest that the sociology-neurology gap in understanding the domain of morality might shrink through an engagement with the underlying neural mechanisms that encompass issues of empathy, racial attitudes, and identity as potential platforms opening up a more “social” neuroscience.

Research limitations/implications – This chapter provides a starting-point for further research incorporating biological mechanisms into sociological theories in the area of morality. The illustrative case study should be replicated in a larger sample and/or in additional studies with different social groups.

Practical implications – This chapter is a useful source of information for sociologists seeking to find out more about the intersection of neuroscience and sociology as well as the neural dynamics of morality.

Originality/value – This chapter presents an introduction to an integrative approach recognizing our biological capacities for a socially constructed morality and the interaction between society and the mind. It includes one of the first sociologically oriented fMRI studies, offering avenues for new ways to bridge research disciplines.