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The public sector is often considered the vanguard in terms of the availability and promotion of flexible working arrangements (FWAs). Despite this, little is known about how senior managers in the public sector engage with FWAs. This paper aims to address this gap, reporting on a number of issues, including the reality of FWAs, the existence of a flexibility stigma and whether this is gendered, and the drivers influencing the uptake of FWAs.

Theoretical insights of flexibility stigma from the literature and data from semi-structured interviews with senior managers in the Northern Ireland Civil Service explore the realities of FWAs at this level.

The findings indicate a decoupling between the rhetoric and reality of FWAs, with few senior managers availing of such arrangements. The authors also identify a complex web of issues that constrain senior managers' agency in shaping a positive culture of FWAs at senior management level in the Civil Service, including an inherent resistance to flexibility, a lack of visible role models and negative perceptions around progression. The findings also indicate deeply held perceptions among senior males and females that availing of FWAs is associated with a flexibility stigma. These perceptions were confirmed by the small number of senior females with caring responsibilities who were availing of FWAs.

The paper provides senior managers and human resource practitioners with insights into the difficulties associated with wide-scale FWA availability and use at senior levels of the Civil Service.

The findings of the study offer valuable insights into the experience of senior managers in the public sector as they engage with FWAs. The study, therefore, contributes to the limited literature in this area.

Reports on the findings of two surveys which examined the way organisations evaluate information systems/technology and other capital of investments. The issues addressed include the following: the extent of evaluation; the extent to which evaluation depends on organisational factors, such as project cost and level of organisational turnover; the existence of formal procedures of evaluation; the financial and other criteria used to evaluate investments, and their importance; and the problems organisations face when evaluating both types of investment. In addressing the above issues the study serves two objectives: first, the findings provide valuable insights regarding the way both types of investments are evaluated, which is currently lacking in both the information systems and the accounting and finance literature, and second, the findings enable confirmation or refutation of some of the popular myths which exist in the information systems literature that such investments are different, are therefore evaluated in a “different” way and present “different” problems when compared to other types of organisational investment.

Points out that the topic of performance measurement (PM) has received a lot of attention in recent years, with many competing PM models vying for management attention, and recently much of the literature on PM has been summarized in a taxonomic framework by Ballantine and Brignall (1995). Drawing on this taxonomy, describes research which updates the original model for PM in services developed by Fitzgerald et al. (1991), as summarized by Brignall et al. in the November 1991 issue of Management Accounting (UK). Shows that the new model considers PM at all levels of a business, not just at the strategic business unit (SBU) level, and makes propositions relevant to PM system design including information technology (IT) aspects.

The objective of this study is two‐fold. First, it provides guidance to educators and trainers on establishing a cooperative learning environment. Second, it examines final‐year undergraduate accounting students' opinions on the effectiveness of a cooperative learning environment in delivering generic skills for their future professional accountancy careers. In particular, the study examines relative perceptions of effectiveness between students of differing academic abilities.

A questionnaire was administered to elicit students' views on whether they believed cooperative learning had enhanced their generic skills development. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and Mann‐Whitney U tests of differences.

Students found the cooperative learning approach beneficial in developing their generic skills. Further, no significant differences were found between the perceptions of the less and more able students.

The study addresses perceptions of the benefits derived from cooperative learning rather than measuring benefits using an objective measure of achievement. Therefore, an interesting extension of this work would be to chart changes in personal development as a consequence of implementing cooperative learning over a number of years.

The findings provide some level of assurance for educators in accounting and other vocational disciplines that students of different academic abilities believe they have enhanced their generic skills as a result of engaging in cooperative learning.

This paper provides guidance to educators on establishing a cooperative learning environment and provides empirical evidence on its contribution to the enhancement of generic skills.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between cooperation and inter‐organisational coordination in the supply chain. There is much literature debate over the nature of electronic trading enabled cooperation and coordination in the supply chain. The paper examines the major concepts associated with inter‐organisational cooperation in social network literature such as collaboration and partnership and how this is affected by changing forms of coordination (market and hierarchy) governance.

Seminal literatures about how electronic market and hierarchy coordination mechanisms have changed over time are examined. While some evidence from interviewing companies is used in conjunction with literature to inform discuss the workings of a matrix framework, the discussion remains essentially conceptual.

A conceptual cooperation and coordination matrix outlines four quadrant forms of cooperation relative to evolving electronic markets and hierarchy coordination contexts, namely; “collaboration”, “partnership”, “dominance” and “autonomous”. The matrix depicts and describes subtle differences in these forms of cooperation. Collaboration involves a low degree of vertical integration and a high number of trading partners transacting on short‐term contracts. Partnering involves a higher degree of inter‐firm linkage with fewer stable partners on a medium to long‐term basis. Dominance is characterised as a traditional form of hierarchical inter‐firm linkage with a high degree of vertical integration. The autonomous organisation specialises in the production and delivery of major super brands which in the case of information based products can be sold directly to the customer.

The contribution is a discussion analysis and new matrix framework depicting forms of cooperation relative to market and hierarchy coordination contexts in the supply chain. This is useful for understanding theoretical interplay between different forms of inter‐firm cooperation and complex supply chain inter‐dependencies that utilise information technology.

When Ezra Tull, in Anne Tyler's Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, discovers a lump on his thigh, “The word cancer came on its own, as if someone had whispered it into his ear, but what caused his shocked expression was the thought that flew in after it All right Let it happen. I'll go ahead and die. He shook that away, of course. He was 46 years old, a calm and sensible man, and later he would make an appointment with Dr. Vincent…It wasn't that he really wanted to die. Naturally not. He was only giving in to a passing mood, he decided…,this summer hadn't been going well. His mother, whose vision had been failing since 1975 was now (in 1979) almost totally blind, but she did not admit it which made it all the harder to care for her…His restaurant was floundering even more than usual; his finest cook had quit because her horoscope advised it; and a heat wave seemed to be stupefying the entire city…” Ezra's situation aptly illustrates three major lifetasks of middle‐age: accepting the loss of youth (and the changing physical conditions of aging), coping with new family relationships, and handling work‐related problems. This column focuses on the loss of youth and coping with family relationships.

For many years, science fiction has been perceived as “rayguns and rocket ships” boys' literature. Any number of impressionistic and statistical studies have identified the typical SF reader as male, between the ages of twelve and twenty and, in the case of adults, employed in some technical field. Yet I continually find myself having conversations with women, only to find that they, like myself, began reading science fiction between the ages of six and ten, have been reading it voraciously ever since, and were often frustrated at the absence of satisfying female characters and the presence of misogynistic elements in what they read. The stereotype of the male reader and the generally male SF environment mask both the increasing presence of women writers in the field of science fiction and the existence of a feminist dialog within some SF novels. This dialog had its beginnings in the mid‐sixties and is still going strong. It is the hope of the feminist SF community that this effacement can be counteracted.

The aim of this article is to offer insight into the factors affecting individual and organisational learning in a small business; specifically the identification of the learning relationships that are unique to the small business environment.

The authors apply Crossan et al.'s (1997, 1999) Organisational Learning Framework. The proposed framework is supported by empirical evidence generated through a longitudinal case study carried out in a small business in the Republic of Ireland over a two‐year period. A learning catalyst, in this case the implementation of a new information system (IS), offered an initial point from which to gauge subsequent learning within the studied case.

This framework acknowledges the learning impact of a small workforce, an owner‐centred culture and a simple organisational structure, as well as the time and resource constraints specific to small businesses which affect the learning dynamic. The framework also takes account of the learning challenges brought about by external influences unique to a small business environment, such as enforced organisational change created by powerful business partners' commercial requirements.

As this framework was developed based on a single case, similar research may be conducted on additional case studies to determine the learning dynamic in alternative settings and business environments.

This research presents some valuable insights into the ways in which organisational learning can be facilitated and impeded in the largely ignored small business environment.

The dismissal of the ordinary and the embrace of chaos are characteristics of the thriller which has, over the last decade, accounted for nearly 25 percent of the best‐seller market. In spite of its existential overtones, the thriller, with rare exceptions, is seldom viewed as quality fiction, yet is not generally classified as genre fiction with attendant categorization by libraries and bookstores. Readers of thrillers in pursuit of authors must either search through the general fiction or “mystery” shelves where thrillers are sometimes placed. However, the latter solution offends both mystery and thriller readers.