Search results

Darty is one of the most interesting French retail companies to emerge in recent years. Selling “white” and “brown” household appliances, it has quadrupled its turnover in four years and multiplied its profit by 7.5. It has installed an integrated merchandise management system in its stores in the Paris area, and this system is here described by the company's EDP Manager, in a paper presented to the NRMA International Conference on retail EDP strategies, recently held at Monte Carlo.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

Reflecting their extensive domestic programmes, the UK and France became major exporters of New Town planning expertise during the later twentieth century. Yet each country delivered its expertise in markedly different ways. Drawing on the UK’s own New Towns programme begun in 1946, a public-sector international New Town planning agency, the British Urban Development Services Unit, was created in 1975. However, it quickly proved unsuccessful and was abandoned in 1978. Instead, national expertise was exported by UK private planning consultants, with strong government encouragement. By contrast France, whose own Villes Nouvelles programme started in 1969, created a single public-sector planning agency, the Groupement d’intéret économique Villes Nouvelles de France, in 1984 that operated successfully overseas (latterly under a different name) until 2013. The chapter briefly considers the international efforts of the two countries, targeting oil-exporting countries, their respective former colonial empires and elsewhere. It also interprets their different approaches in light of their different political histories. Thus, the UK was much earlier affected by neo-liberal, pro-market political ideologies that instinctively favoured private- rather than public-sector approaches. This was especially so given the already established position of its private planning consultancies both in international work and in preparing the original master plans of many UK New Towns. In France, by contrast, the public sector remained strong and structured the export of planning expertise while private planning consultancies were much less important. The chapter ends by briefly considering the wider impacts of the two countries’ different approaches.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Epidemiologists are concerned the next deadly global cognition will be a new kind of deadly flu which humans have no resistance. Since the 1960s, their alarm has been focused on a bird (avian) virus (H5N1). This virus is generally harmless in its host species, but it is extremely deadly when contracted by humans. H5N1 mutates quickly and tends to pick up genes from flu viruses that affect other species. The flu is far more contagious and harder to contain than the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus. It is projected that 30‐40 per cent of the population would be infected in a H5N1 flu pandemic, and as many as one‐third would die. The 1918 Spanish flu caused 20 to 50 million deaths world wide. One scientist observed that the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic could have caused civilisation to disappear within a few weeks. Currently, more than 50 million chickens have been slaughtered in eight Asian countries in efforts to curb the spread of avian influenza. This article examines the roots and dangers of the potential avian influenza pandemic, examining the business and social ramifications that could ensue if the worst case scenario occurs.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

Allemagne: l'expérience TOUROPA Amorcée dès 1932 par le Docteur Vegetier de Berlin, l'expérience de voyages collectifs fut reprise et développée dès la fin de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. A cette fin fut créée, en 1948, la société TOUROPA. Au départ, le capital était constitué de la manière suivante: