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Religion and religious people have been viewed as detrimental to human and social progress. In a now classic case, Edward Gibbon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire held the blame for the decline of the Roman Empire squarely upon Christianity. But, among the great variety of denunciations of religion, perhaps the most acerbic criticism came from the pen of Karl Marx. He wrote:

When the Catholic bishops of the United States prepared the first draft of their pastoral letter on the US economy, they deliberately kept its contents confidential until after the presidential election of that year. They did not want it to intrude upon the campaign then under way. It was not made public until 11 November, 1984. The Lay Commission, chaired by William E. Simon, issued its document, Toward the Future: Catholic Social Thought and the US Economy, before the bishops' first draft but also after the presidential election. It was not a response to the bishops' then unseen document but an advisory counter‐proposal from a different perspective. The Lay Commission presumed that the two documents would be different certainly in the area of policy recommendations and in the evaluation of the performance of the American economy; they probably anticipated differences also in the understanding of Christian and Catholic tradition and principles. They were not wrong.

Catholic theologians and ethicists date the modern entrance of the Church into the area of social justice and social economics by the publication of Pope Leo XIII's landmark encyclical, Rerum Novarum, 15 May, 1891. He began the letter with these words:

The paper aims to propose a model to investigate the relationships between price, use, quality, and culture regarding the adoption of high‐technology branding strategy.

Based on the identified areas of influence – price, use, quality and culture – a questionnaire was designed and randomly sent out to 70 respondents via e‐mail. At the same time, those respondents were asked to pass on the e‐mail, resulting in a total number of 94 people from 21 different countries responding to the request. The findings were evaluated and analysed by using the computer‐aided data analysis programme SPSS.

The study concluded that people purchase high technology products primarily for prestige (usage) rather than to satisfy particular needs, and perception of change (culture) affected the adoption process of high‐technology.

Because of the focus of this survey to discover the incentives behind the adaptation process, the possibilities of using the findings for more general purposes were narrowed down. In addition, the small amount of already existing knowledge in this area made the collection and the evaluation of data very difficult, which again influenced the way the research was designed.

In a globally competitive business environment the value of a strong brand in high‐technology marketplace is well documented. The difficulty in maintaining a basis for differentiation, and heightened consumer price consciousness reveals the necessity to understand consumer evaluation and purchase decision processes. Therefore, this study discovered and revealed the reasons behind individual buying decisions of high‐technology products.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous research has been done on this particular area, which makes the outcome of this survey very valuable. Furthermore, the practical implications of the findings show a high relevance regarding the design of present‐day business strategies while providing suggestions of improvement.

At a meeting of the Council of the Royal Borough of Kensington, on November 22, Councillor J. BROOKE‐LITTLE, Chairman of the Public Health Committee, brought up a report as follows:—

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usability and interface design of e‐learning portal developed for primary schools in Singapore.

Using Singapore‐based learning EDvantage (LEAD) portal as a case study, this paper reviews and analyses the usability and usefulness of embedded learning objects (LOs) for students aged nine years and above through learning theories such as behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism and interface design theories by Shneiderman, LO review instrument and laws of gestalt psychology.

Analysis found the portal to be sufficiently motivating and appealing to learners at Piaget's concrete operations stage. The interface design is universally structured and functional. An area for improvement highlighted in this case study is the lack of explicit mention of learning outcomes in the portal.

Usability principles used in this case study should be provided by the Ministry of Education in Singapore to schools to ensure more standardized and rigorous selection process of e‐learning portals.

This evaluation provides schools with insights into the use of learning theories and usability principles for evaluation of learning objects designed for primary‐going students. It aims to inform decision makers of issues in interactive design to consider before subscribing to any e‐learning portals. It also provides a gauge of current usability level of commercially developed portals as usage of such portals continue to proliferate in the Singapore education system.

Bell Helicopter Textron announced it has received one of the largest orders for commercial helicopters in the company's history. Petroleum Helicopters Inc. of New Orleans has ordered 154 Model 206B‐III JetRanger and 206L‐III LongRanger aircraft for delivery between 1992 and 1995.

It says something of the current state of public discourse that the inclusion of a paper on the social teachings of an organized religion as part of a Conference on Ethico‐Economics must be explained. Theology and Religion, once at the center of any discourse on public policy, has become marginalized in such discussions. There are those who associate the decline of theology with the era of the Cold War. That conclusion is at least debatable. “Economic Man”, in the context of the post‐war period, was very much a social being for whom government and public institutions, a pro‐Keynesian economics, were essential allies. Adam Smith, accepted as the founder of classical Economics, wrote his seminal work, The Wealth of Nations, when he was Professor of Moral Philosophy. Smith's concept of markets was framed as a social and ethical instrument. The Reagan and Thatcher regimes did succeed in undermining economic policy as a social instrument to the extent that most industrial nations and the important international organizations now give pre‐eminence to the balanced budget as the vehicle for corporate interests. The elimination of deficits and the efficacy of financial markets are seen in some quarters not only as ends in themselves but also as means to facilitate each other. The critics of these policies are presently weak and unpopular but they are not silent. This disparate group between them embrace a range of social, cultural, and ethical values. They seek to establish that some ends and some means must be rejected as being ethically unacceptable. It is this context that this paper seeks to position the social teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

Drawing upon the relational exchange theory, the longitudinal relationship between various stages of project management customer satisfaction, value for money and repurchase intent are examined.

Using a survey questionnaire, data were gathered over four consecutive quarters (N = 2,537). The statistical methods included exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory composite analysis (CCA) and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Project management was perceived as a three-dimensional construct (proposal, installation, commissioning/start-up). There was a significant longitudinal relationship between project stages and satisfaction in the complete data set. The results varied on the quarterly basis. The relationship customer satisfaction/repurchase intent was significant in the whole data set and during all quarters. This was the case for the relationships between value for money and customer satisfaction and between value for money and repurchase intent. The effect sizes were small between project management stages and customer satisfaction, small to medium for the value for money construct and large for the customer satisfaction construct.

An important implication is the significant relationship between the stages of project management and satisfaction. However, the effect sizes were small, however. The importance of the effect size in comparison to the significance of the relationships is highlighted especially when the sample size is large. The paper also confirms the linear relationship between satisfaction and repurchase intent. The nature of the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty is based on a moderate exchange relationship in the relational exchange continuum. The study contributes to the relational exchange theory in the context of project management.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on changes in the Malaysian education system, with particular reference to the development of Smart Schools, and to evaluate progress with respect to knowledge management in school education.

The research is designed around questionnaires based on a knowledge management conceptual framework administered to random samples of 50 teachers in 25 Smart Schools and 25 Non‐Smart Schools so as to be able to make comparisons.

The findings provide evidence relating to a number of factors in knowledge management, its importance, the methods of managing knowledge, knowledge activities, barriers to knowledge management and factors contributing to knowledge management.

The originality of the paper lies in its Malaysian context and the lack of research into knowledge management in the field of education in general.