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Despite the growing body of literature on both organizational learning (OL) and corporate venture development (CVD), very few attempts have been made to establish connections between these two literature streams. While existing literature provides some evidence that OL may facilitate the process of CVD, several interesting research issues remain unexamined. We know very little about (a) what type of learning processes are effective at various stages of CVD; and (b) whether and how knowledge created through various OL processes enhances venture performance. These research issues are examined in this paper by integrating the literature from OL and CVD. We develop a conceptual model that integrates organizational learning with the antecedents and outcomes of CVD. We argue that (a) organizational learning in CVD occurs through two distinct and yet complementary processes; (b) productive organizational learning occurs when organizations vary their emphases on different types of learning depending upon the stages of CVD; and (c ) different types of learning are associated with different types of venture outcomes. Propositions are developed and implications are discussed to facilitate empirical research.

According to John Grant’s New Marketing Manifesto, contemporary consumers “act their shoe size not their age” by resolutely refusing to grow up. They are not alone. Managers too are adopting a kiddy imperative, as the profusion of primers predicated on children’s literature – and storytelling generally – bears witness. Winnie the Pooh, the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and Hans Christian Andersen are the marketing gurus du jour, or so it seems. This paper adds to the juvenile agenda by examining the Harry Potter books, all four of which are replete with references to market‐place phenomena, and contending that scholarly sustenance can be drawn from J.K. Rowling’s remarkable, if ambivalent, marketing imagination.

Only a limited number of studies have examined the behaviour and the strategies of children and parents during shopping. This ethnographical study aims at thoroughly understanding family decision-making when shopping for groceries, especially children's and parents' negotiation strategies.

Using a qualitative ethnographical approach, seven known families were accompanied on 19 grocery shopping trips. Their behaviour, their interactions and their strategies during shopping were observed. Analysis was conducted by coding relevant information, defining categories, comparing data and identifying patterns.

The results show that children constantly influence their parents, directly and indirectly. They do this by displaying various behaviours in the grocery store. Their negotiation tactics are diverse, as are parents' reactions to their children's negotiation strategies. Children aim at fulfilling spontaneous desires while parents want to restrain their children's requests.

Limitations of the study can be found in their qualitative methodology.

This study has several implications for marketers. By learning about the joint decision-making process, companies as well as public policy makers will be able to address families more successfully and market healthy food more effectively.

This study contributes to existing research on family decision-making by presenting different ways of children and parents behaviour during shopping trips. It applied an unusual technique of observing well-known families on their shopping trips.

The latest information from the magazine chemist is extremely valuable. He has dealt with milk‐adulteration and how it is done. His advice, if followed, might, however, speedily bring the manipulating dealer before a magistrate, since the learned writer's recipe is to take a milk having a specific gravity of 1030, and skim it until the gravity is raised to 1036; then add 20 per cent. of water, so that the gravity may be reduced to 1030, and the thing is done. The advice to serve as “fresh from the cow,” preferably in a well‐battered milk‐measure, might perhaps have been added to this analytical gem.

This paper gives a comparative analysis of the foundation of sinology in two Canadian universities. Despite not having diplomatic exchanges, Canada's new relationship with the People's Republic of China (PRC) ignited a China interest in the Canadian academe. Through York University and the University of Guelph (U of G)'s experiences, readers will learn the rewards and challenges that sinology brings to Canadian higher education.

This paper offers an overview of the historical foundation of sinology in the Canadian academe. Who pushes through this process? What geopolitical developments triggered young and educated Canadians to learn about China? This paper assesses York and Guelph's process in introducing sinology by relying on university archival resources and personal interviews. Why was York University successful in its mission, which, in turn, made into a comprehensive East Asian Studies degree option in 1971? What obstacles did the U of G face that prohibited it from implementing China Studies successfully?

After 1949, Canada took a friendlier relationship with the PRC than its neighbor in the south. As China–Canada relations unfolded, Canadian witnessed a dramatic state investment in higher education. The 1960s was a decade of unprecedented university expansion. In the process, sinology enjoyed its significant growth, and both York University and the U of G made their full use of this right timing. However, China Studies at the U of G did not take off. Besides its geolocation disadvantage, Guelph's top-down managerial style in the 1960s, which resulted in collegial disillusionment, was also a significant barrier to this program's success.

Before the Internet age, universities were the first venues for most Canadians to acquire their initial academic knowledge of China. After the Second World War, sinology became popular among students as China became one of the world's “Big Fives”. More Canadians became romanticized with Maoism while opposing America's containment policy. York and Guelph exemplified this trend in Canadian history. Contrary to popular belief, historian Jerome Chen did not establish York's China Studies. Likewise, an ex-US diplomat John Melby did not bring China into Guelph, sinology arrived due to individual scholastic initiatives. Visionaries saw envisioned China's importance in the future world community.

Health of humans made pharmaceutical products essential in efforts either to cure or alleviate pain, or to remove disfiguring blemishes. It is doubtful if the public was sceptical — it was certainly eager to buy! The claims made for preparations and the ways of reaching the consumers necessitated various forms of advertising which reveal some of the attitudes and ideas current in British society in the 17th and 18th centuries. Much surviving evidence has come from the press and other publications, although other media were used too.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a privacy‐enhancing model, which is designed to help web users protect their private information. The model employs a collection of software agents. Privacy‐related decisions are made based on Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) information collected by the agents.

Based on P3P information collected and user preferences, the software agents play a role in the decision‐making process. This paper presents the design of the agent‐based privacy‐enhancing model and considers the benefits and utility of such an approach.

It is argued that the approach is feasible and it provides an effective solution to the usability limitations associated with P3P.

The paper focuses primarily on usability issues related to P3P. Consequently, some of the ancillary security‐related issues that arise are not covered in detail. Also the paper does not cover the development of an appropriate ontology in significant detail.

Based on this analysis and extensive testing of the prototype, it is believed that the privacy‐enhancing model presented provides a sound basis for privacy protection on the web. While the emphasis here is on resolving the usability problems associated with P3P, a few straightforward enhancements to the implementation would make it a genuinely practical tool.

The usability of the P3P framework is generally considered its weak point. The paper provides a practical solution to this usability problem. One is not aware of any comparable work.

Young people’s choice of higher education institution and subject are often assumed to take place in a social vacuum, ignoring the influence of family and friends. Despite a shift away from state funding of undergraduate higher education towards a cost-sharing model (Johnstone, 2004), little research has been carried out on family attitudes to debt, particularly in Scotland where home students do not pay tuition fees. This chapter explores how higher education decisions are made by Scottish domiciled students in the context of their families and the ways in which such decisions are mediated by social class.

Referring to the importance of the public health services in this country, Sir Kingsley Wood, M.P., in a recent speech observed that the result of the recent General Election afforded an unprecedented opportunity for the steady development during the next five years, and possibly ten, of the public health services of the country, not by means of stunts, but by science and statecraft. Prevention must be their great watchword. The great triumphs of public health were due in no small degree to the work of the general practitioner. To him came the great host of patients with what were called “trivial ailments,” which, in fact, did so much to incapacitate us as a nation. People little realised, for instance, what the “common cold” cost the State. One of the greatest needs in health matters of the immediate future was research. We were still in the dark as to the causes of measles, of influenza, of rheumatism, and of cancer. We had yet to learn the relationship of certain foods and particular diseases. The Health Ministry was concerned with the important question of pure food. We needed not only cheap food but clean food, which was vital to a healthy and vigorous race. There were two great objects to be achieved. We must continue to improve our food values. It was true that in 1920 out of nearly half a million deaths those of fourteen men and two women were directly attributed to “starvation.” but the evils of malnutrition could not be so narrowly limited. Clean and wholesome food was an effective weapon against disease and premature death. There was, it was gratifying to note, a considerable rise in the standard of national nutrition, and this had been an important and favourable factor in the decline of mortality from tuberculosis. But the consumer must more and more be safeguarded against contaminated, adulterated, and disease‐producing food. Civilisation had urbanised man, it had taken him away from his natural base—the soil—and thus from the prime source of his food supply. It brought him from lone distances, and while giving him a greater abundance it had robbed his food of much of its freshness and vitality. To‐day we often chose our food more by reading advertisements than in trusting to our natural tastes. We loved to see some of our vegetables very green, and accordingly they were canned and coloured for us. Dirty and dusty milk, and careless handling of meat and bread, “doctored” butter, and the boron preserved sausage, the boracised egg, the mixture of sugar, artificial flavouring, and benzoic acid, sometimes called ginger beer, were not the best illustrations of our advance in national health conditions. It was quite possible to imagine a reasonable meal which might contain 20 or even more grains of boric acid besides other preservatives. In these respects Great Britain was behind the standard of many other countries. There was a general movement in various parts of the civilised world in the direction of limiting and controlling the admixture of chemical preservatives and colouring matter with foodstuffs. He was glad to say that it had the support in this country of the great majority of the traders, who were equally anxious to see a pure food supply. The best firms and the shopkeepers of the country strongly desired it. Mr. Neville Chamberlain had the matter well in hand, and already certain regulations were being framed on the basis of the recommendation of an Expert Committee which had recently enquired into the whole subject. These regulations would first be published, in order that persons interested might, if they desired, submit recommendations to the Ministry. Certain of the recommendations of the Committee could not be effected without legislation, but it was proposed to undertake this as soon as pressure on Parliamentary time permitted. The Ministry hoped also to promote a measure consolidating the whole of the law relating to food. He desired to say, in conclusion, that while laws were necessary and regulations were desirable to a large extent, the vital matter of clean food rested with the nation itself. The public had recently been asked by the Ministry to refrain from the common practice of handling meat before purchasing. Fingering meat was, of course, a definitely unhealthy habit. Nobody desired unnecessary regulations, especially Britishers, and they did not want grandmotherly legislation: but in certain elementary matters in connection with our food we must break many old bad habits. Education had done much for improved health and temperance, and he did not doubt it would largely help to achieve the advanre which was so necessary and urgent in connection with attainment of a purer and cleaner food supply.