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Reports research into the sexual behaviour of UK teenagers at the margins of society, the project was a response to the Social Exclusion Unit’s brief to reduce the rate of teenage conceptions and to move teenage parents into education, training or employment. Focuses on the issues of recruiting teenagers for interview, methodology, and building trusting two‐way relationships with them so that sensitive subjects like condom use could be discussed. Characterises these teenage parents and their social status, and compares the UK with the rest of Europe: the former has a simultaneously puritanical and prurient culture. Finds that pairs of friends provided an open and honest environment for research, while journals and cameras provided to the teenage respondents were an essential part of the project. Finds that for them sex is often spontaneous, accompanied by alcohol, and invariably unprotected.

Rapidly changing business conditions make it difficult to see the future with any degree of certainty. Consequently, many firms have undertaken a thorough self‐examination and reworking of procedures and methods to position themselves to compete in the global marketplace of the 1990s. A crucial element in the changing and improving processes is raising the quality of the product or service the firm provides. Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems has a vested interest in changing to meet the new requirements of the aerospace industry and decided to re‐evaluate its business practices, with the goal of increasing productivity while simultaneously increasing quality. Management decided to conduct a large‐scale quality survey throughout the company to understand the company’s current level of quality and the quality perceptions among employees. Reports on the results of that study, with a brief description of the development of the quality survey instrument and the information discovered during the data analysis.

This article investigates concentration, efficiency, and profitability of commercial banks operating in Saudi Arabia, which is considering acceding to the World Trade Organisation whose rules on financial services liberalisation could pose a competitive challenge to local banks. We use regression analysis to investigate the underlying determinants of Saudi bank concentration, efficiency, and profitability. The significance of the study stems from the conventional premise that highly concentrated banking or credit market introduces inefficiencies that would harm firms’ access to credit thus hindering economic growth. If banks were found to be highly concentrated and hence inefficient, then the relevant policy question that should be addressed by Saudi Arabian policy makers is what should be done to alleviate the situation. Empirical results show that Saudi banking market is highly concentrated, and healthy competition through the Saudi adoption of corrective measures would ease the problem. The Saudi government may like to consider concurrently joining the WTO, and allow non‐banking institutions to enter into brokerage business, offer financial products and services (investment banking, brokerage, and portfolio management), and compete with commercial banks through fair participation in auctioning of government securities.

This research examines the importance of measurement in the communications industry and business in general, the insufficiency of measurement in communications, how communications professionals' measurement needs are changing, obstacles to meeting measurement needs, and the potential benefits from understanding the link between intangibles and business value.

Research methods used to link communications activities to business outcomes included statistical analysis (collecting, evaluating, and drawing conclusions from data) of intangible assets, or non‐accounting, non‐financial business drivers such as people, ideas and relationships. Measurement data was based on information companies already owned, including media content analysis data and employee survey results.

Pilot studies have demonstrated that this model will provide greater insight into how intangibles such as communication activities contribute to business outcomes that matter to senior management and will eliminate the obstacles to measurement – concerns about expense, fear of results, and isolation of the effect of individual activities.

This discussion is essential to understanding that the communications industry in particular and corporations as a whole need a way to add meaning to the data they already have; to link existing data to business outcomes; and to demonstrate that effective communications activities and other intangibles move organizations toward their business objectives.

This chapter presents and discusses the value of cultural political economy (CPE) as a theoretical framework for the analysis of the international governance of education. CPE is situated historically as a contemporary example of attempts within the Marxist tradition to explore the relations between the cultural (the world of discourse and practice), the political (actors and institutions), and the economic. The chapter builds on the developed account of CPE to address the challenges presented by the European Union (EU) as an example of international governance. Established accounts of the development of an EU role in the governance of education since the launch of the Lisbon Strategy in March 2000 are examined so as to establish what a CPE approach can offer to attempts to complement and transcend them. In conclusion, the chapter acknowledges the aspects of CPE that remain undeveloped and problematic as well as underlining the terms upon which the CPE as presented here might need to engage with other theoretical approaches.

Contributors from five libraries address the expectations and realities of their automation projects, including: staff impact, costs and funding, time and schedules, users, computer support, vendors, and consultants. Some keys to success include: very clear political objectives at the beginning of the project; careful definition of the project structure; a well‐prepared automation plan; carefully‐considered, contractual commitments with a vendor; and flexibility and adaptability.