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The last decade has seen major advances in rapid prototyping (RP), with it becoming a multi‐disciplinary technology, crossing various research fields, and connecting continents. Process and material advancements open up new applications and manufacturing (through RP) is serving non‐traditional industries. RP technology is used to support rapid product development (RPD). The purpose of this paper is to describe how the Integrated Product Development research group of the Central University of Technology, Free State, South Africa is applying various CAD/CAM/RP technologies to support a medical team from the Grootte Schuur and Vincent Palotti hospitals in Cape Town, to save limbs – as a last resort at a stage where conventional medical techniques or practices may not apply any longer.

The paper uses action research to justify the proposal of a new method to use CAD/CAM/RP related technologies to substitute lost/damaged bone regions through the use of CT to CAD to.STL manipulation.

A case study where RP related technologies were used to support medical product development for a patient with severe injuries from a road accident is discussed.

The paper considers current available technologies, and discusses new advancements in direct metal freeform fabrication, and its potential to revolutionise the medical industry.

Summarizes the results of a comprehensive investigation into levels of psychological distress, and factors associated with those levels, among a large and representative sample of Western Australian teachers. Psychological distress was measured by the General Health Questionnaire, and the nine independent variables included five stressors (inadequate access to facilities; frequency of student misbehaviour; the extent to which societal expectations of teachers are seen to be excessive; the intrusion of school work into out‐of‐hours time and total workload); and four destressors (teachers′ perceptions of the extent of their influence and autonomy in the school environment; of their personal competency and achievement, of the amount of support they receive from colleagues and principal; and of the acknowledgement and praise they receive). The data show that levels of distress are high, and that the five stressors correlate positively and the four destressors correlate negatively with distress. The data also confirm the theoretical model used in the research, which predicts that the destressors effectively ameliorate the distress associated with the stressors. While the general pattern of the results is the same for male and female teachers, some important sex differences are identified. Discusses the implications of these findings for school administration.

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

Argues that by utilizing a standard evolutionary model of marketing it is possible to map out three key stages in the development of electioneering, each of which is directly comparable with the production, sales and marketing orientations in commerce. In politics the respective phases can be labelled the propaganda, media and marketing approaches to the electorate. Using this framework the differences between the three campaign orientations become self‐evident. Interestingly, it also becomes possible to trace the similarities in approach, specifically the important, if previously largely unrecognized, role that basic marketing concepts have played in British elections since the beginning of the century. Contrary to popular perception, professional advertising and image consciousness are not legacies of the 1980s but date back to the decade following the introduction of near universal suffrage in 1918. The realization of popular television and consumer marketing in the 1950s exacerbated the need for more coherent party image management. Finally in the late 1970s and 1980s both main contenders for government underwent strategic changes akin to embracing a marketing orientation.

In this paper, the authors argue that multicultural skills and relational leadership act as enablers for open innovation, and thereby examine the process through which teams can utilize multicultural skills to support the development of relational leadership and knowledge sourcing and sharing (KSS) through individual interaction and relationship building. The authors address the following research question: How does relational leadership enable open innovation (OI) among employees with multicultural skills?

This paper applies a multi-level approach (team and individual level) and builds on interviews with 20 employees, middle and senior managers with multicultural experiences, working in open innovation environments.

The authors’ findings shed light on the process through which social exchange relationships among team members (e.g. R&D teams) and knowledge exchange partners are enhanced by the use of multicultural skills and support the development of relational leadership to facilitate KSS and ultimately OI. The decision for participants to collaborate and source and share knowledge is motivated by individual reward (such as establishing network or long-lasting contacts), skill acquisition (such as learning or personal growth in decision-making) and a sense of reciprocity and drive for group gain. The authors encourage greater human resource (HR) manager support for relational leadership and the development and use of multicultural skills to promote KSS.

Despite the value of our findings, this paper is not without limitations. The authors explained that the focus of this study design was on the work activities of the participants and their skill development and not specific projects or organizations. It was outside the scope of this study to examine variations across organizations and individuals as the authors wanted to focus on multicultural skills and relational leadership as enablers for OI. The authors recommend that future studies extend our research by unpacking how various boundary conditions including relational leadership and multicultural skills impact KSS and OI over the life cycle of innovation teams within large multinational organizations, across countries and ethnicities.

The study’s findings provide managers with improved understandings of how to enable an individual's willingness and readiness to source and share knowledge through multicultural skills and relational leadership. Managers need to ensure that human resource management (HRM) practices celebrate multicultural skills and support relational leadership in innovation teams. The authors suggest managers engaged in OI consider the components of social exchange as described by Meeker (1971) and utilize reciprocity, group gain, rationality and status consistency to support the emergence relational leadership and KSS in innovation teams.

In this paper, the authors contribute to the dearth of literature on the boundary conditions for OI by examining the role of relational leadership and characteristics/skills of the workforce, namely multicultural skills and contribute to the scarce research on the role of employees with multicultural skills and their impact on OI and present multicultural skills/experiences and relational leadership as enablers for OI.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.