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Final‐year students, numbering 124, from the BA (Hons) hotel and catering business course participated in a GNVQ core skills scheme over two academic years (1993‐94, 1994‐95). Their reactions towards participation were captured and recorded, primarily by questionnaire. Initial hostility gave way to gradual acceptance. A combination of a growing awareness of the extrinsic value of a GNVQ unit and a greater level of tutor support account for this change. Previous experience of a GNVQ type of approach influences initial reaction but not ultimate success. A traditional A level background enables students to cope with a “vocational A level” approach, provided that the students are convinced of the value of doing so. As expected, as hostility declines, successful completion of GNVQ units increases. More favourable resourcing of the scheme, in its second year of operation, eliminates a previously observed correlation between degree classification and GNVQ success.

Interconnection, packaging and mounting of electronic devices tend to be too often neglected in development of the increasingly sophisticated devices of today. Whilst the electronics sector is probably the most innovative of all manufacturing industries and has an excellent record in the production of miniature devices of increasing complexity and capability, development of reliable, efficient joining techniques, essential for manufacture of marketable systems, is too often considered to be a secondary activity. Recommendations for interconnection and packaging techniques are frequently demanded towards the end of a costly development programme, at a stage when device design has been decided and when it is too late to make modifications which would facilitate these joining operations.

The anthropological and sociological purpose of this article is to illustrate the importance of humour within hospitality and, in particular, licensed retail management. With the aid of a number of examples and with the results of some field studies it seeks to conduct a preliminary analysis of the use of humour in a licensed retail context. The aim is to illustrate that within this context, humour is not just a trivialising process. It has other functions and benefits. It also has its limitations. The intention is to show that humour can be, amongst other things, a form of human and organisational communication that is as serious and as subtle as any other. As such it is an appropriate subject for management attention, particularly in this context. Making money and making jokes are compatible activities in licensed retailing, as many publicans will testify.

Relates the type of expansion strategies used by international hotel groups to approaches to ensuring organizational cohesion within these organizational settings. Achieves this by exploring dimensions of control and co‐ordination of managerial resources. Uses a case‐study approach which concentrates on the human resource management function to highlight current experiences in six different hotel companies and identifies their engagement in high degrees of social control. This result may be easily understood where the company both owns and operates its properties; however, the evidence suggests that franchising, a mechanism which is often seen as allowing hotel unit investors or franchisees considerable latitude in running the operation, is also susceptible to social control through management transfer and development policies.

Readers of this journal will be well aware of the turbulent, complex, dynamic and competitive nature of today's business environment. As a sizeable and significant part of the British economy, the hotel industry has not escaped this reality. Often characterised in the past as an old, traditional and reliable business, this industry is changing as it matures. For example, patterns of ownership are evolving from a fragmented collection of small independently owned businesses towards large corporate organisations, such as Trusthouse Forte and Ladbroke Hotels. Competition has intensified as a result of this industrial concentration and, confronted by this increasingly hostile and competitive environment, all hotel operators have been forced to take stock and to search for new directions. This, in turn, has produced a fundamental reassessment of the nature of the industry and the path along which it is heading.

Regardless of their motives, acquiring firms almost always have to offer a premium to the shareholders of the acquired firm in acquisitions. That is, the value of the securities or cash paid by the acquirers is higher than the premerger market price of the acquired firm's common stock. The size of the merger premiums, as a percentage of the pre‐merger market price of the acquired firm's common stock, could vary from 20 per cent to 115 per cent. Several empirical studies examining the factors that determine the size of merger premiums have had limited success. Since the merger premium could affect the probability of success of a merger attempt and the wealth of the shareholders of both the acquiring and the acquired firms, continued efforts to improve our understanding of merger premium determination is essential. This paper investigates empirically the premiums paid in 66 mergers consummated between 1975 and 1979.

This article reports on an analysis of local authority codes of practice for the protection of vulnerable adults. The research focused on three main areas of requirements and recommendations identified in No Secrets. The findings reveal emerging trends that indicate a strong commitment to some areas of good practice, but the many exceptions suggest there is no room for complacency.

Examines the experience of final year students from the BA (Hons) hotel and catering business course who were conscripted for participation in a university‐wide, local TEC‐funded, pilot scheme. The aim of the pilot was to assess the feasibility of making a range of GNVQ core skills units available as “add‐ons” to degree programmes. These units could then be accredited via a formal certificate of achievement. Active participation was high, while ultimate success was quite modest. The location of the pilot, in the final year, highlighted the tension between activities directed towards the achievement of academic credit and those facilitating personal skills development. Also of significance was the strong positive correlation of degree classification and GNVQ success.

This paper aims to outlines recent attempts to encourage hospitality students to develop greater self‐awareness with regard to creativity and attitudes to change. The stance taken is that “blue sky” thinking has a positive role to play in the education of hospitality students because it has vocational value in this context.

The paper reflects on experience of delivering two modules entitled “Managing creativity and innovation”, one at postgraduate level and one at undergraduate level, at Leeds Metropolitan University. These modules have adopted a “blended” approach where the theories of creativity and innovation, and the management of these processes, have been combined with some practical exercises designed to help students imagine how the industry might be rather than simply record how it is/was. Students have been encouraged to develop wild and wacky ideas that have an element of science fiction about them.

The modules are well received by students, many of whom value the fun elements, particularly the games that are played. The modules have encouraged students to think about the future of the industry and their role within it. The assessment of the modules remains traditional and this is an aspect that could be improved.

Within a broad hospitality curriculum there is room for modules like these, since they encourage imagination alongside observation and analysis.

The paper shows that the ideas generated by students are original and worthy of wider consideration and that the modules enable students to teach themselves.

This paper seeks to offer a commentary on Psychologically Informed Services: A Good Practice Guide, a recently published operational guidance document on developing psychologically informed environments (PIEs) in services for homeless people.

The paper is an invited opinion piece and comment, based on the specialist experience and viewpoint of the authors in education on mental health issues in primary care.

The new operational guidance is welcomed, with some provisos. Psychologically informed environments are needed not just in homelessness resettlement, but in all areas where services are commissioned; and all commissioned services should take particular care to collect suitable data on the outcomes they aim for and intend to achieve.

There is a great opportunity with GP commissioning to commission services that are psychologically informed and holistic, although it may be hard to ensure services remain user‐focused and not disjointed if split up for tendering. Public health leadership on the new Health and Wellbeing Boards will be crucial to integrate services so the new system will not make things worse. Given the need, hopefully a similar drive for PIEs everywhere – the criminal justice system, care homes and community wellbeing – will follow.