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THE blueprint, vital communication link between designer, engineer and manufacturer, is currently undergoing a radical change in its traditional format at the Boeing Airplane Company in the United States.

Michael Hammer sees process as “the Clark Kent of business Ideas”—a concept that has the power to change a company's organizational design.

In her recent discussion of women's incorporation into their husbands' employment Janet Finch produces a useful maxim for prospective wives:

The purpose of this paper is to examine two aspects of the self‐employment adjustment of immigrant groups in the UK. First, how the probability of self‐employment for males changes with time since migration relative to the native population and second, how the probability of self‐employment for males differs between immigrants and the UK‐born within ethnic groups.

Limited dependent variable regression models are estimated using data from the UK Labour Force Survey collected between 2001 and 2005. The results are presented graphically to make clear the differences between ethnic groups.

The predicted self‐employment probability of “Asian” immigrants increases faster than that of natives over the lifecycle while that of “Black” groups declines. Furthermore, the observed lower propensity of UK‐born members of certain ethnic groups to be in self‐employment is largely explained by differences in human capital.

High rates of self‐employment amongst some ethnic groups in the UK are unlikely to be a transitory phenomenon.

While previous work on the UK has examined patterns of self‐employment between groups and over time, the paper looks for the first time at how adjustment within groups takes place over the life cycle and across nativity status.

This paper focuses on two issues, firstly the extent to which the employment position of the main ethnic minority groups in England and Wales changed between 1991 and 2001 and secondly, a detailed examination of employment rates amongst ethnic groups in 2001. Relative to Whites, the employment position of most ethnic minority groups improved over the period, especially for males. Some of this improvement was due to enhanced levels of observable characteristics. However, the employment gap between Whites and some ethnic minority groups remains extremely large. Educational qualifications, religion and local deprivation are found to be important influences on employment for many minority groups. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of these findings.

Although culture appears to be an important element in consumer behaviour, few have researched its direct impact on the adoption of innovation. In an exploratory study, research was conducted with migrants from Vietnam and Poland to examine the impact of culture on the adoption of high technology products. Specifically, data were examined for differences in adoption of these products between Vietnamese and Polish migrants to Australia; and the effect of cultural factors of “traditions,” “religion” and “fatality” (beliefs about man's inability to control nature), on adoption. This research was a preliminary study, but the results indicate that culture has an important role in the adoption process of high technology products.

A collective bargaining agreement is not legally binding — or is it? Barrister Robert Gaitskell examines this contentious issue against the background of a recent High Court judgement. The implications affect industry's negotiators at both national and plant level.

Based on a postal survey in 1995 of all front‐line staff in Wales with an assessment and/or care management role, findings are reported about how tasks and roles were operationalised following the full introduction of the new community care in April 1993. Further information was obtained by interviews with managers in health and social services. Only a fifth of social services posts were designated or titled as care management posts. The majority of these workers were located in services for elderly and physically disabled people. Although few had a specific budget, the majority considered that they had greater control over financial resources than before April 1993. The analysis of tasks undertaken by front‐line staff shows that there remains a broad overlap between the roles of care managers and social workers. The results highlight the nature of increasing demands on staff and raise issues about the impact of increased workloads and administration on service quality. They also highlight tensions between care management and traditional professional roles. Some pointers for continuing debate are provided.

Chapter 4 shows and tells how to create visual art to achieve deep understanding about stories that individuals tell. Creating visual narrative art (VNA) of stories achieves several objectives. First, creating VNA revises and deepens sense-making of the meaning of events in the story and what the complete story implies about oneself and others. Second, creating VNA surfaces unconscious thinking of the protagonist and other actors in the story as well as the storyteller (recognizing that in many presentations of stories an actor in the story is also the storyteller); unconscious thinking in stories relating to consumer and brand experiences reflect one or more archetype (Jung 1916/1959) fulfillments by the protagonist and the storyteller; given that almost all authors agree on a distinction between processes that are unconscious, rapid, automatic, and high capacity, (System 1 processing) and those that are conscious, slow, and deliberative (System 2 processing, see Evans, 2008), VNA enables and enriches processing particularly relating to system 1 processing–enabling more emotional versus rational processing. Third, creating VNA of stories is inherently and uniquely fulfilling/ pleasurable/healing for the artist; using visual media allows artists to express emotions of the protagonist and/or audience member, to vent anger, or report bliss about events and outcomes that words alone cannot communicate; VNA provides a tangible, emotional, and holistic (gestalt) experience that is uniquely satisfying and does so in a form that many audience members enjoy over and over again. Chapter 4 elaborates on the rationales for its central proposition, briefly reviews relevant literature on VNA, and illustrates one mode of VNA for the complementary stories told by a consumer and brand.

This chapter details how engaging students in digital comics creation might support adolescents in strengthening their narrative writing capabilities. This chapter first provides a more detailed explanation of the micro and macrostructural elements involved in narrative production. Second, the chapter provides an introduction to comics and important design features. The authors also illuminate the complexity of multimodal texts (texts that combine images and words) and link visual narrative pedagogy and curriculum to classroom equity and accessibility. Across these opening sections, academic standards are referenced to show how the comics medium aligns with national visions of what robust English Language Arts education entails. The chapter concludes with descriptions of specific pedagogical strategies and digital comic-making tools that teachers and interventionists might explore with students within various classroom contexts. Examples of digital comics designed using various web tools are also shared.