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This paper aims to explore to what extent can the Saudi–US alliance endure, given the several challenges it has faced over the past decade. Using a conceptual framework from the alliance theory, the paper will trace the historical evolution of the alliance between the two countries, then will identify some of the challenges that have faced the alliance on both the regional and bilateral levels, and finally will assess the impact of these challenges on the resilience of the Saudi–US alliance.

This paper will use the alliance theory literature to analyze the challenges and the resilience of the Saudi–US relations.

The Saudi–US alliance has encountered several challenges in the past decade such as the Arab spring, the Iranian nuclear deal and the Civil War in Syria and Yemen. However, this alliance proved to be resilient, and the strategic partnership between the two countries managed to overcome these challenges.

The importance of this paper stems from the fact that the USA and the Saudi Arabia are two pivotal countries, and their relationship affects regional and international dynamics. The paper contributes to the literature on the Saudi–US bilateral relations as well as their views on recent regional issues such as the Arab Spring, the civil war in Yemen and Syria. Assessing the limits and potentials of the alliance between the two countries could also help us understand the future of regional developments in the Middle East.

FOR TOTALLY DIFFERENT reasons, two quite different groups of experts have been forecasting dire trouble in store for British businessmen in the foreseeable future.

Fashion retailers have increasingly adopted consumer-facing in-store technology (CFIT) to enhance the customer experience/service provision. This paper aims to explore managerial experiences and sociotechnical implications of introducing these technologies into organizational working processes.

This study draws on interpretive analysis of semi-structured interviews with 74 senior fashion retail industry practitioners, technology providers and consultants to understand managerial perspectives on technological innovation issues.

Endogenous and exogenous factors act as drivers or barriers to CFIT adoption and are influenced by strategic and tactical motives. Key issues that retail managers encounter include challenges in aligning technology implementation with retailer brand image to manage risk and reputation, with additional complexity arising from different internal and/or external actors involved, as well as required levels of change in organizational structure.

This study contributes an empirically derived framework identifying reasons for – and the drivers/barriers influencing – fashion retailers' CFIT adoption, classifying three broad approaches to CFIT adoption: embedded, transformative and opportunistic.

In the 1988 film The Accused, a young woman named Sarah Tobias is gang raped on a pinball machine by three men while a crowded bar watches. The rapists cut a deal with the prosecutor. Sarah's outrage at the deal convinces the assistant district attorney to prosecute members of the crowd that cheered on and encouraged the rape. This film shows how Sarah Tobias, a woman with little means and less experience, intuits that according to the law rape victims are incredible witnesses to their own victimization. The film goes on to critique what the “right” kind of witness would be. The Accused, therefore, is also about the relationship between witnessing and testimony, between seeing and the representation of that which was seen. It is about the power and responsibility of being a witness in law – one who sees and credibly attests to the truth of their vision – as it is also about what it means to bear witness to film – what can we know from watching movies.

Informed by the work of Laughlin and Booth, this paper aims to analyze the role of accounting and accountability practices within the fifteenth century Roman Catholic Church, more specifically within the Diocese of Ferrara (northern Italy), in order to determine the presence of a sacred‐secular dichotomy. Pope Eugenius IV had embarked on a comprehensive reform of the Church to counter the spreading moral corruption within the clergy and the subsequent disaffection with the Church by many believers. The reforms were notable not only for the Pope's determination to restore the moral authority and power of the Church, but also for the essential contributions of “profane” financial and accounting practices to the success of the reforms.

Original fifteenth century Latin documents and account books of the Diocese of Ferrara are used to highlight the link between the new sacred values imposed by Pope Eugenius IV's reforms and accounting and accountability practices.

The documents reveal that secular accounting and accountability practices were not regarded as necessarily antithetical to religious values, as would be expected by Laughlin and Booth. Instead, they were seen to assume a role which was complementary to the Church's religious mission. Indeed, they were essential to its sacred mission during a period in which the Pope sought to arrest the moral decay of the clergy and reinstate the Church's authority.

The paper shows that the sacred‐secular dichotomy cannot be considered as a priori valid in space and time. There is also scope for examining other Italian dioceses where there was little evidence of Pope Eugenius' reforms.

The paper presents a critique of the sacred‐secular divide paradigm by considering an under‐researched period and a non‐Anglo Saxon context.

Following an investment of over £450,000 at the Rochester, Kent factory, Blaw‐Knox Construction Equipment Co has commissioned a new flow line spray painting primer and finishing plant. The new spray painting facilities, designed, installed and commissioned by Southdown Air Power Ltd of Ashford, Kent and co‐ordinated by project manager, Mike Lewis, included all necessary building, civil and electrical work.

Volspray are moving from Belvedere, Kent, to 3–5 Thames Road, Barking, Essex, effective from June 30. The future marketing operation will be centred upon the Volspray‐Aro range of airless spraying equipment, and activities in the spray booth and conventional spraying field will be curtailed.

One of the world's largest and most advanced paint finishing systems for office furniture has been supplied by Durr Ltd to Vickers Furniture, Crayford, Kent (a member of the Comforto Vickers Division of Vickers PLC).

The purpose of this paper is to explore the consequences of a managerial approach to renewal for a union’s behaviour by analysing the UK’s fourth largest trade union – The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW).

The findings draw on in-depth semi-structured interviews with union officials.

The research findings show the significance of a managerialist approach to UDSAW’s renewal strategy and its correlation with existing renewal strategies of organising and partnership. However, this approach was not immune to context, with tensions between agency and articulation challenging the basic concept of managerialism and influencing union behaviour.

The data were collected from a single case with a small sample size.

The authors’ findings suggest that tensions between bureaucracy and democracy will mediate the extent to which managerialist approaches can be used within unions adding support to the strategic choice theory and underlying arguments that unions can influence their fortune. However, institutional and external pressures could see managerialism becoming more prevalent, with oligarchic and bureaucratic forces prevailing, which could be particularly applicable to unions operating in challenging contexts, such as USDAW. The managerialisation of unions has consequences for union officers; with officers facing increasing pressure in their roles to behave as managers with attendant implications for role conflict, identity and motivation.

If managerialism is becoming more prevalent with unions, with oligarchic and bureaucratic forces prevailing, this has potentially wider societal implications, whereby collectivism and worker-led democracy could become scarcer within unions and the workplace, thus irretrievably altering the nature of the employment relationship.

This paper brings together disparate themes in the literature to propose a conceptual framework of three key elements of managerialism: centralised strategies; performance management and the managerialisation of union roles. The authors’ findings demonstrate how there is scope for unions to adopt a hybrid approach to renewal, and to draw upon their internal resources, processes and techniques to implement change, including behavioural change. Consequently, theories and empirical studies of union renewal need to better reflect the complexities of approaches that unions are now adopting and further explore these models within the agency and articulation principles that underpin the nature of unions.