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Culture has become accepted as an important and constitutive element in the domain of business management. A great deal of research has been undertaken on the nature and effect of corporate culture and a limited amount of research has examined the conflict between corporate and national culture. However, the concept of an industry culture as a third element in this scenario and the notion of ethnocentrism has only recently been introducted into the business sphere. The expanding body of knowledge on the impact of culture and ethnocentrism on business has led to improvements in organisational structure, labour relations, customer relations, productivity and profitability. The concept of hospitality is particularly culture bound but the hypothesis that the hotel industry (as a central component of the hospitality industry) and the provision of alcoholic drinks, as a strong industry culture has never been tested. Nor has it been questioned whether this industry culture can conflict with the worldview and accepted norms of communities around the world that have a different culture setting. It is the purpose of this paper to give an analysis of culture and ethnocentrism applied to the provision of alcoholic beverages within the hotel industry in Durban, South Africa. The main sources of data for the paper are objective observation of the position and posture of the four and five star hotels in the Durban Metropolitan Region and structured interviews conducted with the General Managers of these establishments.

The case for cutting excise duty on the price of alcohol is presented as a way of reducing the amount of legal and illegal imports of alcohol products. Both sides, for and against the cutting of duty are discussed. Denmark is used as one example. Estimates of losses are made along with the possible budget outcome.

This paper considers the learning, teaching and assessment preferences of the Chinese learner in the context of distance learning. To do this a literature search of the teaching, learning and assessment preferences of Chinese students was conducted. The search indicated that there are several possible differences. These are that Chinese students are rote learners who have distinct preferences for certain methods of teaching, learning and assessment, and have a different view of the role of the teacher. In order to test this, a qualitative questionnaire covering these issues was completed by 25 Hong Kong Chinese students who are studying distance learning courses offered at the School of Sport and Leisure Management, Sheffield Hallam University. From the research the paper concludes that there are educational differences that must be addressed if Chinese students are to reach their full potential on distance learning courses offered by UK universities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Registered Intermediaries are used in the England and Wales to facilitate communication between vulnerable witnesses, victims and police investigators and criminal courts.

The paper focuses on the need for early identification of the vulnerable person so that support measures can be put in place from the outset to assist them to provide their testimony.

It is noted that real progress has been made by the introduction of legislation, specifically the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act (1999), and the uptake by the police service of the subsequent special measures put in place. However, the criminal justice service cannot afford to be complacent as research demonstrates that the police and the courts need to be more effective in managing these issues.

The paper recommends that support measures are widened to include witnesses and suspects being interviewed by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, HM Customs and Revenue, the Department of Health and the Department of Work and Pensions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the professional context of the educator and architects who designed and conceived Woodleigh School in Baxter, Victoria, Australia (1974-1979) and to identify common design threads in a series of schools designed by Daryl Jackson and Evan Walker in the 1970s.

The research was derived from academic and professional publications, film footage, interviews, archival searches and site visits. Standard analytical methods in architectural research are employed, including formal, planning and morphological analysis, to read building designs for meaning and intent. Books, people and buildings were examined to piece together the design “biography” of Woodleigh School, the identification of which forms the basis of the paper's argument.

Themes of loose fit, indeterminate planning, coupled with concepts of classroom as house, and school as town, and engagement with a landscape environment are drawn together under principal Michael Norman's favoured phrase that adolescents might experience “a slice of life”, preparing them for broader engagement with a world and a community outside school. The themes reflect changing aspirations for teenage education in the 1970s, indicating a free and experimental approach to the design of the school environment.

The paper considers, for the first time, the interconnected role of educator and architect as key protagonists in envisioning connections between space and pedagogy in the 1970s alternative school.

IN a system like that of the Public Library, which is yet in the evolutionary stage, it is but natural—as it is also a sign of vitality —that there should be conflicting opinions on many questions of administration. On one general principle, however, librarians are unanimous. It is that the Public Library should be conducted upon sound business methods. Yet, strange to say, although it is generally conceded that sound business principles are essential to success in librarianship, that a lack of business acumen is fatal to efficiency, one of the cardinal points of modern business has been almost altogether overlooked. Systematic advertising, the key‐note of modern business, which forms the chief difference between the new methods and the old, is the point to which we refer. That advertisement, the real secret of success, has been overlooked, is not wholly the result of accident, but is rather due to the fact that many librarians are haunted by a fear of degrading their profession by employing this means of reaching the public. They fear that, if they advertise, they may be classed with the vendors of Black's Pills or Green's Ointment; but, after all, the Public Library is a business institution—it may not be a commercial institution, but it is certainly a business one. It is here—if we may be allowed a short digression to illustrate our point—that British and American libraries differ so radically. The successful American librarian is not a librarian as we know one. He is a business man. Granted that it is a part of his business to know the ins and outs of technical librarianship; yet, unlike his British contemporary, he does not consider it his whole business. He has a trained staff to whom he can leave the technical detail, while he devotes himself to running the library on the most approved business lines. The result has been that, instead of the American librarian being degraded, he has risen very highly in the estimation of the public. And if the status of the American librarian can thus be raised, why not that of the British? It is not necessary to use startling handbills or aggressive posters to achieve the desired end. It is absolutely true that in many towns possessing excellent and old‐established libraries, there is a large percentage of the population to which the library is a dead letter, or is altogether unknown. On examining the figures in the Annotated Syllabus, which have been compiled from the returns of most British libraries, we find that the percentage of possible readers is fifty, while the percentage of actual readers is twenty. This leaves the large percentage of thirty, representing people who must be reached through advertising.

The purpose of this paper is to review the current literature on transnational education (TNE) as a form of business relationship and reflects on the experience of a mid‐ranking post‐92 UN institution in developing and managing TNE programmes in China. It seeks to highlight the challenges encountered at the various stages of partnership development and evaluate the effectiveness of the practical measures taken.

The underpinning research employs a combination of longitudinal live case study tracing the history of three of the institution's TNE partnerships in China over the past ten years and action research involving the author both as the researcher and active participant.

This paper suggests that there is no set formula for initiating a Sino‐UK TNE partnership but personal connections and Chinese speaking staff would help to increase the chance of success. At the outset it is important to work out the precise form of partnership and its associated financial implications for both parties. Whilst cultural differences and differences in educational tradition, communication style and organisational practices are among the factors affecting the operation of a TNE partnership over its life‐cycle, changes in macro‐economic factors such as exchange rate can also lead to termination of a TNE project. Partners in a TNE relationship are therefore advised to develop an exit strategy in case things do not work out.

Based on the actual experiences of a real UK institution, the challenges identified in this paper are likely to be encountered by similar UK institutions operating in China and thus the solutions discussed may be adopted or adapted.