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Focuses on the integrated use of simulation tools, particularly discrete‐event simulation, in the design and development of manufacturing systems in Japanese industry. The results are based on questionnaires and visits to seven large Japanese manufacturers and show that most of the visited companies do not use simulation to any large extent, particularly not discrete‐event simulation. Some of the reasons for this are general, while others are specific for Japan. However, the use of simulation is believed to increase in Japanese industry. Furthermore, argues that there is a large potential for increased use of advanced simulation techniques in Japanese manufacturing companies, mainly for two reasons. This would result in improved communication, reduced time‐to‐market and higher flexibility in volume and product‐mix.

In this paper, my claim is that employee ownership of industrial companies enables economic survival, democracy, and joint responsibility. My main focus is a case study of Ljuders Nickelsilfverfabrik and its change to employee ownership. In 1980, 36 of the 42 employees became owners. My research question is how have the economy and democracy in an employee-owned industrial company changed over the years? My main research method includes a 35-year in-depth longitudinal case study of Ljuders Nickelsilfverfabrik since its employee takeover. The empirical material includes documents, interviews, participant observations, and informal talks over the entire study period. My theory is based on the study by Connell Fanning and McCarthy (1983, 1986), who have compiled the critical literature on employee-owned companies and have asked why so few employee-owned companies exist in Western economies. They formulate six non-viability hypotheses for employee ownership, against which I present my empirical study and conclude that employee ownership is possible. From my case study in combination with the literature about organizational changes, I formulate a recipe for a successful employee takeover and collective entrepreneurship. The experience of Ljuders Nickelsilfverfabrik shows that a more complete business idea can subsequently unfold with the help of different people’s knowledge and experiences. Degeneration from democratic to more traditional ownership and control can be avoided by placing new people in leadership positions. The management must create legitimacy for a different organizational form for internal and external stakeholders.

Proposes to treat social law contracts by covering the two most important aspects of the contract of employment, and also the collective agreement. Covers the contract of employment in full with all the integral laws explained as required, including its characteristics, written particulars, sources or regulations, with regard to employers, are also covered. Lengthy coverage of the collective agreement is also included, showing legal as well as moral (!) requirements, also included are cases in law that are covered in depth.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the choice of buying managers to share or limit the sharing of strategic information with their suppliers relates to the presence or absence of goodwill and competence trust in the buyer–supplier relationship.

An interpretive single case study of a mid-sized retailer was used. In total, 17 semi-structured interviews examining information sharing events were conducted with buying managers, along with the analysis of company documents.

Goodwill and competence trust have a positive effect on strategic information sharing, yet this study reveals several tactics used by buying managers in the presence of competence trust only. With a lack of established trust, or earlier trust breaches, little to no information sharing occurs.

This study featured cross-sectional data of a single case from the buyer’s perspective. This limits its generalizability, yet provides opportunities to test the findings through longitudinal studies, potentially gathering data from both buyers and suppliers.

Relating which types of information being shared for different forms of trust guides managers’ expectations on which type of trust they wish to build for each of their buyer–supplier relationships.

This study examines the trust and information sharing relationship in more detail, linking different types of trust to categories of strategic information. It also distinguishes between the different concepts of encouraging information sharing and deliberately limiting strategic information sharing.

Feminist criminologists are well acquainted with how their research on sexual harms and gendered forms of victimisation may serve as powerful levers for punitive agendas. In recent years, culturalist interpretations of sexual violence have become key themes in debates on migration and integration in liberal welfare democracies, such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In this, complex issues of gender, ethnicity and power are involved, and the balancing of these, both analytically and ethically, poses a challenge to feminists in their attempts to contribute to social change. This chapter will, based on examples from debates in Sweden, present and discuss how argumentation about sexual freedom and integrity is enlisted in attempts to reinforce borders and ideas about dangerous Others, and outline how a fruitful meeting between criminology and feminism can advance the scholarship on sexual violence.

THE catalogue, as a library appliance of importance, has had more attention devoted to it than, perhaps, any other method or factor of librarianship. Its construction, materials, rules for compilation and other aspects have all been considered at great length, and in every conceivable manner, so that little remains for exposition save some points in the policy of the catalogue, and its effects on progress and methods. In the early days of the municipal library movement, when methods were somewhat crude, and hedged round with restrictions of many kinds, the catalogue, even in the primitive form it then assumed, was the only key to the book‐wealth of a library, and as such its value was duly recognized. As time went on, and the vogue of the printed catalogue was consolidated, its importance as an appliance became more and more established, and when the first Newcastle catalogue appeared and received such an unusual amount of journalistic notice, the idea of the printed catalogue as the indispensable library tool was enormously enhanced from that time till quite recently. One undoubted result of this devotion to the catalogue has been to stereotype methods to a great extent, leading in the end to stagnation, and there are places even now where every department of the library is made to revolve round the catalogue. Whether it is altogether wise to subordinate everything in library work to the cult of the catalogue has been questioned by several librarians during the past few years, and it is because there is so much to be said against this policy that the following reflections are submitted.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of the regional business environment on local firm innovation, considering various dimensions such as administrative, financial and legal environments.

Multiple regression analysis is employed to analyze archival data for firms listed on Chinese stock markets.

We find that the optimizations of the administrative and financial environments positively affect firm innovation, whereas the legal environment does not exert a similar impact. Our analysis also reveals that the business environment’s optimization significantly influences innovation in firms that are small, non-state-owned and operating in high-tech industries. Furthermore, the business environment acts as a moderating variable in the relationship between firm innovation and firm value.

This study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of institutional-level determinants of firm innovation, highlighting the nuances of the legal environment and the importance of context-specific analysis, especially in emerging markets like China.

Developing countries can significantly enhance firm innovation by improving the business environment, including the optimization of administrative and financial systems, reducing transaction costs and ensuring capital supply. Tailored legal frameworks and alternative institutional strategies may also be explored.

This study explicitly emphasizes the governmental role in promoting firm innovation, shedding light on policy formulation and strategic alignment with local administrative policies.

To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to explore the relationship between the business environment and firm innovation using World Bank indicators in an emerging market context, providing novel insights into the unique dynamics of legal, financial and administrative sub-environments.

Starting with a comparative assessment of different welfare regimes and political economies from the perspective of gender awareness and “pro-women” policies, this chapter identifies the determinants of cross-national variation in women's chances of being in a high-status occupation in 12 West European countries. Special emphasis is given to size and structure of the service sector, including share of women in public employment and structural factors such as trade union density and employment protection. The first level of comparison between men and women concentrates on gender representation in the higher echelons of the job hierarchy, while the second section extends the scope of analysis, comparing women in high-status occupations and low-wage employment in order to allow for a more nuanced study of gender and class interaction. The first analysis is based on European Social Survey data for the years 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008, capturing recent trends in occupational dynamics. Results indicate that in general a large service sector and a high trade union density enhance women's chances of being in high-status occupations, while more specifically a large public sector helps to reduce channeling women into low-wage employment. Thus, equality at the top can well be paired with inequality at the bottom, as postindustrial countries with a highly polarized occupational hierarchy such as the UK show.

The purpose of this paper is to study the use of the additive manufacturing (AM) method, electron beam melting (EBM), for manufacturing of customized hip stems. The aim is to investigate EBM's feasibility and commercial potential in comparison with conventional machining, and to map out advantages and drawbacks of using EBM in this application. One part of the study concerns the influence on the fatigue properties of the material, when using the raw surface directly from the EBM machine, in parts of the implant.

The research is based on a case study of manufacturing a batch of seven individually adapted hip stems. The stems were manufactured both with conventional machining and with EBM technology and the methods were compared according to the costs of materials, time for file preparation and manufacturing. In order to enhance bone ingrowths in the medial part of the stem, the raw surface from EBM manufacturing is used in that area and initial fatigue studies were performed, to get indications on how this surface influences the fatigue properties.

The cost reduction due to using EBM in this study was 35 per cent. Fatigue tests comparing milled test bars with raw surfaced bars indicate a reduction of the fatigue limit by using the coarse surface.

The paper presents a detailed comparison of EBM and conventional machining, not seen in earlier research. The fatigue tests of raw EBM‐surfaces are interesting since the raw surface has shown to enhance bone ingrowths and therefore is suitable to use in some medical applications.