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The purpose of this paper is to discuss issues and concerns raised in a collaborative and cooperative central storage facility for Hong Kong academic libraries.

The approach is to propose and to implement a joint storage business plan and a possibility of acting for others to consider similar storage facilities.

Useful experiences have been gained while planning a central storage facility.

The proposed JURA project is for Hong Kong academic libraries.

The sharing of JURA proposal to create a central storage will inform the libraries around the region of the benefits of having a useful facility in the long term.

The paper will inform others wishing to set up collaborative storages on governance, storage systems, business plan, problems and issues in what is still a relatively unexplored approach to storage problems.

Numerous approaches have been attempted to tackle the problem of student attrition in open and distance education. To increase the retention rate, many of these approaches concentrated on the problem and emphasised on rectifying factors that contribute to the attrition. Literature has sometimes overlooked the reasons that promote student retention. To gain insights from successful examples, this study compares the characteristics of a nursing course with a 91% completion rate and a mathematics course with 46%. It aims to identify factors and practices that improve the quality of an open and distance learning course, its students, and hence the completion rate. The two courses for comparison are similar in many aspects such as being 10‐credit foundation courses, having similar student support, and presenting under the same set of university policies; nevertheless, there are significant differences between them.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the relationships as to complementarities and redundancies of the main quality programs in large Brazilian companies by a comparative and critical analysis of their implementation in those companies.

In the paper the survey methodology was utilized. The data collection was done from “Ranking Valor 1000” list, which comprises the 1,000 largest Brazilian companies; the assumption was that in these companies the embryos of the emerging models in quality management were to be found. The data collected from questionnaires were analyzed through statistical methods.

The findings showed that the large organizations in Brazil have been investing in quality programs.

This paper presents the limitations which are inherent to the research method applied, that is, the results should not be generalized because the collected data are not originated in a probabilistic sample.

The paper shows that the companies where the Six Sigma program was implemented are those with the strongest tradition in the market; the companies that most invested in quality by adopting these programs were successful according to the quality performance indicators as well as concerning the return on investment; and the main causes of failure in the quality programs analyzed in this study were shortage of financial resources for the proper implementation of the programs and the fragile support given by the company management.

This paper may prove to be significantly helpful to a better and deeper understanding of the factors influencing the quality programs adopted by Brazilian companies.

The purpose of this paper is to present designs for an accelerated life test (ALT).

Bayesian methods and simulation Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) methods were used.

In the paper a Bayesian method based on MCMC for ALT under EW distribution (for life time) and Arrhenius models (relating the stress variable and parameters) was proposed. The paper can conclude that it is a reasonable alternative to the classical statistical methods since the implementation of the proposed method is simple, not requiring advanced computational understanding and inferences on the parameters can be made easily. By the predictive density of a future observation, a procedure was developed to plan ALT and also to verify if the conformance fraction of the manufactured process reaches some desired level of quality. This procedure is useful for statistical process control in many industrial applications.

The results may be applied in a semiconductor manufacturer.

The Exponentiated‐Weibull‐Arrhenius model has never before been used to plan an ALT.

The purpose of this paper is to outline how CSR can be effectively implemented and driven through the organisation. The emphasis of the paper is not on CSR definition but on the skills and capabilities needed by individuals and organizations to fully implement CSR application.

As a qualitative study, interview, data feedback, and participant observation were the particular methodologies adopted.

Three stages of CSR implementation and, within those stages, ten leadership skills and capabilities are identified. The nature of their inter‐relationship and how that impacts on application, is discussed and explored. The ten skills and capabilities form a portfolio for individual leaders to consider and indeed develop in their management of CSR. These capabilities are called forth in three logical stages from those required for early decision making to those required for full enactment of CSR, forming a clear model. This model provides a road‐map for leaders to increase their consciousness and their effectiveness in the implementation of true rather than token CSR.

A limitation is the qualitative case‐based method. The learning arising from the study can be pursued and further tested through quantitative survey methods in order to provide for balanced, comparative analysis.

A road‐map to effective CSR application for leaders of organisations is offered. This road‐map can be used to guide current leaders and as a guide to developing future leaders.

Originality is high as no such model of CSR application exists. The value of the paper is to offer a research‐based practical guide to CSR implementation.

Over the last several decades, as women have increasingly entered the labor force, they are spending less time at home (Bianchi, 1995; Hayghe, 1997). Having a more constrained schedule has resulted in married women and single mothers substantially decreasing the amount of time that they spend on household labor (Bianchi et al., 2000; Robinson & Godbey, 1997). Traditionally, in two-parent households, husbands rarely participated in household tasks. Now that more married women with children are employed outside the home, one might assume that they would turn to their husbands to help them manage their households. However, current research shows that fathers are making only a slightly greater contribution to housework than they did in the past (Gershuny & Robinson, 1988; Robinson & Godbey, 1997). If mothers are now spending fewer hours on housework, and fathers are only contributing slightly more, then there remains a significant proportion of household chores that either must be done by others or must remain undone. Research suggests that children in particular may find themselves responsible for an increasing proportion of household tasks. For example, the more hours mothers work outside the home, the more hours children spend on family work (Benin & Edwards, 1990; Blair, 1992b; Elder & Conger, 2000; Shelton, 1992).

The purpose of this paper is to propose guidelines for business enterprises engaging with indigenous communities to protect their intellectual property rights, particularly indigenous art works produced for the souvenir industry.

Literature on indigenous art and souvenirs demonstrating exploitation of indigenous communities’ intellectual property was facilitated by a lack of knowledge of how to otherwise behave. The proposed guidelines for commercial entities wishing to engage ethically with indigenous communities draws on international exemplars.

A twelve‐point framework for ethical commerce in indigenous souvenirs between indigenous communities and businesses is proposed to ensure populations lacking economic and social power are not disenfranchised by limited experience in a market society.

The proposed guidelines contribute to achieving reconciliation between mainstream and indigenous people in various countries throughout the world.

This paper assists development of guidelines enabling ethical decision‐making in the souvenir industry applying a critical approach to the principles of corporate responsibility.

The purpose of this paper is to use empirical data on new principals to clarify the connection between different succession situations and the challenges their successor principals face.

The study draws on two waves of interview data from a random sample of 16 new elementary school principals in a major urban school district in the USA.

New principals face distinct practice challenges depending on the nature of their successions. The less planned the succession, the less information and knowledge the new principal tends to possess. The more discontinuous the new administration’s trajectory is with the previous administration, the greater the staff resistance that the successor principal tends to face.

Few studies systematically examine how succession situations differ in schools that are in need of transformation vs those in need of stability. This study addresses this gap by illuminating the varied processes of succession and highlighting specific mechanisms that link these processes to different organizational trajectories.

For district officials, this study suggests that principals in unplanned successions need greater support in quickly gathering information about their new schools while principals in discontinuous successions need greater expertise in how to balance trust-building and accountability in their attempts to promote transformational change.

This study’s primary value is its detailed articulation of how certain characteristics of succession situations are associated with specific types of challenges. Only studies at this level of specificity can be effective guides to practitioners and policymakers who are charged with preparing, selecting, and supporting new principals and their schools.

This chapter investigates the impact of policy interest rate news from the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) on stock returns and volatilities of U.S. NYSE and German DAX listed commercial banks. We find that Fed news has the most influence on both U.S. and German listed bank stocks and an unexpected policy rate increase (decrease) lowers (raises) returns and raises volatility in the majority of cases. On the other hand, ECB news generally increases bank stock volatility in the United States but has little impact within its own domestic banking industry. While our results for the U.S. listed banks confirm that their stock prices are more responsive in bad economic times and also during periods of monetary tightening, we find disparities for German banks suggesting that U.S. and European banking industries respond heterogeneously to monetary policy news but the Global Financial Crisis increased the sensitivity of all banks to monetary policy news.