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Bases itself on the premise that the categorisation of people who may adopt innovations is not the sole answer to the length of time taken for diffusion of innovations, but that a major factor is the characteristic of the innovations as perceived by adopters or non‐adopters. Says that marketers have an interest in decreasing the time taken for an innovation to diffuse throughout an industry by changing people from one category into another which is more progressive in outlook. States that two main industries were chosen to be used in this study – the flour milling industry and, to a lesser degree, the malting and dairying industries. Decided that the relationships between the time taken for innovations to diffuse throughout industry, and the characteristics of the innovations as perceived by technologists responsible for their introduction. Lays out the research method in detail and discusses this. Sums up that the research illustrates a method of studying the perceived characteristics technological innovation and shows a strong relationship between innovations and time taken.

The purpose of the paper is to provide a contextual basis for the supply chain activity of the generic Australian cereal products supply chain. It identifies the business‐environment factors underpinning the cereal products supply chain efficiency. It also further highlighted the complex nature of the extended supply chain and all the factors to be considered in its management. The approach to the topic is that of developing a holistic overview of the extended supply chain, its networks and its business‐environment influences in order to understand the complex reality of issues that a supply chain manager must deal with in order to optimise efficiencies.

A qualitative methodology was used in the study, involving an examination of supply chain practices throughout the cereal product supply chain, determined through interviews with players at all stages from seed to supermarket supply. Identification of key business‐environment influences impacting on the cereal products supply chain was achieved through thematic examination of the responses and comparison of the findings with literature relating to the Australian business‐environment. Field research activity included semi‐structured interviews throughout the supply chain for mapping and examining the status of supply chain networks and practices.

The business‐environment factor findings, depicted in a model, concerned the impact of globalisation and demand trends; industry complexity and realignment; power relationships; delivery imperatives; the competitive supply chain imperative; the information economy; industry accountability requirements; freight challenges; supply chain labour requirements and climatic conditions affecting crop yields.

The research was limited in that it represented a sample of viewpoints/supply chain activity in the Australian cereal products industry and lacked the comprehensiveness of a full industry study covering the entire gamut of regional, crop‐wide and circumstantial influencing factors.

The paper highlights the influence of the identified business‐environment factors on supply chain activity and points the way for supply chain managers in the cereal product industry to be aware of broad contextual factors as well as their own immediate operating environment. The identified business‐environment influences present strategic challenges to players throughout the cereal products supply chain. A globally responsive cereal products supply chain will need to strategically align itself with the wider Australian grain industry, food industry and government to meet future market requirements. It will also need to maintain a constant supply chain dialogue focusing on common goals, being aware of constraints and future challenges.

This research paper is original and of value to supply chain management theory in presenting a wide contextual view of the supply chain and hence supply chain management.

Malting barley is an important specialty crop in the Northern Plains and growers mitigate risk with federally subsidized crop insurance and production contracts. The purpose of this paper is to quantify risks growers face due to “coverage gaps” in crop insurance that result in uncertain indemnity payments when their crop does not meet contract specifications.

A stochastic dominance model is developed to evaluate alternative strategies for growers with differing risk attitudes and production practices (irrigation vs dryland).

The results illustrate how alternative crop insurance provisions affect efficient choice sets for growers. Risk premiums for irrigated growers all point to valuations favoring more coverage, contracts, and malting option B. As the crop insurance industry matures in the functions it performs, it will become increasingly more important to address quality attributes.

This paper addresses quality issues and coverage gaps in crop insurance provisions.

This article looks at how capital equipment innovations are adopted. The reception of innovations by adoptors and non‐adoptors provides “profiles” of the characteristics of innovations, which can highlight good selling features and identify markets.

The purpose of this paper is to look forward to explore the links between projected rapid rates of agribusiness expansion and Africa's economic growth, equity and spatial development.

The paper draws inferences from 30 years of agribusiness value chain research in Africa.

Africa's agribusinesses stand poised for exceptionally rapid growth over the coming 40 years. Because of strong interdependencies between agribusiness and agriculture, productivity growth in agribusiness systems will critically affect Africa's overall economic growth rate, its spatial development patterns and progress toward poverty reduction. But the necessary efficiency gains in agribusiness performance will not appear automatically. They will require substantial private investments, a competitive private sector and heightened public attention in areas where governments have historically proven weak: promoting regional trade, improving town and regional planning, financing scientific research, funding higher education and building commercially viable rural financial systems.

Researchers can help by assembling empirical evidence in these topic areas and by examining value chain models that stimulate private sector investment, accelerate efficiency gains and facilitate access and egress by the poor.

Drawing on 30 years of value chain research in Africa, the paper examines links between agribusiness trajectories and economic growth, equity and spatial development.

The connotations, associations, custom and usages of a name often give to it an importance that far outweighs its etymological significance. Even with personal surnames or the name of a business. A man may use his own name but not if by so doing it inflicts injury on the interests and business of another person of the same name. After a long period of indecision, it is now generally accepted that in “passing off”, there is no difference between the use of a man's own name and any other descriptive word. The Courts will only intervene, however, when a personal name has become so much identified with a well‐known business as to be necessarily deceptive when used without qualification by anyone else in the same trade; i.e., only in rare cases. In the early years, the genesis of goods and trade protection, fraud was a necessary ingredient of “passing off”, an intent to deceive, but with the merging off Equity with the Common Law, the equitable rule that interference with “property” did not require fraudulent intent was practised in the Courts. First applying to trade marks, it was extended to trade names, business signs and symbols and business generally. Now it is unnecessary to prove any intent to deceive, merely that deception was probable, or that the plaintiff had suffered actual damage. The equitable principle was not established without a struggle, however, and the case of “Singer” Sewing Machines (1877) unified the two streams of law but not before it reached the House of Lords. On the way up, judical opinions differed; in the Court of Appeal, fraud was considered necessary—the defendant had removed any conception of fraud by expressingly declaring in advertisements that his “Singer” machines were manufactured by himself—so the Court found for him, but the House of Lords considered the name “Singer” was in itself a trade mark and there was no more need to prove fraud in the case of a trade name than a trade mark; Hence, the birth of the doctrine that fraud need not be proved, but their Lordships showed some hesitation in accepting property rights for trade names. If the name used is merely descriptive of goods, there can be no cause for action, but if it connotes goods manufactured by one firm or prepared from a formula or compsitional requirements prescribed by and invented by a firm or is the produce of a region, then others have no right to use it. It is a question of fact whether the name is the one or other. The burden of proof that a name or term in common use has become associated with an individual product is a heavy one; much heavier in proving an infringement of a trade mark.

In this paper we analyze the efficiency effects of state-mandated exclusive distribution territories in the U.S. beer industry. Using panel data for 48 states over a 10-year period we estimate both fixed-effects and instrumental-variable models of the impact of mandated exclusive territories on beer consumption. We find that standard OLS regressions of beer consumption suffer from selection bias, due to the endogeneity of state statutes. Correcting for this bias we estimate exclusive territory mandates increase consumption by between three and eleven%. Our results therefore indicate that exclusive territories in the beer industry increase social welfare and enhance the well-being of consumers.

In the year 1918 Bohemia, which had ceased to be an independent State in the catastrophe of the “White Mountain” three hundred years before, again emerged as the Western part of the new State of Czecho Slovakia. It is beside the point to consider how this came about beyond stating that Masaryk, Benes, Stepanik, and their associates in Europe, the United States and Canada, in spite of and also because of the Great War, quickly and successfully re‐established their country as a separate political entity on the break‐up of the Austro‐Hungarian Empire. The new State includes, besides Bohemia, Moravia, part of Siberia, and in its eastern part Ruthenia. Its area is about 50 thousand square miles. Its somewhat racially varied population is 14¾ million. Czecho Slovakia is the most central of European States. It has no seaboard, but Pressburg on the Danube is a not unimportant port. At present it is scarcely well served by canals. The railways under Austro‐Hungarian rule would seem to have been built, in part at least, rather for purposes of military strategy, leaving some of the more important districts to be served by single lines which are in some cases in course of being doubled by the present Government, or have already been doubled.

Endeavours to guide managers through the maze of business information. Does not pretend to be a survey of all existing business literature, but provides pointers in three key areas – that of business directories including Internet sources, market information, and company information. Includes some examples of company searches.

EVERY profession evolves its own argot, adopting or inventing terms which the initiated understand and accept. Such precision saves time and avoids misinterpretation. In a technical subject like time and motion study such a recognised vocabulary is specially desirable.