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The purpose of this paper is to show that e‐procurement provides manufacturing firms with new and efficient solutions to drive significant value into their business, yet generally the use of internet technologies to accommodate e‐procurement systems remains in a formative stage. Previous research tends to focus on larger economies, so this paper provides a new perspective by presenting evidence from the Irish ICT manufacturing industry.

The research locale is justified on the basis that the ICT manufacturing sector has a greater propensity to adopt technologies such as e‐procurement. In addition, by conducting the research in a small peripheral economy, a gap in the knowledge base is being addressed. The exploratory research adopted a quantitative methodology with a questionnaire instrument being employed to investigate various e‐procurement activities within a sample of top performing ICT manufacturing firms.

Findings show that e‐procurement is developing as a function. Significant benefits are reported, including streamlined business processes and reduced business costs. Difficulties associated with implementation are minimal, but focus on integration issues.

Limitations of small sample size negate the ability to generalise. Thus a larger scale comparative study has been initiated to investigate e‐procurement more extensively in the ICT and other industry settings in Ireland.

It is concluded that to further the integration of e‐procurement, organisations should develop a dual focus on technical and people issues to instil a culture of staff development and continuous improvement.

This paper addresses a gap in knowledge by investigating e‐procurement in the top performing firms in Ireland's ICT manufacturing sector. A picture is provided of e‐procurement development in a peripheral economy and the foundation has been laid for more extensive research in the future.

THE topics of the Library Association Conference and the election of the Council of the Association naturally absorb a great deal of attention this month. To deal with the second first: there were few novelties in the nominations, and most of the suggested new Councillors are good people; so that a fairly good Council should result. The unique thing, as we imagine, about the Library Association is the number of vice‐presidents, all of whom have Council privileges. These are not elected by the members but by the Council, and by the retiring Council; they occupy a position analagous to aldermen in town councils, and are not amenable to the choice or desires of the members at large. There are enough of them, too, if they care to be active, to dominate the Council. Fortunately, good men are usually elected, but recently there has been a tendency to elect comparatively young men to what are virtually perpetual seats on the Council, simply, if one may judge from the names, because these men occupy certain library positions. It, therefore; is all the more necessary that the electors see that men who really represent the profession get the seats that remain.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of James G. March’s key ideas and extend and integrate them with the works and ideas of John Boyd, whose work is highly relevant to, yet neglected by, behavioral and evolutionary perspectives on decision-making, organizations and strategy.

This paper integrates and synthesizes ideas in behavioral organization studies with those of John Boyd.

The authors suggest that when integrated, Boydian and Marchian ideas can enrich the understanding of particular ideas and mechanisms identified in behavioral organization studies and help broaden the intellectual and interdisciplinary range of the field in consonance with March’s vision for it.

The authors combine and integrate ideas central to the field of organization studies with those of an “outsider.”

This idea brief explores the leadership lessons displayed by the characters of Louis L’Amour’s western novels. Western fiction can be a powerful tool to engage students and demonstrate many leadership theories and models. This brief examines how L’Amour’s characters can be used to illustrate Kouzes and Posner’s Five Practices of Exemplary Leaders. The author will demonstrate how western literature, specifically L’Amour’s novels, can be a tool to help students see leadership in a new light.

This paper aims to provide greater understanding of how the composition of pay reduces agency cost to the shareholders by examining how firms pay their chief executive officers (CEOs). More specifically, this study examines the relationship between CEOs’ social capital, measured as external directorships, and their contingency pay, the proportion of their compensation that depends on achieving long-term performance goals.

The authors use a panel sample of Standard & Poor 500 CEOs to test two contrasting theoretical perspectives. From a board perspective, boards attempt to retain executives with more social capital working longer for the firms to utilize executives’ social capital and pay them more in the form of contingency pay. The CEO power perspective argues that CEOs wield social capital as a form of power to lower contingency pay in an attempt at preserving wealth.

CEO social capital does not exacerbate agency pressures. Boards reward the long-term benefits of social capital accumulated by CEOs through higher proportions of contingency pay.

The authors considered CEOs of well-capitalized, publicly-traded US-based firms. So the results may not generalizable to other contexts.

Boards do recognize and reward CEOs for their social capital, and use higher levels of contingency pay to lock in CEOs with social capital.

This is the first study to explicitly examine the impact of CEO social capital on both non-equity and equity compensation.

Academic libraries are experiencing numerous changes in their services due to high demands for digital resources and changes in users’ information needs and expectations. Many academic library users give preferences to Google, Google Scholar and other search engines on the internet when they search for information. As reference transactions are decreasing in many academic institutions, this paper aims to investigate the continuing need for mediated reference services in the technology-driven environment in academic libraries.

The authors have conducted a literature review to document and analyze the current trends in reference services in academic libraries. They have examined the relevant published literature through a series of reflective questions to determine whether the demise of mediated reference services is imminent in academic libraries. While this literature review is by no means an exhaustive one, the authors have provided a fairly comprehensive representation of articles to synthesize an overview of the history, evolution, and current trends of reference services in academic libraries.

This paper clearly demonstrates the importance of human-mediated reference services in academic libraries. It reinforces the need for skilled, knowledgeable professional librarians to provide effective and efficient reference services in a digital environment.

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of current trends in reference services in academic libraries and analyzes the merits and demerits of these trends to establish the need for mediated reference services in academic libraries. The arguments used in this paper will be useful for library and informational professionals as validation for the need to hire skilled, knowledgeable reference librarians to provide reference services in a digital environment.

This paper critically looks at the current trends and practices in reference services through the published literature to determine the future need for mediated reference services in academic libraries. It offers important insights to demonstrate why professional librarians’ skills, knowledge and expertise are essential to provide efficient reference services in the digital age.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of vocational education for girls, focusing on how curriculum and pedagogy developed to accommodate changing expectations of the role of women in the workplace and the home in mid-twentieth century Australia. As well as describing how pedagogical changes were implemented through curriculum, it examines the way a modern approach to girls’ education was reflected in the built environment of the school site and through its interactions with its changing community.

The paper takes a case study approach, focusing on the example of the J.H. Boyd Domestic College which functioned as a single-sex school for girls from 1932 until its closure in 1985. Oral history testimony, private archives, photographs and government school records provide the material from which an understanding of the school is reconstructed.

This detailed examination of the history of J.H. Boyd Domestic College highlights the highly integrated nature of the school's environment with the surrounding community, which strengthened links between the girls and their community. It also demonstrates how important the school's buildings and facilities were to contemporary ideas about the teaching of girls in a vocational setting.

This is the first history of J.H. Boyd Domestic College to examine the intersections of gendered, classed ideas about pedagogy with ideas about the appropriate built environment for the teaching of domestic science. The contextualized approach sheds new light on domestic science education in Victoria and the unusually high quality of the learning spaces available for girls’ education.

This study examines Texas FFA officers’ perceptions regarding the traits and characteristics that good followers possess. A content analysis of officer responses to an open-ended question found that these young leaders have a limited level of understanding of what constitutes a good follower. Furthermore, female respondents placed a greater emphasis on supporting the leader and being respectful, whereas male respondents emphasized being a team player. Males also emphasized being involved in the chapter as a desirable trait more often than females. This suggests that females are more focused on ideas that are leader-supportive and males are more action driven. Males focused more on being a team and achievement. The study demonstrates a need to emphasize followership in leader development and education curricula. Youth organizations with similar leadership development programs can better equip their future leaders with the knowledge needed to be a follower-focused leader by teaching them how to identify good followership. As youth organizations become more follower-focused, failure to introduce followership instruction into the leadership classroom is a disservice to students.

IN The verdict of you all, Rupert Croft‐Cooke has some uncomplimentary things to say about novel readers as a class, which is at least an unusual look at his public by a practitioner whose income for many years was provided by those he denigrates.