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The war between formidable rivals for the use of the word “Champagne” continues. It began in 1958 at the Old Bailey with a prosecution brought under the Merchandise Marks Act alleging the application of a false description, viz., “Spanish Champagne” to goods and a second charge of applying the false description “champagne.” For the prosecution it was stated that “champagne” could only come from the Champagne district of France, which in 1921 the French Government had officially established and limited as the sole area for the production of champagne. Such a description applied to a Spanish wine, therefore, was false and misleading. The prosecution failed. The judge had stated there was overwhelming evidence of wines having lost the territorial origin of their names.

The purpose of the paper is to uncover and synthesise the main factors that affects and determines the success or failure of empowerment initiatives from a macro and micro perspective.

A thorough review of scholarly articles and empirical evidence was conducted on the topic of empowerment in order to bring to light the correlation between the different factors affecting structural empowerment, psychological empowerment and the effect of leadership style.

It has been determined that a team based structure and a culture based on trust and open communication are the key factors affecting the successful implementation of empowerment. Furthermore, although, many positive points can be made for transformational leadership, transactional leadership cannot be discounted as the research shows that the right combination of incentives and rewards, coupled with a certain organisational culture can breed empowerment among certain types of employees.

Going forward in terms of research on the increasingly popular concept of empowerment, it is believed that a more fully integrated model should be developed. Although some models do incorporate analysis of various macro and micro variables a more comprehensive and encompassing model would prove useful. Such a model would allow for a far more in-depth understanding of empowerment and its defining factors and would provide an invaluable tool to organisations wishing to implement empowerment in the most optimal way.

In applying a combination of theories on empowerment, leadership and individuals as part of an organisation, the authors posit that empowerment initiatives are predisposed to either success or failure. In order for empowerment to permeate the corporate culture and prove successful, the predispositions of decentralised management and personal ambition are strong factors of success.

The authors postulate that the deciding factors regarding the success or failure of empowering an employee originate from the employees themselves. Even though employees can adopt new corporate cultures and be transformed by their leaders, their core traits remain the same and will have a decisive impact on the eventual success or failure of empowerment initiatives.

Going forward in terms of research on the increasingly popular concept of empowerment, it is believed that a more fully integrated model should be developed. Although some models do incorporate analysis of various macro and micro variables, a more comprehensive and encompassing model would prove useful.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

In this article Professor Perry argues that Plessy v. Ferguson and the de jure segregation it heralded has overdetermined the discourse on Jim Crow. She demonstrates through a historical analysis of activist movements, popular literature, and case law that private law, specifically property and contract, were significant aspects of Jim Crow law and culture. The failure to understand the significance of private law has limited the breadth of juridical analyses of how to respond to racial divisions and injustices. Perry therefore contends that a paradigmatic shift is necessary in scholarly analyses of the Jim Crow era, to include private law, and moreover that this shift will enrich our understandings of both historic and current inequalities.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the potential of web components for libraries.

The paper introduces a working example web component that reimplements an OCLC WorldCat search widget.

By exploring the case study, the paper explains the functioning of web components and the potential advantages of web components for library web development.

Increasingly, web components are being used within library web development, but there is scope for much greater use of this technology to the advantage of those libraries involved.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the project challenges, human factors and knowledge development that influence the nature of employee engagement in a project team within a global project-based organisation.

A qualitative research design used semi-structured interviews, and observations in team meetings and the work environment to identify characteristics in the work environment which influenced employee engagement.

Workplace characteristics that influence employee engagement relate to the project challenges, the problem-solving nature of work, and achieving specified outcomes within time allocations. Human factors including the manager’s behaviours with feedback and recognition of effort, mentoring, and encouraging collaboration are important in team environment. The potential for learning and knowledge development from the project and with the team positively influence engagement.

This study examines the characteristics of an established project team of 13 consultant engineers from eight nationalities, and forms a basis for future comparison with other project teams with different job types and demographic profiles.

This study contributes to project management (PM) research by broadening the focus from human factors influencing employee engagement to project challenges and knowledge development, with implications for managers in project-based organisations in terms of job design, development of team climate, team processes and their own behaviours.

This study contributes to human factors in PM literature through exploratory research into the antecedents of employee engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the rapidly growing body of expatriate teachers in international schools’ as a neglected community of non-corporate expatriates, and presents a research agenda.

This paper presents a conceptual framework for identifying a possible reason for this neglect; the teachers in international schools can be viewed as “middling actors”, caught in a “middle space” of the emergent “business expatriate” concept, between the discussion about corporate expatriates and precariat workers.

This paper reveals that the body of expatriate teachers in international schools is growing rapidly, and is forecast to reach up to 800,000 by 2026, yet the literature still largely neglects their realities of everyday life as an expatriate.

The concept of an international school defies consensus agreement, and this paper uses data that is academically debatable in its accuracy. The figures should be viewed as the maximum amount.

The concept of the “middling actor” can be further developed, and international schools offer a rich area of research for expatriate researchers.

Teachers in international schools have escaped discussion as expatriates yet warrant greater attention. This paper introduces the concept of “middling” and the “middling actor” as new, yet potentially useful, sociological concepts. The concept of the “middling actor” within the broad “business expatriate” concept can be developed in many different ways and needs further discussion and theorization.

A multimedia computer system is one that can create, import, integrate, store, retrieve, edit, and delete two or more types of media materials in digital form, such as audio, image, full‐motion video, and text information. This paper surveys four possible types of multimedia computer systems: hypermedia, multimedia database, multimedia message, and virtual reality systems. The primary focus is on advanced multimedia systems development projects and theoretical efforts that suggest long‐term trends in this increasingly important area.