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In the research project, “Criteria for Successful Production Control”, the main objectives were:

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Did the expansion of democratic institutions play a role in determining central government spending behavior in the 19th and 20th centuries? The link between democracy and increased central government spending is well established for the post-Second World War period, but has never been explored during the first “wave of democracy” and its subsequent reversal, that is 1870–1938. The main contribution of this paper is the compilation of a dataset covering 24 countries over this period to begin to address this question. Utilizing various descriptive techniques, including panel data regressions, we explore correlations between central government spending and the institutional characteristics of regimes. We find that the data are consistent with the hypothesis that democracies have a broader need for legitimization than autocracies as various measures of democracy are associated with higher central government spending. Our results indicate that the extension of franchise had a slight positive impact on central government spending levels, as did a few of the other democracy variables. We also find that early liberal democracies spent less and monarchies more than other regimes; debt increases spending; and participation in the Gold Standard reduced government spending substantially.

The purpose of this paper is to present a practical proposal for integrating production control (PC) and quality control (QC) at the shop floor level.

The proposed method is based on three principles which relate PC and QC at the shop floor level. The proposal is applied successfully at the world's largest pencil factory.

The results show that the proposed method contributes to improve four performance indicators related to PC and QC at the company studied: increase the average throughput in about 28.9 per cent; reduce the average value of work in process (WIP) in about 35.6 per cent, reduce the average lead time by about 45.4 per cent, and reduce the average defect rate by about 71.4 per cent.

The proposal (mainly because of principle III) is developed to be applied in repetitive production (RP) systems, i.e. environments characterized by low production volume and low product variety.

Some practical implications for industrial managers arises from this study: managers must consider the importance of integrated PC and QC functions in order to get better results concerning performance indicators such as throughput, WIP, lead time, and rejection rate; the materials flow simplification is a prerequisite for a lot of improvement initiatives at the shop floor level; the adequate choice of the production control system (PCS) is vital in order to get positive results regarding the performance indicators related to PC; the determination of the production pace (or rate) for a RP system must take account capacity restrictions and the influence of defect rate on production rate.

The paper is original in that it shows that the performance of the shop floor level can be improved by means of integrating PC and QC, by discussing and implementing a method which simplifies the material flow in the shop floor level, chooses the most adequate PCS and shows how the production rate influence on the rejection rate. Therefore, the paper is important for those which practice industrial management, more specifically on PC and QC functions.

Report from a one day colloquium, organised by the Robotics Professional Group of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in association with the British Robot Association and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on the 20th October. The theme was the fast reconfiguration of robotic and automation resources.

The paper seeks to develop an analytical decision model that is used to investigate the performance of a supply chain when product, process, and environmental quality characteristics are considered.

Environmental performance measures and methods to quantify quality are reviewed and then used to develop a method to measure environmental quality and its associated costs. This was translated into a two‐level supply chain coordination model that captures most aspects of green supply chains. Numerical examples are provided and solved using Excel Solver enhanced with VBA codes.

The results confirmed some findings in the literature that investing to reduce environmental costs improves environmental performance and increases total profits.

The environmental quality cost function that was used was of a form that guarantees a global optimal solution. A limitation is that the function may take more complex forms where different analytical and solution methods would be needed.

The model fills a gap in the literature where there is a lack of models to help managers implement environmentally acceptable coordinated two‐level supply chains.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the gender gap in the gross value of rice yield in Vietnam.

A panel data set of 12 provinces of Vietnam from 2010 to 2014 was used, collected from the Vietnam access to resources household survey. To measure the gender gap in the gross value of rice yield, two-stage least squares and Blinder – Oaxaca decomposition methods were used.

The gross value of rice productivity of male-headed households was 10.3 percent higher than that of female-headed households. The gender gap in rice productivity is caused by the endowment and structural effects; the endowment effect explained 53 percent of the gender gap in rice productivity and the structural effect 42 percent.

In order to reduce the gender gap and improve the gross value of rice yield, the following policies are suggested: female education and access to institutional services (extension and credit) should be improved and future research is needed to determine the reasons for gender discrimination in the agricultural production system.

The findings suggest that the difference in the gross value of rice yield between male- and female-headed households were mainly caused by endowments and returns from those endowments.

Begins by reviewing technical progress towards establishment of an effective and standardized, competence‐based vocational education and training system, and compares this progress with the system in Germany. Describes a number of respects in which the system is failing to meet its objectives. Certain stakeholders are happier with the new approach than others. Also describes the political agenda behind the introduction of competence‐based training, and compares the individualist, business‐centred policy in Britain with the more collaborative approach in Germany. Britain’s policy towards training is consistent with its policy towards the Social Chapter. Concludes that unless the political agenda is changed, regardless of any technical improvements made, retention of the current policy will consign Britain to a low‐skill competitive position with respect to the rest of Europe.