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Blockchain is often presented as a technological development; however, clearly it is not only that: the ‘Blockchain buzz’ exists in the context of current social and political developments. In this essay, we analyse blockchain technology and its social and political context from a perspective of Marxist economic theory. Since arguably the last great inflection point in society and technology was analysed by Marx in terms of labour and capital and since we seem to be experiencing a shift in the balance between these forces today, it makes sense to revisit the Marxist ideas and apply them to the current situation, to see how well they still apply and if necessary to update them for current events.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for the development of total quality management (TQM) model for service organizations considering both internal and external environmental factors.

Through an extensive literature search, it is found that despite a large body of knowledge on TQM, there is hardly any research undertaken on the model of service quality including all external and internal factors that can affect the impact of soft and hard TQM factors on organizations performance. So, a systematic literature review has been conducted to extract the relevant journal articles for the study purpose.

The conceptual model fills this yawning gap and presents a framework of integrated relationships based on several constituent models. These are soft TQM factors, hard TQM factors and organizational performance. Moreover, quality improvement, market benefits, R&D performance and quality performance are used as mediators while industry rivalry and entry barriers are used as moderators between soft and hard TQM and organizational performance. The seven propositions, derived from these elements, highlight the dynamic relationship between above mentioned constructs.

One major limitation is the testing of this model. It has not been tested in any environment or organization to assess its validity. Future research can be done to test the developed hypotheses. Besides three journals, other journals can also be focused in future to get detailed insight into different factors. Impact of IT on organizational processes toward TQM can also be studied in future. More rigorous statistical tests can also be applied to generate more findings with an extension of review time period and selection of more journals.

The model developed in this study can be applied in any service organization with slight modifications to enhance the service quality of organizations by integrating both internal and external aspects for quality improvement. By adopting this framework, organizations can increase their production quality.

This proposed framework will help organizations to effectively implement TQM in their organizations considering internal and external organizational factors.

This paper aims to understand the motivations driving cooperative behaviour between heterogeneous stakeholders in place-branding activities, focusing on contract-based and relation-based cooperation constructs.

The longitudinal case study method is used to help understanding how the investigated network has evolved over four years from an attempt to build a regional umbrella-brand to a network contract between 13 enterprises.

The findings suggest that the relationships of trust and shared values among stakeholders are essential to foster cooperation, but also that contract-based governance complements a relation-based governance, enhancing the performance of the alliance.

The main limitation is related to the case study methodology, as results are strongly dependent on the specific characteristics of the stakeholders and the geographical area analysed.

The role of stakeholders in building a place brand is increasingly important. When analysing cooperative behaviour drivers, more attention should be paid to such intangible assets as social, human, relational and organisational capital.

This longitudinal case study emphasises that for success in place-branding activities, contract-based cooperation can be particularly useful at the beginning of a network alliance, while relation-based cooperation ensures the strength and continuity of the partnership but it takes time to develop. Responsible leaders, working as relationship facilitators/enablers, are important to keep network members engaged, by creating trust and favouring mutual beneficial relationships between stakeholders.

When we reach June in normal years we are expectant of some definite particulars of the Annual Meeting of the Library Association. The place of meeting is usually known from the year previously, and an outline of the prospective proceedings has been circulated. This year, we are given to understand, there is to be a meeting, although it will be briefer than usual, no public hospitality will be asked or expected, and it will be held at some place which is not a great town or city, so that we may escape the possibility of such hospitality being offered. In these circumstances there can hardly be any objection to a meeting, and we can see many advantages in it. If a place in Derbyshire, in Wales, or in some other district where there is beautiful scenery, can be selected, we hope that it will be, so that librarians, who many of them greatly need a brief holiday, may be able to include the Annual Meeting in their holiday programme. We shall await more particulars with interest, and we hope that they may not be long delayed.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the level of social capital in environmental community organisations (ECOs) in Perth, Western Australia. On a general level, social capital in ECOs is understood as intra-organisational and inter-organisational relationships that organisations maintain through interactions.

This paper utilises quantitative (i.e. survey) as well as qualitative (i.e. interviews) approaches to data collection and analysis. It proposes a methodological framework to measure the level of social capital, and explores the association between the ascertained level of social capital and organisational capabilities.

The results of the survey and interviews reveal that while the level of social capital is needs based, maintaining a higher intensity of organisational relationships puts ECOs in a better position to do more with less.

The findings advance the task of ascertaining the level of social capital in ECOs from organisational interactions perspective.

This paper captures a community organisation-specific methodological framework to measure and analyse social capital.