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Argues that the general area of commercial sponsorship activity, while attracting increasing interest from marketing practitioners as an important strategic option in marketing communications, has not been the subject of sufficiently rigorous and comprehensive investigation by theoreticians. States the purpose is to establish and consolidate the available body of knowledge combining an overview of the standard conceptual approaches to marketing communication with an examination of the recent academic research in sponsorship, while maintaining a focus on current marketplace practice. Argues for a coherent and structured approach to the management of sponsorship expenditure through the application of a ‘management by objectives’ approach. Parameters are established in terms of a working definition of sponsorship, a review of its commercial development and an overview of current activity. Develops a commercially ration framework within which sponsorship activity may be undertaken. Views objective‐setting as the cornerstone of sponsorship management and outlines a classification of sponsorship objectives that subsumes current practice clarifies the range of potential benefits. Examines the criteria that govern rational sponsorship selection and proposes an evaluation strategy based on stated criteria. Methods of evaluating effects of marketing communications (sponsorship particularly) are examined and new evaluation techniques are advanced to facilitate the implementation of this rigorous scientific approach.

Examines Kwik‐Fit, a non‐traditional entrant in the financial services sector and analyses their entry strategy for the motor insurance market. Highlights the importance of effective customer relationship management, staff motivation and an innovative approach to selling. Provides an example of good practice for a new entrant to financial services and highlights long‐term challenges associated with this type of business.

Outlines the development by Barclays Life of a tracking survey to collect information concerning customers’ feelings of satisfaction and loyalty. Describes research undertaken by Barclays Life into the determinants of satisfaction amongst customers and the importance of each of these elements in determining loyalty. Initial qualitative research was undertaken to allow the company to develop a frame of reference concerning the elements of service which customers considered important. These initial findings were used in later quantitative studies to establish the relative importance of the different elements, with a view to understanding what was determining customer loyalty. The research culminated in the development of a tracking survey instrument, now used by the company to monitor customer satisfaction and loyalty levels across time and customer groups. Discusses both the findings of the research undertaken, and the importance of such research for firms. Outlines the use to which the information gathered by the surveys is put, together with initiatives which have resulted from the research.

Senior executives blithely talk about their commitment to quality, but how many would give customers their home phone number? Sir Tom Farmer, founder, chairman and CEO of Kwik‐Fit did just that a few years ago, putting his phone number up in the company service centers around the UK. Kwik‐Fit is the world’s largest automotive repair firm. Founded in 1971, it had 860 service centers in the UK and Ireland in April 1999 and 754 centers in The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain and Germany, as well as other business interests.

We suggest ways for HR to harness new social‐media tools (such as blogs, wikis and podcasts) to provide a practical benefit to the business.

This paper seeks to investigate conditions under which entrepreneurs emerge as agents of effective and sustainable change in UK National Health Service Trusts.

The research synthesises literature on changing regulatory structures (“post‐bureaucracy”) and entrepreneurial behaviour to understand how individual identity construction is informed both by context and by individual attributes. Thematic analysis of interview data involving managers from 11 NHS Trusts, including detailed analysis of six transcripts, focuses on regulatory processes, the emergence of entrepreneurial behaviour and outcome variations in workplace innovation and improvement.

This study identifies co‐existing modes of regulation, which interact with individual behaviour, generating strategies differentiated as entrepreneurial or conformist. Four ideal types are identified: organisational entrepreneurship, resisted or dissonant entrepreneurship, conformity, and symbolic entrepreneurship. Analysis reinforces those literature findings, which suggest that the interaction of regulatory structures and the identity work of individuals influence the emergence of entrepreneurial behaviour and the effectiveness of change.

The ability to achieve effective and sustainable outcomes varies considerably even between NHS Trusts faced with comparable challenges in implementing nationally prescribed targets. This variance is explained in terms of the organisation's ability to generate the structures, processes, individual competence and motivation which enable employees at all levels to act entrepreneurially with the ability and legitimacy to achieve strategic goals by working creatively in the spaces between formal organisational structures.

The study identifies specific conditions, which stimulate the emergence of entrepreneurs as agents of effective and sustainable change in the NHS, identifying factors that policymakers should consider when implementing change.

This article reviews the development over the last 20 years of the section 8 powers under the Children Act 1989. In particular, it examines residence, especially shared residence, contact, prohibited steps and specific issue orders. In respect of each order, the review compares the current position with what was originally intended and more generally anticipated. The article concludes that whereas prohibited steps and specific issue orders have broadly worked as expected and intended, residence orders and contact have not. Residence orders have been used to allocate parental responsibility, which was not intended, and shared care arrangements have become much more common than anticipated. Contrary to expectation, contact disputes have proved to be exceptionally problematic and there have been consequential reforms to deal with issues. Despite these developments the overall conclusion is that the section 8 orders have generally stood the test of time and should not be regarded as being beyond their ‘sell‐by’ date.

Application of the numerical method to the art of Medicine was regarded not as a “trivial ingenuity” but “an important stage in its development”; thus proclaimed Professor Bradford Hill, accepted as the father of medical statistics, a study still largely unintelligible to the mass of medical practitioners. The need for Statistics is the elucidation of the effects of multiple causes; this represents the essence of the statistical method and is most commendable. Conclusions reached empirically under statistical scrutiny have mistakes and fallacies exposed. Numerical methods of analysis, the mathematical approach, reveals data relating to factors in an investigation, which might be missed in empirical observation, and by means of a figure states their significance in the whole. A simplified example is the numerical analysis of food poisoning, which alone determines the commonest causative organisms, the commonest food vehicles and the organisms which affect different foods, as well as changes in the pattern, e.g., the rising incidence of S. agona and the increase of turkey (and the occasions on which it is served, such as Christmas parties), as a food poisoning vehicle. The information data enables preventive measures to be taken. The ever‐widening fields of Medicine literally teem with such situations, where complexities are unravelled and the true significance of the many factors are established. Almost every sphere of human activity can be similarly measured. Apart from errors of sampling, problems seem fewer and controversy less with technical methods of analysis then on the presentation and interpretation of figures, or as Bradford Hill states “on the application of common sense and on elementary rules of logic”.

In preparing this report, the compliance sub‐group has set out to (a) summarise the current compliance regime as a matter of law and practice, (b) identify particular problem areas within that regime concerning public sector officials (PSOs), and (c) suggest recommendations for change. The result may be seen as providing features of a ‘model’ compliance structure designed to cause difficulties for corrupt PSOs seeking to launder the proceeds of their corruption; UK law and practice has formed the springboard for the model, but it should be stressed that in order to be of any utility any suggested changes would have to be adopted (effectively) universally throughout the financial world. Piecemeal adoption by one or a few states would merely be likely to drive the tainted monies elsewhere, and would not serve the desired purpose of reducing the extent/profitability of corruption.