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The purpose of this paper was to evaluate a pilot training programme run by Health Education North West to promote clinical leadership amongst general dental practitioners (GDPs). New powers and responsibilities for clinicians have caused a fundamental shift in the way that local services are planned and delivered in England. GDPs are being appointed onto the boards of local professional networks (LPNs) to influence the way that services are delivered at a local level. Analogous to clinical commissioning groups in medicine, the role of LPNs is to ensure that GDPs lead change and drive up the quality of service provision. Clinical leadership has been argued to be fundamentally important in these new structures, but has received little attention in the dental literature.

Semi-structured interviews and a focus group were held with participants of the pilot to explore their understanding and experience of clinical leadership. These were recorded, transcribed verbatim and underwent thematic analysis.

Nineteen codes were identified and organized into four themes: nature of clinical leadership, challenges for clinical leaders in dentistry, Leadership Exploration and Discovery programme evaluation and future direction.

The research provides an understanding of how GDPs conceptualise clinical leadership and provides recommendations for future leadership training programmes.

This is the first evaluation of a leadership programme for GDPs and so helps address the paucity of evidence in the dental literature.

Post‐industrial predictions of a rapid growth in new technology homeworking have gained widespread currency to become part of the conventional wisdom. However the evidence, including primary research material, suggests that the claims for new technology homeworking, both regarding its extent and its alleged benefits, have been considerably overestimated. In particular, new technology homeworking by itself does not appear to open up opportunities for women to improve their position in the labour market; the demographic changes predicted for the 1990s may provide a better bet. Nevertheless, there is a danger in assuming that all firms apply the same strategy when employing homeworkers; at least three different variations can be identified and this has important implications for personnel managers. The overestimation of new technology homeworking stands in stark contrast to traditional homeworking where the extent has been considerably underestimated. This marginalisation of traditional homeworking stems in large part from the distortion caused by the conceptual split between private and public realms. The failure to find evidence to support the growth of new technology homeworking leads to a consideration of how the arguments may better be considered as rhetoric designed to advance a certain set of ideas – in particular that set associated with “privatisation” as a political ideology.

Reports on a study of the bacteriological and mycological quality of 87 prepared salads purchased from delicatessens. Bacterial counts were generally low. Of the 87 salads, only 19 per cent had plate counts greater than 10⁴ organisms/g. Coliforms were isolated from three samples, E. coli from one and Listeria monocytogenes from one. By contrast yeasts were isolated from 76 per cent of the salads and at counts greater than 10⁴ organisms/g in 31 per cent. Twenty‐one different yeast species were isolated, of which the commonest were Saccharomyces dairensis and Saccharomyces exiguus. Few of the yeasts have any significant role in human disease. The commonest yeasts isolated, however, are associated with spoilage of mayonnaise‐based salads. Their isolation from these foods suggests inadequate temperature control.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive framework of strategic value encompassing several critical dimensions of value creation/delivery process amidst transactions between organizations, which outsource their work to local/global service‐providing firms.

The paper consolidates pertinent extant literature encompassing these value dimensions, into a cohesive framework of “total value orientation” (TVO) for strategic outsourcing decisions, juxtaposed with their respective antecedents/outcomes.

This research paper models the strategic outsourcing process as blending the three perspectives of shared value, respectively, outsourcing service‐provider value, client firm value, and relationship value, which converge toward manifesting into a common synergy labeled as “TVO” of the business system; thereby explaining how outsourcing has transitioned from a mere economically convenient and transaction cost optimizing‐business decision to a more strategically driven initiative based on shared governance and decision‐making.

This integrated framework of comprehensiveness value assessment helps transacting firms in determining the efficacy of an outsourcing decision. The TVO perspective can be usefully extended beyond pure dyadic transaction relationships to a network of relationships between the client firm and its business partners. Such evaluation/measurement of value of the entire business system is critical for firms and organizations to develop greater competitiveness in today's world of global collaborations.

This articulated framework captures several value dimensions into a consolidated structure that reflects the effectiveness of the relationship network between transacting entities within the business system.

Quality is an essential criterion by which care homes for older people are judged. However the measurement of quality is both challenging and potentially costly. This paper examines the potential of using routinely generated data from inspection processes as quality indicators. It indicates that generation of such information is possible, providing material that may be used in research and also for more general guidance.

The purpose of this paper is to present a research model and case illustrations that explore strategic outsourcing practices for sustainable competitive advantages in the Chinese context.

This study is based on in‐depth interviews of executives of three multi‐national firms (MNCs) from Switzerland, Korea and the USA that have been successfully operating in China for more than seven years.

This paper discusses how three MNC firms in China maintain clear and disciplined strategic outsourcing and achieve desired business outcomes. They race to the top by managing strategic insourcing for high risk and high profit items while outsourcing low risk and high profit leveraging items.

The paper presents a strategic outsourcing model and case studies of three multi‐national firms in China, which suggest both theoretical and managerial implications showing how to implement successful outsourcing practices in the global market.

In the House of Commons recently Sir Kingsley Wood, the Minister of Health, was asked by Mr. Rickards, the member for the Skipton division of the West Riding, whether “the new process of adding germicide to milk for destroying bacteria had been brought to his notice?; whether he would have the process tested and investigated?; and consider whether any modification of the Food and Drugs (Adulteration) Act would be required to permit of milk so treated being sold on a commercial scale?”—Sir Kingsley Wood in reply disclaimed all official knowledge of the germicide. He also pointed out that to treat milk with a germicide would be contrary to the provisions of the Preservatives Regulations, and of the Food and Drugs (Adulteration) Act. We understand “germ” to be a more or less popular term frequently and somewhat loosely used when reference in general is made to pathogenic organisms; and a germicide is a material something that kills, or is supposed to kill, germs when it comes in contact with them, or the medium in which they exist. A disinfectant is a germicide. In the simple judgment of the ordinary householder the more it smells the better it is for purposes of disinfection. When a germicide is used in cither medicine or surgery the term antiseptic is frequently employed. Familiar instances of both disinfectants and antiseptics are chloride of lime, carbolic acid, iodine, boron compounds, formalin, sulphur dioxide, or sulphites.

This paper seeks to show how the shift of paid work from traditional locations into the home environment raises serious questions of identity for managers who have started to work from home and who have to “cope with” the sometimes conflicting demands imposed by different socio‐cultural spheres.

Based on an empirical study of working from home, three case studies are presented, which articulate and summarise different modes of engagement with both paid and domestic work and respective identity issues.

Adding to the extant literature on working from home, the findings indicate that the success or failure of working from home is intrinsically tied into issues related to homeworkers” identity.

The empirical data are taken from a period when homeworkers had to “learn” how to cope with being both “at home and at work”. Further empirical enquiry might focus on longitudinal aspects of the relationship between working from home and identity.

With regard to working from home policies it is advisable to take into account questions of identity, rather than applying exclusively task‐based or technical aspects when considering the organisational benefits of this form of spatial and temporal flexibility.

In conceptualising working from home from an identity perspective, new insights have been gained into the reasons why this mode of work sometimes fails to deliver on its promises, yet proves outstandingly successful on other occasions.