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The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated model of decision support system (DSS), artificial neural network, information and communication technologies and statistical process control (SPC) to facilitate agreement by different stakeholders with special interests to commit to the decision that will be taken to stop the production line when something goes wrong somewhere in a supplier network environment.

A DSS is proposed to capture exceptional signals from source on deterioration of product quality to alert preventive actions needed before the problems are getting out of hand. The supervisors are given a set of guidelines to support making the decision. Real‐time SPC and rule‐based decision support procedures are used to trigger pre‐defined exceptional signals for forwarding to the most appropriate person (the knowledge holder in the problem domain) to make a decision to stop the line. All servers in all remote sites are internet‐connected and provide real‐time quality data to the regional supply chain manager. A case study is described to show how this is implemented in a lens manufacturing company.

A significant improvement in quality level can be achieved by holding the knowledge worker accountable for making the decision to stop the production line rather than made by default as is with most traditional operations.

To provide a concept to structure activities for decision support so that the persons responsible for making the decision to stop the production line is held accountable by all stakeholders.

Practitioners can replicate the approach used in this paper to their own situations involving decisions to be made to address un‐structured problems and unclear responsibilities.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Develops an original 12‐step management of technology protocol and applies it to 51 applications which range from Du Pont’s failure in Nylon to the Single Online Trade Exchange for Auto Parts procurement by GM, Ford, Daimler‐Chrysler and Renault‐Nissan. Provides many case studies with regards to the adoption of technology and describes seven chief technology officer characteristics. Discusses common errors when companies invest in technology and considers the probabilities of success. Provides 175 questions and answers to reinforce the concepts introduced. States that this substantial journal is aimed primarily at the present and potential chief technology officer to assist their survival and success in national and international markets.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.

The author argues that we must stop and take a look at what our insistence on human labour as the basis of our society is doing to us, and begin to search for possible alternatives. We need the vision and the courage to aim for the highest level of technology attainable for the widest possible use in both industry and services. We need financial arrangements that will encourage people to invent themselves out of work. Our goal, the article argues, must be the reduction of human labour to the greatest extent possible, to free people for more enjoyable, creative, human activities.

In previous efforts I have indicated that Social Catholicism, qua Roman‐Catholic Social Economycs or Économie politique chrétienne, is now at the one and a half century mark, given its formal introduction with the publication of Charles de Coux's Essais d' économie politique at Paris/Lyon in 1832. This was soon to be followed by Alban de Villeneuve‐Bargemont's Christian Political Economy, or Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Poverty in France and Europe, etc, (1837), the subsequent founding of the Société d'Economie Sociale in 1856 and publication — inter alia — of La réforme sociale (1864) and Exposition of Social Economics (1867) by P. G. Frédéric Le Play; and, contemporarily, by the separate but related efforts of a host of other “thinkers and doers” to both the left or more radical (“Catholic/Christian‐Socialist”) and the right or “individualist” (cum Christianised individuals!) of Le Play's more centrist‐traditional (and, hence, “reactionary”) position. All this was well prior to the promulgation of the first great social encyclical, Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (RN), in 1891.

THE library year ends in no spectacular way. If posterity has any cause to remember 1932 it will probably be as of a year when the doctrine of economy was raised to the rank of a divine dogma by a world of debtors and creditors all crazed with fear over international debts. A year of hurried committees producing reports for the reduction of expenditures, beneficient or otherwise; especially, in this last month, a report which if implemented would cripple almost every local activity, and set back the clock of social effort at least thirty years. The intention of such reports is no doubt good; their effects are yet to be seen. So far, the increased parsimony in national and local affairs seems only to have intensified unemployment without bettering the general situation. A reaction against all this is beginning, not a moment too soon, and all who care for the finer things in our civilisation will be compelled to stand against the more unsocial recommendations of these reports.