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Analyses the evolution of China’s telephone and cable systems, in terms of the public interest, discussing current bureaucratic conflicts and policy debates over convergence, and construction of an independent broadband cable network. Looks in depth at China’s problems and the different problems for its citizens with regard to poverty levels and access to the Web.

Provides a snapshot of how the themes of convergence, competition and forthcoming communication services, as raised in the European Commissions’ review, are playing out across Asia. Argues domination by North American and European service companies remains a strong concern of many Asian governments.

This research examined relationships between levels of job‐related managerial feedback, developmental climate, cultural values, job satisfaction and quality of service and products provided to clients. Data were collected from 999 managers and professional field staff employed by a large professional services firm using anonymous questionnaires. LISREL analysis indicated considerable support for a proposed research model. Levels of both partner and manager feedback had direct effects on perceived quality of services and products provided by the firm through both developmental climate and cultural values. Presence of a developmental climate had direct effects on cultural values, job satisfaction and quality of products and services.

This study examined relationships between quality of supervision, supports and barriers to quality service, job satisfaction and quality of services and products provided by a large professional services organization. Data were collected from 999 managers and professional field staff using anonymous questionnaires. LISREL analysis showed considerable support for the research model. Quality of supervision had direct effects on barriers to service (negative) and supports for service, job satisfaction and quality of products and services (all positive). In addition, quality of supervision had indirect effects on job satisfaction and quality of products and services through both barriers and supports for service.

Reviews the articles up‐coming in this special issue of Info. Looks at the opening up of the European telecommunication markets and stresses this would not be limited to communications as even non‐aligned markets would become free of excessive public intervention.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Daisyworld “parable” advanced by James Lovelock to account for the origin of global homeostasis, and to relate it to another type of model advanced in a physiological context.

The relevance of the Daisyworld model is examined in more detail than in an earlier discussion, and the relationship to physiological rein control is considered.

Both types of model exhibit effective and robust control and there is good reason to believe they usefully model forms of biological regulation.

There are implications for theories of global homeostasis and for physiology. A computer program modelling Daisyworld is made available.

The Javascript program that can be accessed online is new, though based on the earlier work of Lovelock and Watson. Much of the treatment depends on the work of Saunders et al.

Student evaluation of the education they receive has long been an area of concern to academics and institutions. A recent paper identified more than 1300 articles and books dealing with research on student ratings of teaching [Cashin 1990]. Most tertiary institutions require it of their academic staff to evaluate their teaching. Most serious teachers have recognised evaluation's importance in being able to assess the quality of the product they deliver, to manage it, and to improve it. Yet there is certainly no standard approach to the evaluation of the education quality, and this would be particularly true of schools of management and business. Management teachers and also institutions, would probably admit to being frustrated at some time or another in their efforts to assess the quality of the education and related services they provide. In 1983 Lovelock identified part of the problem in service organisations as being related to inbreeding: “… Most hoteliers have grown up in the hotel industry. And most hospital and college administrators have remained within the confines of health care, or higher education, respectively” [Lovelock 1983]. Such relatively constrained exposure reduces the objectivity in determining service requirements and sensitivity to the external influences setting them. It is plausible that managers of institutions of higher management rationalise their attitudes towards the quality of service [as opposed to education the product] as follows: “MBAs expect things to be tough”; or, “Executives like to get ‘back to boarding school or residence’, it makes them feel young again/like real students again/like they're in a real learning environment.”

In a recent reference to changes brought about by the local government reorganisation of 1974, we criticised some of the names given to the new areas. Some of these name changes have made difficulties for those who follow from afar the doings of local authorities, as well as raising the ire of local people. Local names, however, are not the only casualty. The creation of new and larger governmental organisations rarely, if ever, results in economy and as anticipated, it was not long before the new local authorities were being directed to embrace financial stringency and all that it incurs. One such other casualty has been the loss of so many of the annual reports of local authority departments, very few now arriving at BFJ offices. In every case, the reason has been the same—severe restrictions on spending. Not that this was not necessary in many fields, but in respect of annual reports, we are convinced it was false economy. For so many of the reports, it was our pleasure to review them in the pages of BFJ. A prominent Labour politician was once heard to refer to them as “hard and dry reports for hard and dry officials”. It all depends probably on what you are looking for in them. Statistics there must be but most enforcement officers and public analysts, endeavour to keep these to the minimum, the general impression being that these are “dry”. If you are looking for trends, for comparison of the year under review with preceding years and then for comparing the results reported in one part of the country with another, where the population, eating habits, consumer reactions may be different, the tables of statistics are highly important.

Reviews the literature dealing with the nature and characteristics of service and applies it to 30 selected services with the objective of synthesizing a classification scheme to recognize operational similarities between services. This has the purpose of enabling learning by comparison of services which would normally be thought of as being different, and also to enable examination of service quality in the other two articles completing the series. Some of the reasons given for the growth of services are found to be the provision of new services, the possibilities created by new technology, the development of producer services and introduction and emphasis of services to differentiate and augment goods products. Given the resultant diversity of service the Standard Industrial Classification is a poor indicator of service content. In what ways should service be studied? One view is that study should be unified and theories developed which are capable of embracing both goods and services. A second view is that distinctions need to be studied to avoid any assumption that theories and approaches developed in a manufactured goods context automatically can be applied to services. In contrast to both of these, what actually happens in many services is that they are often developed and staffed by people who have little direct experience of, and have no accessible means of building on, the successful approaches taken by other services. Uses several of the theoretical and empirical ways in which services have been categorized to classify the range of services. Resolves subjective assessment of labour intensity, contact, interaction, tailoring, intangibility, and recipient into five groups –personal, shop, professional, mass and factory services – which partially confirms but also extends earlier classification schemes.