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Reports on a research project undertaken in 1992‐93, involving 66 state schools which aimed to ascertain the overall effectiveness of school‐based management in the Australian state of Victoria. Discusses the evolution of democratic devolution and reviews previous research.

School consolidation reforms are underway in regional New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The purpose of this paper is to establish an evidence base of research literature on school consolidation in regional, rural and remote locations.

A scoping study of empirical literature on school consolidation, with a particular focus on regional, rural and remote education, since the year 2000 was undertaken. A corpus of 35 papers were identified and subjected to analysis based on: year of publication, country of origin, unit of analysis, data sources, timeframe and theoretical model.

There remains a limited evidence base for the success of school consolidation reforms for turning around student outcomes. In addition, a number of social implications are experienced by communities losing their local school. These issues are amplified in regional, rural and remote locations.

School consolidation reforms are used by governments/systems wanting to reduce costs and address issues of student disengagement and under-achievement. Despite a lengthy history internationally, there is at best mixed evidence regarding these reforms. With a consider disparity gap between urban and regional, rural and remote school outcomes, robust evidence on the success of reforms has major policy implications for government, systems, educators and communities.

With reforms already underway in NSW (and elsewhere), the need for a rigorous and robust evidence base, such as this scoping study, is timely and significant.

The year 2000 computer date problem, although identified since the 1960s, has been sensationalized, commercialized, but not yet universally resolved. Although estimates for correcting the problem hover around $600 billion in direct conversion costs, there is also an additional $1 trillion in expected litigation costs. While the technical problem of correcting the two‐digit year field sequence in computer programs to a four‐digit year representation is regarded as trivial and tedious, the more important challenges for today’s managers focus on making the date conversion while maintaining a solid bottom line and dealing with the associated communication and legal issues. This problem has finally been recognized as one with organizational strategic concerns and implications far beyond the domain of the IS department.

Develops an orientation system for measuring customer satisfaction. Reveals dimensions of satisfaction experienced by retailers, taking account of the relevant literature, empirical studies on the satisfaction of retail organizations with their suppliers and the results of discussion with experts. Confirms that these are verified according to empirical criteria and quantified in respect of their contribution to delivering satisfaction to retailers. Identifies approaches on which to base activities, allowing suppliers of branded articles to give their customers greater customer satisfaction.

At the passing of the Fair Trading Act, 1973, and the setting up of a Consumer Protection Service with an Office of Fair Trading under a Director‐General, few could have visualized this comprehensive machinery devised to protect the mainly economic interests of consumers could be used to further the efforts of local enforcement officers and authorities in the field of purity and quality control of food and of food hygiene in particular. This, however, is precisely the effect of a recent initiative under Sect. 34 of the Act, reported elsewhere in the BFJ, taken by the Director‐General in securing from a company operating a large group of restaurants a written undertaking, as prescribed by the Section, that it would improve its standards of hygiene; the company had ten convictions for hygiene contraventions over a period of six years.

This paper aims to examine relationships between vision realization factors (vision communication, motivation and empowerment of employees), employee satisfaction, and affective organizational commitment in a state‐owned energy provider in Thailand.

Subjects are drawn randomly from employees working at the Thai state‐owned energy provider who completed a questionnaire made up of valid and reliable instruments that measure each of the variables studied. Hypotheses are tested through a series of regression analyses.

Findings indicate that vision communication, motivation and empowerment of employees, and follower affective organizational commitment are three direct predictors of enhanced employee satisfaction. Empowerment of employees and employee satisfaction are two direct predictors of employee affective organizational commitment. These findings indicate a reciprocal relationship between employee satisfaction and affective organizational commitment, with a stronger effect from employee satisfaction on affective organizational commitment than the reverse.

How supervisors empower and motivate their subordinates in the Thai state‐owned energy provider still needs a further investigation. The relationship between employee satisfaction and affective organizational commitment needs to be re‐examined by future research, using a different research design and statistical technique.

Leaders at all levels of the state‐owned energy provider should frequently communicate their vision to, motivate and empower their subordinates to enhance subordinate satisfaction and affective commitment.

The body of knowledge about vision‐based leadership in an Asian state‐owned energy provider is scanty. The present study contributes to this area.

This paper examines the impact and effects of site‐based management on schools using a framework developed by Canadian researchers, Sackney and Dibski. It draws on research literature from the UK, New Zealand and Australia and includes results from three studies in which the author has been engaged. The Sackney and Dibski framework is used to lay seven “charges” against site‐based management – that site‐based management leads to greater decision‐making flexibility, changes the work role and increases the workload of principals, improves student learning outcomes, increases innovation, increases competition, results in reduced funding and affects the standing of the public education system. The analysis of the literature selected suggests that site‐based management is guilty of some and not of others.