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The purpose of this article is to explain why whistleblowing is important and to examine the recent empirical research relating to such confidential reporting/whistleblowing procedures in the UK.

This article refers to the 1999 IRS Employment Trends/Public Concern at Work survey of public and private sector organisations, together with the work conducted in local government, further and higher education, schools and National Health Service (NHS) Trusts by researchers at Middlesex University between 2000 and 2003.

The article establishes the prevalence of whistleblowing procedures, why they were introduced and the extent of trade union involvement. It identifies who can use these procedures, the types of concern that can be raised and who investigates them. Other issues discussed include: the need for confidentiality; the problems of reprisal and malicious allegations; the availability of advice and assistance and the existence of feedback. The article also describes how information about whistleblowing procedures is disseminated, who has overall responsibility for such a procedure within organisations and the extent of monitoring and review.

Overall the article suggests that public sector organisations have responded positively to the pressures to introduce whistleblowing procedures. Further empirical work needs to be carried out in order to ascertain the extent to which private sector bodies have introduced such procedures.

This article presents research findings about whistleblowing procedures with observations about good practice and recommendations for the future.

Coding clinical work should allow accurate and precise methods of assessing individual or department activity. The NHS financial reforms have increased correct diagnostic coding importance by introducing “payment by results” so that funding is directly linked to patient activity. The aim of this study is to assess the accuracy of procedure codes (OPCS 4.4), and its effect on Healthcare Resource Group tariff codes that directly affect revenue.

A total of ten procedures from ten consultants were randomly selected over one month. Each consultant coded his or her own procedures. From these codes, Healthcare Resource Group tariff codes were assigned to each patient. These were compared with procedure and Healthcare Resource Group tariff codes generated by coding department staff.

Of 100 procedures, four were un‐coded by coding department staff. There was concordance in 35 per cent of cases. Coders only gave one code for each procedure, whereas 35 per cent of procedures coded by consultants were assigned multiple codes. This resulted in 27 per cent of cases generating a different Healthcare Resource Group tariff code. Of the cases, five resulted in a difference of £4,000 or more; however, the overall difference was a £3,367 revenue loss if coder's codes were used.

Study numbers were limited to 100 with five cases showing excessive financial gain or loss significantly influencing the overall result.

Present procedure coding practice is inaccurate and results in Healthcare Resource Group tariff codes that do not accurately represent clinical activity and productivity. Under payment by results, this can result in a significant revenue loss and possibly ultimately future referrals. Therefore, coding practice needs to be improved as a matter of urgency. Arguably, this could be achieved by closer communication between coders and clinicians.

The paper identifies a flaw in the way clinical activity and productivity is assessed at present. This is fundamental to the process on which “payment by results” is based, and therefore must be addressed if trusts are to be financially successful.

Describes the writer′s experiences as “author” of a procedures manual for a large contract cleaning company. The senior managers were anxious to take control over what they saw as an unwieldy organization with unclear procedures that badly needed streamlining. The manual reflected senior managers′ need to set up an illusion of control over the organization; in its production process and in its style, it suggested both that a coolly analytical, rational and logical approach was being taken to organizational description and rationalization, and that it was morally right to follow the procedures described. Yet in fulfilling senior managers′ requirements, the manual did not reflect the mess of organizational procedures, and its smooth, “seamless” descriptions implied that employees had nothing original to add to organizational procedures. Concludes that procedures manuals might be seen as inimical to individuality, as a force for control by senior management, and as a means of inhibiting employee creativity.

The main work in this paper covers a methodology, tools and implementation techniques for automation of supplier selection procedures as an e‐commerce application. The work could be divided into two main parts. First, the development of a modeling methodology which can be used for automation of supplier selection procedures. By this modeling methodology, supplier selection procedures are divided into pre‐selection, selection and the post‐selection procedures. The selection procedure is further divided into the following stages: bidder selection, partner selection, and performance evaluation. The second part is about realization of automation. Three modules for automation are identified; they are the data collection system for bidder selection stage, the inference engine for partner selection stage, and the performance evaluation engine for the performance evaluation stage.

Procuring relief products and services is a challenging process for humanitarian organizations (HOs), yet it accounts for approximately 65% of relief operations’ costs (Moshtari et al., 2021). This paper aims to examine how procurement internal controls, materials and purchasing procedure standardization influence information integration and procurement performance.

In this study, partial least square structural equation models and multigroup analysis were used to analyze data collected from 170 HOs.

Procurement internal controls and material and purchasing procedure standardization fully mediate between information integration and procurement performance.

The study focuses only on HOs. Since humanitarian procurement projects take place over a period of several years, it is difficult to capture the long-term effects of information integration, procurement internal controls, material and purchasing procedure standardization and procurement performance. In this regard, a longitudinal study could be undertaken, provided that the required resources are available.

Procurement managers should implement information integration practices within acceptable procurement internal controls and standardize material and purchasing procedures to boost procurement performance.

By integrating information through procurement internal controls and standardizing material and purchasing procedures, procurement performance in a humanitarian setting can be systematically optimized.

Existing conceptual, empirical and case studies evidence suggests that manufacturing industries find the joint implementation of Kaizen philosophy initiatives. However, the existing practices rarely demonstrated in a single framework and implementation procedure in a structure nature. This paper, therefore, aims to develop, validate and practically test a framework and implementation procedure for the implementation of integrated Kaizen in manufacturing industries to attain long-term improvement of operational, innovation, business (financial and marketing) processes, performance and competitiveness.

The study primarily described the problem, extensively reviewed the current state-of-the-art literature and then identified a gap. Based on it, generic and comprehensive integrated framework and implementation procedure is developed. Besides, the study used managers, consultants and academics from various fields to validate a framework and implementation procedure for addressing business concerns. In this case, the primary data was collected through self-administered questionnaire, and 244 valid questionnaires were received and were analyzed. Furthermore, the research verified the practicability of the framework by empirically exploring the current scenario of selected manufacturing companies.

The research discovered innovative framework and six-phase implementation procedure to fill the existing conceptual gap. Furthermore, the survey-based and exploratory empirical analysis of the research demonstrated that the practice of the proposed framework based on structured procedure is valued and companies attain the middling improvements of productivity, delivery time, quality, 5S practice, waste and accident rate by 61.03, 44, 52.53, 95.19, 80.12, and 70.55% respectively. Additionally, the companies saved a total of 14933446 ETH Birr and 5,658 M² free spaces. Even though, the practices and improvements vary from company to company, and even companies unable to practice some of the unique techniques of the identified CI initiatives considered in the proposed framework.

All data collected in the survey came from professionals working for Ethiopian manufacturing companies, universities and government. It is important to highlight that n = 244 is high sample size, which is adequate for a preliminary survey but reinforcing still needs further survey in terms of generalization of the results since there are hundreds of manufacturing companies, consultants and academicians implementing and consulting Kaizen. Therefore, a further study on a wider Ethiopian manufacturing companies, consultants and academic scale would be informative.

This work is very important for Kaizen professionals in the manufacturing industry, academic and government but in particular for senior management and leadership teams. Aside from the main findings on framework development, there is some strong evidence that practice of Kaizen resulted in achieving quantitative (monetary and non-monetary) and qualitative results. Thus, senior management teams should use this research out to practice and analyze the effect of Kaizen on their own organizations. Within the academic community, this study is one of the first focusing on development, validating and practically testing and should aid further study, research and understanding of Kaizen in manufacturing industries.

So far, it is rare to find preceding studies proposed, validated and practically test an integrated Kaizen framework with the context of manufacturing industries. Thus, authors understand that this is the very first research focused on the development of the framework for manufacturing industries continuously to be competitive and could help managers, institutions, practitioners and academicians in Kaizen practice.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision model for choosing the tendering procedure in PPP that minimizes the transaction costs borne by the public sector.

A conceptual model that relates the procurement procedures described in the EU legal framework to launch PPPs and the transaction costs, considering the level of information managed by each procurement procedure has been developed. The authors use this conceptual model to develop propositions about the impact that specific project- and country-related factors have on the choice of the procurement procedure that minimizes the transaction costs.

The application of the proposed model to the case of the Italian highway “Cispadana” shows its usefulness in orienting the public authority’s choice between the different tendering procedures, taking into account project- and country-related factors.

The present study fills the gap existing in the literature on transaction costs of PPP projects and the procurement procedure used to launch those projects by developing a model that relates the level of transaction costs with a set of key factors, namely the level of information managed during the tendering process, the number of bidders, the project size, the project complexity, and the institutional environment.

As for practitioners, the main contribution of this study lies in offering a tool for supporting the public authority in the decision-making process about the tendering procedures in PPPs without imposing the selection of a specific procedure.

The approach developed provides a new tool to support the contracting authority in the design and choice of the tendering procedures in PPP.

Since their creation through the Industrial Training Act 1964 to hear appeals against levies, the jurisdiction of industrial tribunals has grown considerably. One aspect of this jurisdiction, unfair dismissal, is examined here. Basic principles related to the law of unfair dismissal are examined. The practice and procedure of an industrial tribunal solely in connection with unfair dismissal cases are examined in greater detail. A case study is used to illustrate the important aspects of procedure. Appendices give relevant forms and extracts from the appropriate Code of Practice.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

Markets for public contracting are in the process of transition. Various public/private partnership arrangements replace conventional purchasing, especially within the local and regional government area. Municipal entities may not be in a position to define their needs up-front because they would not have the overview of what the market may have to offer. So one should ask: Is the traditional ban-on-negotiations in mandatory tender procedures (sealed bidding) - such as it is in EU public procurement law - counter-effective to genuine best value for public money? The article displays significant differences between European Union (EU) law, U.S. law and other regimes such as United Nations Model law, The World Trade Organisation’s Government Procurement Agreement (WTO/GPA), The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), and the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). New avenues for public/private demand a new agenda and the recent EU 2004 directive scheme attempts to respond to the market challenges. The author accepts that the new directive on public contracting facilitates a more smooth approach than in current EU law with regard to high-tech complicated contract awards, but questions whether the ’competitive dialogue’ really can afford tailor-made solutions to cope with long-term public/private partnership arrangements of the kind now spreading all over Europe