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This chapter will consider the media and white western society’s use of various ‘othering’ terms at the personal, social and political levels to misconstrue and inaccurately describe Islam and events and actions involving Muslim people. A psychological analysis of the personal and social impact on the misuse of ‘othering’ terminology will be undertaken to explore how British African-Caribbean converts to Islam, as a group, may find themselves antagonised and alienated by descriptions made about Islamic groups and behaviours misapplied and associated to Islamic religious and cultural practices. The chapter will consider how this antagonism may lead to alienation which, in turn may result in behaviours perceived to come about as a result of radicalisation. The chapter will consider whether British African-Caribbean converts to Islam are responding in a way which is the result of a process of ‘radicalisation’ or more reacting to antagonism and alienation affecting poor mental health due to negative media and dominant social group portrayal of black people. A critique of the media portrayal in depicting Muslims and Islam as ‘the other’ rather than depicting terrorist activity and terrorist groups as anti-Islamic, separate and distinct from Islam will be considered. Missed opportunities for critical review of inaccurate and racist terminology and its potential impact on British African-Caribbean converts to Islam will be explored.

Strategies for decreasing antagonism, alienation and violence through the review of terminology and social reclaiming will be suggested. The process of ethnic identity development and an evolving British Muslim identity will also be considered and how understanding and knowledge of this minority ethnic group identity process can be used to reduce the process of antagonism, alienation and violence. Psychological theories of minority group ethnic identity development will be explored and applied to the development of an alienated psychology of British African-Caribbean converts to Islam. Minority group identity theories relevance for individual and group intervention with alienated British African-Caribbean converts to Islam will be discussed in terms of the building and maintenance of a positive sense of self and affirmation to one’s religious group membership. Affirmation of ethnicity membership is proposed as a more active activity among groups who face greater discrimination as a means of maintaining self-esteem and group cohesion and connectedness.

An increasingly utilized framework for implementing the continuous improvement management philosophy is the Theory of Constraints (TOC). Although this systemic managerial approach was initially developed and applied in the manufacturing sector, its underlying philosophy has been expanded to address three basic questions: What to change?; What to change to?; and How to cause the change? Demonstrates how a manager could apply the TOC thinking process (TP) logic tools to answer the first two questions for a small service organization. In regard to the first query, uses a relatively new procedure called the “three‐cloud approach” to determine the core problem or root cause responsible for the majority of the problems currently faced by management. By using this approach, a manager creates a current reality tree (CRT) that uses sufficiency logic to document the cause‐effect relationships responsible for a system’s current state. In regard to the second query, develops another TOC logic tool, a future reality tree (FRT), to help construct and evaluate planned interventions for resolving the core conflict and improving effectiveness. Draws conclusions relative to the feasibility and utility of using TOC TP logic tools to help managers of service organizations improve their overall system performance.

This paper describes and illustrates the application of a relatively new approach to assessing the operations management aspects of providing customer service. It presents the results of a customer‐based assessment, the walk‐through audit (WTA), administered on new clients at a recently established law firm. Although the clients rated their services above satisfactory in general, relatively poor performance was noted in four areas. While using the same evaluation instrument, the firm’s senior partners identified a set of like deficiencies, yet consistently ranked the firm’s performance higher than did their clients. Next, the WTA was administered to small samples of new clients at four of Hong Kong’s most highly‐respected and well‐established law firms. Although the benchmarked firms’ received higher ratings for all audited areas, the ratings were statistically significantly higher (p < 0.01) in the four areas of concern. The benchmark results were successful in attracting the attention of the study firm’s partners who agreed that corrective action needed to be initiated relative to the four problem areas.

The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive descriptive analysis of the sequential application of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) five‐step focusing process in improving the effectiveness of a service process that was limiting the performance of the entire service system.

The five‐step approach is schematically presented with each step being described and evaluated relative to its role in effective constraint management. A detailed example provides additional insights and nuances into its use in managing the constraint within a banking organization's subsystem, namely, the loan application and approval process. This hypothetical, realistic, and comprehensive illustration iterates through several cycles of the five‐step focusing process to demonstrate how managers are able to address different types of constraints.

The paper provides a detailed description on how each of the five‐steps can be used to improve the organization's performance relative to its stated goal by focusing management's attention on the system's (or an aligned subsystem's) leverage or control point. Major types of constraints include physical or capacity limitations and restrictive policies. Constraints may be located either internal or external to the process or system being managed.

Various managerial implications are discussed including: the relevance and utility of applying the TOC five‐step focusing process in services; advantages associated with utilizing this structured approach for continuous improvement in services; and some strategic issues associated with the placement of the ubiquitous system constraint.

Although the successful application of the five‐step focusing process has been well documented in improving manufacturing processes, this paper provides an illustrative tutorial which details its application in effectively managing a service process.

Traditionally, terrorism risk has been priced based exclusively on the relationship between supply and demand in the insurance market, with no basis in actuarial principles. This article discusses how the tragic events of September 11, 2001, have irrevocably changed the market for terrorism insurance, since terrorism has become a U.S. catastrophe risk. The author states that since insurers seek to quantify risk distributed over several months (versus a period of only a few days), quantitative assessment of terrorism risk may be achievable. The article proceeds to address the challenge of quantifying terrorism risk, and ultimately suggests that developing quantitative terrorism risk models may provide a foundation for securitizing and trading terrorism risk. The author introduces three examples of potential alternative risk transfer instruments for terrorism risk: 1) a catastrophe bond triggered by workers' compensation claims from extreme terrorism‐related events; 2) a catastrophe bond to cover life insurers from losses related to an attack employing a weapon of mass destruction; and 3) a contingent financing instrument triggered by a terrorism event whose natural buyers are financial short‐sellers.

Thomas Reid (1710–1796) was the originator of the Scottish philosophy of common sense, an approach that claims reality is objective and knowable, made up of material objects, and understandable by ordinary men. Common sense philosophy developed in opposition to the pervasive skepticism of the period, best exemplified by David Hume. A professor of philosophy at King’s College, Aberdeen, Reid was chosen to be the successor to Adam Smith as the chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. From that position, Reid played an important role in the Scottish Enlightenment as professor, scholar, and correspondent. While Reid was not an economist, he did write on important theoretical and philosophical issues in moral philosophy, the natural sciences and mathematics. Reid may prove additionally interesting to economists for his insightful critique of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments.

Discusses British Rail’s (BR’s) organizational transformation during the 1980s and in particular the position of R.B. Reid, chairman of the British Railways Board (BRB) during that period. As a career railwayman, Reid was an atypical choice to chair the BRB. Considers how Reid brought his professional knowledge and experience to bear in carrying through arguably one of the most fundamental processes of change and organizational development that BR has experienced in the past 40 years.

The UK has in recent years seen considerable growth of facilities management (FM) outsourcing across a range of industries. This paper considers the legal problems and risks inherent in FM outsourcing. It also suggests ways to facilitate the transactional negotiating process and discusses the methods by which business and legal risks can be fairly apportioned (between the user and the provider), how to ensure good contract management and, importantly, managing risks on contract termination and exit. The paper is relevant to both users and providers in terms of best negotiating practice and risk management. From a legal perspective, both the UK (and the European Union) are more highly regulated jurisdictions for FM deals than are the US and Canadian markets, and this paper focuses on UK (and European) issues. Cross‐border legal issues are also considered.

This article provides a review and conceptual comparison between self‐report and performance‐based measures of emotional intelligence. Analyses of reliability, psychometric properties, and various forms of validity lead to the conclusion that self‐report techniques measure a dispositional construct, that may have some predictive validity, but which is highly correlated with personality and independent of intelligence. Although seemingly more valid, performance‐based measures have certain limitations, especially when scored with reference to consensual norms, which leads to problems of skew and restriction of range. Scaling procedures may partially ameliorate these scoring weaknesses. Alternative approaches to scoring, such as expert judgement, also suffer problems since the nature of the requisite expertise is unclear. Use of experimental paradigms for studying individual differences in information‐processing may, however, inform expertise. Other difficulties for performance‐based measures include limited predictive and operational validity, restricting practical utility in organizational settings. Further research appears necessary before tests of E1 are suitable for making real‐life decisions about individuals.