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Describes a research project carried out within the Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) to evaluate and improve the recycling and disposal of pharmaceutical products. Discusses supply chain management practices in the National Health Service and, in particular, focuses on the concept of reverse logistics (the recycling of pharmaceutical stock for later re‐use). The research involved the analysis of returned stock from 28 hospital units and, from this data, the development and implementation of a revised recycling process within MRI Pharmacy. Concludes by arguing that there are significant financial and operational advantages to the NHS, and other organisations, in developing effective reverse logistics processes.

A balanced scorecard (BSC) is an applied tool for implementing strategic management in various organizations. Implementing strategic management using the BSC approach has not received much attention in pharmacy departments. This study aims to provide a model for the strategic management of pharmacy departments using the BSC framework.

This experimental study was conducted from 2015 to 2018 in a 300-bed hospital and regional healthcare centers affiliated with the Petroleum Industry Health Organization in Tehran province, Iran. After carefully reviewing the organization's mission and vision, the strategic objectives were determined via the internal matrix and the external matrix (IE matrix), and the strengths–weaknesses–opportunities–threats matrix (SWOT matrix) were examined. Then, six BSC measures and interventions were identified, and each was examined from the perspectives of finance, patient satisfaction, internal processes and learning/growth. Finally, the proposed strategy was evaluated.

Results showed significant increases in patient satisfaction and gross profit. The observed increase range, from 0.09 to 0.29, indicates more effective operational management for optimal resource utilization. In addition, the pharmacy department was able to save US $539,137 by implementing prepared protocols for expensive medications. Similarly, the pharmacy department saved $442,899 during the two years of our strategic management plan by implementing the standard mechanism for returning unused medications to the pharmacy department after patients were discharged from various treatment units.

This study is among the first studies to demonstrate the simultaneous development, implementation and evaluation of the proposed strategy using the BSC in a pharmacy department in a public healthcare center. The BSC application improved the optimal use of resources and reduced costs while increasing patient satisfaction. It appears that the application of such an intervention may be as valuable to public pharmacies as it is to other private centers.

Culture is an overarching phenomenon that helps individuals make sense of their world. However, culture is not an unchanging “given.” Members of a society actively create culture and, through their activities and interactions, sustain or change this culture. In an organizational setting, culture gives meaning to each person’s membership in the social stage that is the workplace. In the process of cultural creation and sustenance, the past is often used as a harbinger of things to come. How an organization effectively uses the past to shape its present culture is a major focus of this study. This article is an ethnographic study of how culture is fabricated, sustained, and renewed in a small advertising firm. The authors propose three interpretive themes – nightmare avoidance, “Richardism,” and dream building – and develop these into a framework using Drucker’s three entrepreneurial strategies. A fourth strategy, creative divergence, emerges from our in‐depth analysis of EMC.

Sets out to examine earned value management (EVM), a project management technique that relates resource planning to schedules, technical costs and schedule requirements.

Provides an example of how EVM can be implemented in a data warehouse project and how it can be used as a tool to diagnose and solve problems.

EVM is based on the belief that the value of the project increases as tasks are completed and therefore the earned value of a project is a measure of the real progress of that project.

Offers a significant analysis of EVM, its benefits and pitfalls.

Examines the reasons for the rapid success of Saturn cars. The president of the Corporation, Richard Le Fauve, gave some answers in an interview with Richard Whiteley. Success is based on customer enthusiasm – involving customers in designing cars, changing retailing methods, actually listening to customers, etc. Other factors are making suppliers responsible and effective teamwork. Concludes with brief comment on the desired future of the company.

Strong versions of the Precautionary Principle (PP) require regulators to prohibit or impose technology controls on activities that pose uncertain risks of possibly significant environmental harm. This decision rule is conceptually unsound and would diminish social welfare. Uncertainty as such does not justify regulatory precaution. While they should reject PP, regulators should take appropriate account of societal aversion to risks of large harm and the value of obtaining additional information before allowing environmentally risky activities to proceed.

Interactive media strategies and digital tools have enabled advertisers to target children with promotional offers and creative appeals.

Based on theories related to metaphors in advertisements, cognitive comprehension by children, promotional appeals, and presentation techniques, the research for this study comprised a content analysis of 1,980 online banner advertisements with reference to use of metaphors, promotional appeals, creative content, and selling techniques.

The research study concludes that online advertising to children, in contrast to traditional advertising vehicles, is characterized by (a) a vibrant visual metaphor, (b) surfeit of animated content, (c) interactive features, (d) myriad product types, and (e) creative content for a mixed audience of adults and children.

This study argues that the impact and content of the Internet as a new advertising medium are distinctly different from traditional characteristics of television and print.

This chapter examines the selling practices of street vendors at a popular weekend market in Washington, DC. I discuss the role of social and moral norms in vendors' behavior toward one another, customers, and their work. Vendor success in this marketplace over the long term is influenced not only by their products and sales skills, but also by their understanding and acceptance of an ethical framework partly shaped by stories they tell about each other. As such, this study illustrates the embedded nature of sellers in marketplaces, as opposed to theoretical notions of how abstract individuals are supposed to act in a decontextualized “market.” Furthermore, stories that arise from encounters between vendors and customers add value to the products people buy. Objects in this marketplace, then, gain value not only through the interaction of supply and demand, but also through buyer and seller interaction, which provides a narrative base for future communication.