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Recent years have seen an increasing reliance on social support at home for people with dementia and the advocacy of a person centred and integrated approach in its provision. However, little is known about the effective ingredients of this support and how they differ from more generic or health-based services. The purpose of this paper is to explore the existing evidence base.

A review of relevant literature was carried out, combining a systematic search and selection of articles with a narrative analysis.

The review identified 14 relevant studies of varying research designs which yielded conflicting findings with regard to the optimal timing of interventions and their overall impact. This highlights the problems of review and generalisability when attempting to compare findings of research in this area. This was exacerbated by the blurred divide between health and social care and ambiguities in the meaning of the latter.

This methodological heterogeneity demonstrates the need for consistency in research approaches if comparisons are to be made. Further questions include the precise components that distinguish social care from health care, the optimal timing for the introduction of this care and whether adherence to good practice in this area can be linked to cost effectiveness.

The review identifies relevant issues in need of further investigation and tentative themes emerging from the literature which suggest the utility of an adequately resourced, integrated and responsive approach to intervention.

This paper considers the principles underpinning the proposals for a comparative information scheme for personal financial services products. In October 1999 the Financial Services Authority (FSA) issued Consultation Paper 28: ‘Comparative Information for Financial Services’ which outlines the preliminary work carried out by the FSA and its consultants in this area. The scheme has some similarities to the league tables found in the education sector and it is likely that, if implemented, the proposed scheme will become known as the ‘Finan‐cial Services League Tables’. The consultation paper identifies specific outcomes which the FSA states are its policy objectives in this area. These objectives are in the areas of consumer knowledge and competition. This paper considers the rationale for the proposed scheme and looks at its potential benefits and problems. To do this it draws on both the FSA's Consultation Paper and the established body of research int the effectiveness of performance measurement and league tables. The paper considers the issue that in order to be worthwhile a performance measurement system must generate a net benefit. Specifically, the costs of setting up and maintaining the system plus the imperfections in the information generated by the system must be outweighed by the value of the information to its users. The costs of setting up and administering a system for financial services league tables can be quantified. The potential both for imperfections in the information generated and in the way in which that information is used are not so easily quantified, however, and require careful analysis. This paper concentrates on providing analysis of these potential imperfections. It concludes by discussing whether these potential problem areas are of sufficient significance to undermine the purpose and value of the proposed league table scheme.

This paper examines the potential effects of the Internet and e‐commerce on money laundering activity. Money laundering is a continuing problem both for regulators who are seeking to maintain trust and confidence in the financial system and the investigating authorities who are charged with enforcing the law. There have been a number of developments in recent years both in the detailed regulations and the laws designed to prevent and deter money laundering. There has been an ongoing battle of ideas and innovation between money launderers and the regulators and investigating authorities. To date the authorities have been able to keep up with developments by developing and refining the regulations. With the emergence of the Internet and e‐commerce, however, new opportunities and techniques will be opened up to money launderers. This will present a whole new set of challenges and problems to the authorities. This paper considers these challenges and problems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of the standardisation of two largely overlapping electronic document formats between 2005 and 2008, and its implications for future IT standards development.

The document format controversy is researched as an exemplary case study of the institutional rivalries, perspectives and strategic interests at play in standardisation processes. The study adopts a methodological lens of discursive institutionalism in order to explain how actors assume and perform a variety of roles during the controversy. It consults a range of documentary sources, including media commentary, corporate press releases and blog posts, financial reports and technical specifications.

The study shows that: first, intentions to increase competition in the office software market through the standardisation of document formats led to a standards “arms race”; second, this further entrenched the position of a single market actor; and third, the resulting public debate nevertheless has reinvigorated the push for genuinely open standards.

Information technology standards are often touted as mechanisms for increasing the competitiveness of a market, thereby benefitting consumers and the greater public. In the presence of dominant institutional actors, efforts to standardise can, perversely, undermine this benefit. Increased public scrutiny through online media offers a potential remedy.

This research presents a novel account of the controversy over the document format standardisation process, understood through the lens of discursive institutionalism. It also shows the increasing and potentially putative role of online media in the development of IT standards generally.

In this paper we present a corporate information system for untrained users to search gigabytes of unformatted data using quasi‐natural language and relevance feedback queries. The data can reside on distributed servers anywhere on a wide area network, giving the users access to personal, corporate, and published information from a single interface. Effective queries can be turned into profiles, allowing the system to automatically alert the user when new data are available. The system was tested by twenty executive users located in six cities. Our primary goal in building the system was to determine if the technology and infrastructure existed to make end‐user searching of unstructured information profitable. We found that effective search and user interface technologies for end‐users are available, but network technologies are still a limiting cost factor. As a result of the experiment, we are continuing the development of the system. This article will describe the overall system architecture, the implemented subset, and the lessons learned.

Investigates three aspects of human resource management facing future challenges, personnel, technology and globalization. Suggests that the human resource professionals in a successful business must be able to attract and retain individuals who have the ability to manage a globally responsive business. Covers the use of technology for competitive advantage; advocates global strategies in operations management and empowerment of the individual.

Modern supply chains have become increasingly vulnerable to disruptions, as evidenced by the recent COVID-19 crisis, the Suez Canal blockage and the war in Ukraine. The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of disruptions on organizations and their supply chains, and to examine which resilience principles and corresponding strategies were effective at maintaining and/or creating competitive advantage.

Anchored in contingent resource-based view theory and organizational information processing theory, the study uses an explanatory mixed-methods explanatory research design consisting of two surveys followed by semi-structured interviews to elaborate on the quantitative results.

The quantitative findings showed that data analytic capability combined with a data driven culture had a positive impact on competitive advantage through improved supply chain robustness. No similar effect for supply chain resilience on competitive advantage was found. This was explained by the qualitative findings which showed that insights enabled data analytic capability led to increased supply chain robustness by encouraging proactive measures such as safety stock and redundancies in the supply chain. However, supply chain resilience required these measures to be in place. Without them, supply chain managers were unable to act upon the insights enabled by visibility.

The empirical findings show that data analytic capability impacts supply chain robustness and resilience in different ways, especially in the context of unprecedented disruptions.