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This paper aims to investigate how mobile phones can be used to support women’s entrepreneurship in Arab countries. The objective is to explore new ways to close the gender gaps in terms of entrepreneurship in these countries.

The methodology used in this research is an in-depth analysis of the existing literature and recent reports on women’s entrepreneurship and on the adoption and use of mobile phones in Arab countries.

The findings of this research indicate that female Arab entrepreneurs are interested in using mobile phones. However, they have not yet realised the full potential of mobile technology in empowering them beyond its basic use. Several challenges facing women entrepreneurship in the Arab countries were identified. Mobile phones can be used to overcome these challenges.

This research is based on the collection and analysis of secondary data rather than primary data to support the findings.

There is a need for collaboration between telecommunication companies operating in the Arab region and government initiatives to build a solid environment in which female Arab entrepreneurs can operate.

This research provides new insights and recommendations for reducing the gender gaps in terms of entrepreneurship by using new and improved techniques to address women’s needs for economic independence. This will also increase the profit gained by the telecommunication companies operating in Arab countries and bring additional income to this region.

The alternative to using source lines of code (SLOC) for costing software projects is to use function points. Functional point analysis (FPA), which was first introduced in 1979, has now been widely accepted as the industry standard for estimating software size and costs. International standard bodies like the International Function Point Users’ Group (IFPUG) has been maintaining a repository of data based on projects that were drawn from 14 countries in North America, Europe and Asia/Australasia. This paper presents the results of the analysis that was performed on these data together with recommendations such as benchmarks for software projects. Project measures such as functional size, work effort, project delivery rate, speed of delivery and project duration were analysed using the statistical package, Systat. Apart from project duration, all distributions were log‐normal, thus suggesting that the results can be used for software benchmarking. Regression analysis on the data further identified correlation of functional size with other project measures that can be used as a basis for planning and estimating software projects. Further work on the repository involves other project measures such as team size and software defects.

This study provides further insight into the experiences of five men who have committed sexual offences, with intellectual disabilities and have been recalled back to prison. The purpose of this paper is to increase professional knowledge to assist with improving working practices that support the reintegration of individuals convicted of sexual offences and with intellectual disabilities, back into the community.

Interview data was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis, to identify the key issues associated with criminal justice services.

The following superordinate themes were identified: “The label that sticks” and “Probation officer dependency”.

The key implications of the findings were the high level of dependency individuals had on their probation officers and the impact that this relationship had on the overall experience of recall. The stigma of the label “sex offender” was also found to have a profound impact on individuals’ feelings of safety and their future progression.

Research exploring the experiences of individuals convicted for sexual offences and with intellectual disabilities, being recalled back to prison, is limited. Future recommendations of how practice could be improved to better support responsivity needs of this group and to create a more positive self-identity are discussed.

Despite the focal position of school principals in Australian education, there exist hardly any data on the work that they actually do. This study reports on continuous observations — for three weeks each — of the principals of a State High School, an Independent College and a Catholic College in Melbourne. The variables of their work during the school day were recorded by the researcher, who attempted non‐participant observation, and the principals kept a diary of their “after‐hours” work. The content and characteristics of their work are described with the Findings expressed in a set of propositions about the principalship.

Economists have, in the last 20 years, made many contributions to the study of the deterrent effect of sanctions on criminals — these are surveyed in Brief & Fienberg (1980), Blumstein & Cohen (1978), Tullock (1974), Palmer (1977) and Taylor (1978). A considerable amount of the empirical work has dealt with crime supply functions for specific types of crime. Surprisingly little attention has been given to the switching of criminals between crimes in response to differentials in deterrence. Only three empirical studies of this phenomenon have appeared: Heineke (1978), Holtmann & Yap (1978), Hakim et al. (1984). All of these use cross‐section US data for property crimes. Their findings are thus somewhat tentative given that they may not hold up in other national contexts. This paper seeks to remedy this gap by studying substitution behaviour for burglary, robbery and theft using 1981 data for the police force areas of England and Wales. We compare our results with those of American researchers and also examine the impact of substitution on the broad conclusions of the conventional non‐substitution model.

Rob Knowles has been appointed Technical Service Specialist by Metech‐Ronal to support the company's rapidly expanding Thick Film Materials business throughout Europe.

This article is based on a review of reported studies of joint commissioning in practice, which are surprisingly few in number. It concludes that there is little solid evidence that the process leads to benefits for service users, but there is evidence of its resulting in improved inter‐agency working. A second article in a subsequent issue of this journal will go on to consider whether the new partnership flexibilities offer the potential to learn from this evidence.

Trades Unions are shedding their cloth cap image at the negotiating table for one of well‐briefed tough talkers. Behind this new force are growing ranks of university‐educated research assistants in the trades unions' headquarters. David Grayston reports.