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The online distribution of prescription‐only pharmaceutical products raises serious legal and regulatory issues, including how governments, agencies, or organizations will regulate and monitor such activities, particularly when the distributors are offshore Web sites. This paper discusses the current regulatory environment for marketing prescription‐only drugs online and distributing them across national borders, along with product liability issues. Four hypothetical scenarios focus on key legal and regulatory issues.

Global e‐commerce, created by the convergence of information and communication technologies, transcends business boundaries while changing the landscape of the twenty‐first century global economy. Although still in an infancy stage its impact has already been colossal in just a few years. Various constituencies (such as individuals, institutions, governments, and nations) around the world are recognizing its benefits. Given its importance and unprecedented growth potential, there is a need for research addressing various e‐commerce issues, especially the dimensions influencing its growth and role as a new electronic distribution channel. This article provides a framework for analyzing the issues involved in leveraging the Internet as a global distribution tool. While focusing on this theme, the article also presents the discussion of the key building blocks impacting the diffusion of global e‐commerce and future research directions.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the driving forces, challenges benefits, barriers and strategies to decrease barriers to information and communication technologies (ICTs) adoption and assimilation by small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in this era of globalization.

The paper is based on a review of literature, both online and print.

The paper concludes that, ICTs adoption and assimilation in SMEs is critical to enhance their competitiveness. In addition, ICTs usage in SMEs will enhance accessibility into the international markets.

The major limitation of this paper is that it only reviews relevant literature and that empirical findings are not obtained to give an insight and holistic view of ICTs adoption and assimilation by SMEs.

Effective use of ICTs in SMEs has great impact on its competitiveness and sustainability. In addition, owners/owner managers, policy makers and other stakeholders would be in a position to understand the challenges faced by SMEs in ICTs adoption and come up with various interventions to assist SMEs.

Despite the challenges faced by SMEs on ICTs adoption, SMEs stand to benefit from adopting ICTs in their business processes especially in accessing international markets. SMEs play a great role in the economy and thus need special attention.

This paper aims to critically examine the notion of entrepreneurship in the UK National Health Service (NHS), promoted by government ministers and senior civil servants as part of the rhetoric of the modernisation agenda.

The paper explores literature on entrepreneurship in the private and public sector and qualitative case study evidence on the emergence (and non‐emergence) of “entrepreneurs” who led the improving working lives (IWL) initiative in the UK National Health Service and discusses the issues involved.

The rhetoric serves an essentially ideological function, obscuring the real difficulty of securing effective and sustainable change, in organisations with deeply engrained power structures and as complex and intransient as the NHS in particular and health services more generally.

A “new breed of entrepreneurial leaders” may eventually appear but they face the challenge of surviving in the hierarchical NHS culture and in a climate of turbulent change created by the volatility of government policy.

The paper shows that efforts to pursue entrepreneurship in the UK NHS have to overcome obstacles involving the interplay of power, gender and language.

Purpose – To provide teachers with an outline of characteristics typically associated with young adolescent students and the nature of effective teaching and learning opportunities appropriate at this distinct level of human growth and development.Design/methodology/approach – The chapter presents concepts associated with differentiated instruction and authentic learning activities; both are examined as central when exploring ways to close the learning gap between students of poverty and their more advantaged peers.Findings – The goals of establishing effective pedagogy and closing demographic achievement gaps based on test scores must be addressed in parallel since closing the latter without addressing the first does not produce lasting effects.Research limitations/implications – The authors present a sampling of researchers’ findings related to effective pedagogy for adolescent learners; these include conclusions on differentiated instruction, developmentally appropriate curriculum, technological literacy, inquiry, project-based, and expeditionary learning.Practical implications – Factors that make particular middle schools in a large urban area effective are examined as well as each school’s partnership connection with a college literacy program.Originality/value of chapter – Teachers’ adherence to research-tested methodologies appropriate for adolescent learners requires knowledge of valid, reliable sources, and successful models of implementation.

ALTHOUGH the first Public Libraries (Scotland) Act was placed on the Statute Book in 1853, it was not until 1899 that the Corporation of the City of Glasgow was empowered to establish and maintain public libraries throughout the city. Between 1876 and 1897 four attempts were made to secure public approval for the adoption of the Public Libraries (Scotland) Acts, but when all these efforts proved unsuccessful, the Corporation decided in June, 1888 to include in a Local Bill for submission to Parliament, certain clauses conferring upon themselves the power to become a library authority. Promoted in 1899, the Bill became known as the Glasgow Corporation (Tramways, Libraries, etc.) Act 1899, and the library clauses passed through Parliament without opposition and received Royal Assent on 1st August, 1899. The powers conferred by this Local Act empowered the Corporation:

The purpose of this article is to analyse the extent to which the CIPD's professional project can be successfully realised.

The study is based on a two‐fold literature review that analyses the professional project with reference to nascent professions. This review is then applied to the CIPD's qualification scheme through a documentary analysis of four key components of it.

Analysis suggests that whilst a high degree of professional closure has been achieved, the concomitant rise in professional and organisational status sought by the CIPD has not and is unlikely to do so in the future.

Whilst the arguments presented need further empirical study, our analysis suggests that the policy aims and initiatives advanced by the CIPD do not eradicate the tensions and ambiguities that have long characterised personnel roles.

This analysis questions whether the CIPD's professional standards are yielding the business skills and knowledge needed to be an effective business partner; seeing the advent of individual chartered status as an implicit recognition of the standards inadequacies in equipping its students appropriately.

The paper contributes to knowledge in two areas: firstly, the difficulties faced by emergent professions in a wider political economy that has witnessed the erosion of professional power. Secondly, that the ambiguities faced when managing people in a capitalist market economy will not be resolved by recourse to the unitarist and managerial approaches seen in the CIPD's professional programme.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution of the field of personality disorder since the publication of “Personality disorder: no longer a diagnosis of exclusion” in 2003.

A review of both the academic literature contained within relevant databases alongside manual searches of policy literature and guidance from the key stakeholders was undertaken.

The academic and policy literature concentrates on treating borderline and antisocial personality disorders. It seems unlikely that evidence will resolutely support any one treatment modality over another. Criticism has arisen that comparison between modalities misses inter and intra patient heterogeneity and the measurement of intervention has become conflated with overall service design and the need for robust care pathways. Apparent inconsistency in service availability remains, despite a wealth of evidence demonstrating the availability of cost-effective interventions and the significant inequality of social and health outcomes for this population.

The inclusion of heterogeneous sources required pragmatic compromises in methodological rigour.

This paper charts the recent developments in the field with a wealth of wide-ranging evidence and robust guidance from institutions such as NICE. The policy literature has supported the findings of this evidence but current clinical practice and what patients and carers can expect from services remains at odds. This paper lays bare the disparity between what we know and what is being delivered. The authors argue for the need for greater research into current practice to inform the setting of minimum standards for the treatment of personality disorder.