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Sema Group is investing in management development to manage rapid growth and continuous process improvements. In partnership with International Management Centres, it is creating an in‐company postgraduate diploma in quality management. Describes the course and what is to be achieved from it.

Discusses, in this special issue, material grouped under four main headings: tomorrow’s executive challenges; effective organizational learning; the virtual university model; and effective training capabilities. The items included are brief and to the point allowing the reader to take on board ranges of ideas and issues. Includes studies on IKEA; mentoring; Whitbread; Polaroid; BAA; Sema Group; Starbucks and McDonalds, among others.

This is the eleventh article on business and law (BSL) databases in a continuing series of articles summarizing and commenting on new database products. Two companion articles, one covering science, technology, and, medicine (STM) appeared in Online & CD‐ROM Review vol. 22, no. 2 and the other covering social science, humanities, news, and general (SSH) appears here in Online & CD‐ROM Review vol. 22, no. 3. The articles are based on the newly appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases. The Gale Directory of Databases (GDD) was created in January 1993 by merging Computer‐Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook (CRD)together with the Directory of Online Databases (DOD) and the Directory of Portable Databases (DPD).

Internet domain plans announced. The Internet's International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC), whose formation was reported on in our last issue, has announced its plan to increase the number of names that can be used to specify Internet locations and to introduce competition in the registration of Internet names.

Consultancy in the West is relatively big business. In 1991, the top 25 European consulting firms earned over £2,000 million. In 1992, income earned in the UK alone by the top 25 topped £1,000 million; and a surprisingly high number of consultancies were untouched by the recession. Some even increased their profitability — in some cases quite dramatically (Table 1).

The information technology industry is gradually coming to realize that it is not immune from the commercial pressures which, traditionally, have been the major drivers towards quality products and services. But the pressures differ from one type of operation to another, from one part of an organization to another and, certainly, from one country to another. Describes how these issues have been addressed, consolidated and internally marketed in order to maintain the momentum towards a quality culture.

Application Development for the Distributed Enterprise (ADDE) is a methodological set that supports design of distributed business processes and ICT systems. ADDE provides a guide, a repository and supporting software tools, an underlying meta‐model, based on UML, that may be used in developing further software tools, or adapting existing tools to work with the ADDE repository. The main principles that have driven the authors’ approach to distributed system design are presented. These principles are the focus on distribution issues, the separation of organisational and technical issues, the emphasis on the design process as a decision process, the notion of technological services and the method independence of the guidance. Following this, the guidance on the definition and planning of the application development will be introduced. A presentation of the guidance on distributed application design, as well as the concepts of macro and micro decisions follows. Finally, the future work of the ADDE project will be outlined.

This is the ninth article on business and law (BSL) databases in a continuing series of articles summarising and commenting on new database products. Two companion articles have appeared, one covering science, technology and medicine (STM) in Online & CDROM Review vol. 21, no. 1 and the other covering social science, humanities, news and general (SSH) in Online & CDROM Review vol. 21, no. 2. The articles are based on the newly appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases. The Gale Directory of Databases (GDD) was created in January 1993 by merging Computer‐Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook (CRD) together with the Directory of Online Databases (DOD) and the Directory of Portable Databases (DPD).

The present study reports demographic differences with respect to Swedish consumers’ attitudes towards organic foods (milk, meat, potatoes, bread), purchase frequency, purchase criteria, perceived availability, and beliefs about organic foods. A random nation‐wide sample of 2,000 respondents, aged 18‐65 years, were mailed a questionnaire and 1,154 (58 per cent) responded. The majority of consumers, and particularly women and young respondents (18‐25 years) reported positive attitudes, but purchase frequency was low. A total of 13 per cent stated that they regularly bought organic milk. Corresponding figures for organic meat, potatoes, and bread were 13, 16, and 8 per cent respectively. The most important purchase criterion was good taste, and the least important was “organically produced”. Approximately half of the respondents were satisfied with the availability of the organic foods. The organic foods were perceived to be more expensive and healthier than conventionally produced alternatives. A major obstacle to the purchase of organic foods was reported to be premium prices. The results suggest that the consumption will not increase as long as important purchase criteria and perceived beliefs about organic foods do not match.