Search results

Describes a piece of largely empirical research, aimed at helping fourth‐wave trust chief executives and chairs with the induction of their non‐executive directors. Four key messages emerge: (1) Clarify the role of the board and agree success criteria, (2) Maximize the role of the non‐executive, (3) Spend time building relationships between members, (4) Set aside time to review board performance against your own success criteria. Three induction challenges are posed as a result: (1) How to set the scene to provide an overview of both the structure policies and priorities of the NHS as a whole and also those affecting the trust, (2) How to organize the board in the most effective way, (3) How to ensure the non‐executive directors make an effective contribution to the work of the trust. The research has enabled practical support to be offered to fourth‐wave trusts with the induction of their non‐executive directors, based on the lessons learned by existing trusts.

The leading frameworks of internationalization have contributed significantly to our knowledge of how firms internationalize, but do not fully explain how firms actually create and capture value from customers when internationalizing their activities. Understanding the value creation and capture activities defining their business model(s) is critical for firms moving into less familiar markets, and is particularly relevant for service firms where variability is an inherent feature of the firm/client experience. To address this gap, we take a business model perspective to analyze 144 internationalization events of 10 professional service firms. We find that the case firms adopted four different business models when internationalizing, and that single firms may utilize portfolios of business models. Our findings contribute to both the services internationalization and business model literatures by showing how variability in the internationalization process substantiates the need for business model portfolios.

MR. ALBERT HILL has been fitter, shop steward, foreman and works manager. He is now managing director of the Yorkshire engineering group which proposes to negotiate a ‘job for life’ agreement with its workers. In a recent address to the Institution of Works Managers he commented on the views of an American consultant which we quoted on this page last month.

I was surprised and delighted to be asked to write the final chapter of a book on groups. I certainly thought of myself as a “groups person,” but I was never quite sure that anyone else did. My research image is much more tied to organization theory and strategy. But the reality is that much of my work – from strategic decision making and product development to acquisitions and cross-business synergies – often does deal with groups. Although these more macro-level topics are in the foreground, groups are very often the backdrop.

Erosion of turbine blades is a major cause of plant outage within the C.E.G.B., and the mechanism and methods of protection which have been adopted are described in some detail in this paper. The turbine outage time arising from corrosion causes is far less than that due to erosion but, nevertheless, a few persistent corrosion problems remain. These problems—the corrosion of white metal bearings, the seizing of 3% Cr‐Mo shafts and ‘blue blush’ of valves—are described. The first two of these are currently under investigation, whilst the latter has now been overcome by the use of alternative resistant materials

What is a fossil? In modern usage, a fossil represents the remains of past life on Earth. By analogy, a fossil computer represents the hardware and software remains of an extinct—that is, no longer manufactured—computing device. Computers have been part of libraries for decades, especially in the academic environment. But the beginning of the personal computer era ten to fifteen years ago also marked the beginning of computing for many public, school, and special libraries. These early desktop devices have been showing their age for years as new machines have appeared on the market with enlarged memory, increased processing power, and graphic interfaces.

Aslib Library holds a collection of thesauri, subject headings and classification schemes which are used to answer members' enquiries about the existence of schemes for particular subject fields and many of which are available on loan for two weeks. Our policy is to acquire all significant English language publications and bilingual or multilingual items with English as one of the languages.

Library of Congress update The Urgent Supplemental Appropriations Bill for FY 1986 signed into law in July by Ronald Reagan contained an appropriation of $867 000 for the Library of Congress. This means that the general reading room is able to restore evening and weekend hours. The ten “Books Not Bombs” people who first protested the closure spent several weeks in July in a courtroom trial, where testimony was given by the Librarian of Congress and other officials. Since the “freedom readers”; as they are called in a newspaper article, face jail and/or a fine, perhaps appreciative scholars and researchers should start a fund to help defray the costs of their protest.