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Competitive advantage increasingly rests upon a dynamic capability to compete successfully in an environment of frequent, challenging and, often, unpredictable change. Sustaining competitive advantage through price alone is no longer a viable strategy for most firms. Firms need to succeed in markets where a range of non‐price advantages are expected by customers. Order‐winning criteria include rate of innovation, fitness for purpose, volume flexibility, variety, extreme customisation and, above all, rapid responsiveness. Increasing global and local competition mean that companies unable to respond to these customer demands are unlikely to survive. Deployment of the principles and practices of agile enterprise appears to offer a solution. This paper, based upon preliminary findings of the Agile Manufacturing Research Group (AMRG), discusses these issues and, through the introduction of the agile wheel reference model (AWRM), identifies the specific policies and practices that support agility.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of benefit to learning through developing strong links between universities and industry, and to suggest a methodology for building bridges between university and industry that provides a full learning experience for students.

A case study approach which included the development of interactive projects that join students with industry, and follow‐up questionnaire surveys of the outcomes, carried out among students and businesses.

It was found that both parties feel that they benefit from building bridges between universities and industry, and data from this research are reported on in greater detail in the latter part of this article

Research is limited to students following the Manufacturing Management and Quality Systems courses within the Industrial Engineering Department of the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, over a one year period.

Provides evidence for a positive factor that linking university students and industry in joint projects increases the potential for a fuller learning experience for the students.

The paper is based on actual experience of students, teachers and companies who participated in this experimental learning process.

The widening rift at the macro level between the proponents of economic growth and those of environmental protection may have triggered forces acting in the opposite direction at the micro‐level where competitive performance is increasingly becoming a function of the ability of firms to respond to environmentally‐defined strategic advantages. We cite examples of current corporate behavior which suggest a stages model of responses to environmental threats and opportunities. The model portrays an evolutionary process in which competitiveness and environmental goals may converge to become complementary forces driving pro‐active firms toward a strategy of competitive environmentalism.

In the preceding rules the individual biographical entry has been ignored, as it lends itself to more convenient treatment apart. Collective biography is, of course, in no way different from the ordinary book ; and the same is to be said of autobiography. Owing to the change of form in the individual biographical entry, due to the author yielding in importance to the biographee, it is usual to separate collective and individual biography in the catalogue, whether this is done on the shelves or not. Individual biography might be further separated in the catalogue into autobiographical and non‐auto‐biographical, though I cannot recall any instance where this has been carried out. In any case, it is important to distinguish in some clear way, between the subject name and the name of the author. Mere position is hardly enough ; there should be a distinction in the type. Whatever type has been employed in the other parts for author should be retained for author in the individual biograhical entry, and the subject name should be in a different type. If the author is printed in a black‐face type, as suggested in these rules, the best type for the subject name will be small capitals, as :—

This paper aims to examine generational formative referents as factors that influence meeting attendees’ adoption and technology use within virtual and hybrid meetings, and test the applicability of the technology acceptance model (TAM) as presented by Davis (1986). This study investigates how attendees’ experiences from their respective formative years (i.e. generational formative referents), the basis of the Generational Cohort Theory (GCT), influence the TAM model constructs.

A partial least squares analysis test is utilized to determine technology acceptance within meetings across three generations: Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1978) and Generation Y (1979-2000).

The multi-group comparison determined all three generations responded similarly with regard to the paths being tested, indicating each of the three generational cohorts within this study are influenced by the experiences of their formative years, which are different for each generation.

The findings add to the limited foundation for scholars wanting to further analyze technology use within meetings, and for those interested in generational influences.

This study provides useful information for marketers and planners to increase meeting attendance, enhance attendee satisfaction, and further explore meeting engagement opportunities.

Underpinning the GCT, this study is the first within hospitality and tourism studies to investigate a theoretical model on generational technology use within meetings.

Studies and analyses changes to the promotion policies and practices at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and identifies outcomes by gender. Suggests that there are quite a few factors to be addressed before gender equity in academia at UWA is obtained. Discusses, in depth, how to try to deal with lack of networks, socialization, the dual‐role burden, masculine organizational culture and gendered power imbalance in the workplace. States that, although great inroads have been made at UWA, statistics show that there are still very fundamental barriers to be addressed to aid further improvement for women academics.

Simulation experiment was employed to investigate the schemes for coordinating JIT practices to promote performance upgrade in a job shop environment with the pull system.

The four related essential JIT practices (job shop JIT practices) investigated include: cellular manufacturing (CM), operations overlapping (OPOVR), reduction of set‐up/processing time variability (variability reduction) and set‐up time reduction (STR).

Experiment findings suggest that coordination of CM and STR should be given the priority. While the extent of STR effected by CM substantially influences the efficacy of adopting a cellular layout, the choice of adopting a functional layout (FL) is more likely to be affected by the STR resulted from improvement of set‐up operations (set‐up improvement). Variability reduction tends to be more effective for a cellular layout. For a cellular layout without OPOVR, the effectiveness of reducing set‐up time variability is prominent and almost impervious to the extent of set‐up improvement. For a FL, the effect of variability reduction is minor; reduction of set‐up time variability is effective in this case only for a set‐up to processing time ratio of 20 or larger. The findings of this study do not justify the implementation of OPOVR in the shop environment, even with the support of the other three job shop JIT practices.

This study is notable in integrating STR into the job shop JIT practices to achieve overall performance improvement. In addition, the resulting strategies for variability reduction are essential for adapting the pull system to job shop manufacturing. Therefore, the findings of this study form systematic guidelines enabling exercise of the job shop JIT practices coherently to promote reform of job shop manufacturing.

In the spring of 1982, I published an article in Reference Services Review on marketing libraries and information services. The article covered available literature on that topic from 1970 through part of 1981, the time period immediately following Kotler and Levy's significant and frequently cited article in the January 1969 issue of the Journal of Marketing, which was first to suggest the idea of marketing nonprofit organizations. The article published here is intended to update the earlier work in RSR and will cover the literature of marketing public, academic, special, and school libraries from 1982 to the present.

Discusses the 6th ITCRR, its breadth of textile and clothing research activity, plus the encouragement given to workers in this field and its related areas. States that, within the newer research areas under the microscope of the community involved, technical textiles focuses on new, ‘smart’ garments and the initiatives in this field in both the UK and the international community at large. Covers this subject at length.