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With risk defined as the possibility of deviation in the results from the expected goals, business process reengineering (BPR) initiatives clearly involve risk taking. However, due to the high expected returns of such efforts, the acceptable risk levels of BPR will tend to be greater than those of less ambitious projects. This research reports the development of a tool to quantitatively estimate the potential risk level of a BPR effort before an organization commits its resources to that effort. The underlying research employed a survey of BPR‐experienced organizations to collect assessment information in order to build a BPR risk estimation model. The developed tool uses triangular fuzzy numbers to approximate the degree of success/failure of proposed BPR initiatives. The tool can be applied by any organization contemplating BPR, thus giving such organizations a heretofore unavailable estimate of the risk level of proposed BPR efforts. Validation was performed based upon an 18‐month BPR project conducted at the Missouri Lottery.

The evidence suggests that the current delivery of primary care to people with a learning disability does not adequately meet their needs. In particular, individuals do not access adequate health promotion, are not having treatable illnesses identified and are not having more complex needs addressed. This review examines this evidence, highlights barriers to the effective delivery of health care and assesses these barriers, pilot projects and the few intervention studies published. Effective response to health needs will need a change in the working patterns of primary, secondary and social care providers. The contracting system and the move to locality‐based purchasing may be the ideal catalysts for these changes.

This paper aims to reveal the marshalling of an emotion – loneliness – over time for the construction of relationships between advertisers and consumers between 1909 and 1934, paying attention to the shifting contexts in which these relationships were built, maintained and extended. It also draws attention to the ways in which advertising and marketing work in society, and advances the understanding of the development of consumer culture in Australia.

The paper uses textual analysis of letters from readers and editorial content published in the magazine over a 25-year period, supplemented by material from newspapers and memoirs.

The paper reveals how a women’s magazine marshalled the loneliness of Australian women, especially rural Australian women, to attach them to the magazine and its advertisers. Over 25 years, the magazine editors built a reservoir of trust between readers and the magazine. When the economy turned, this reservoir could be drawn upon to maintain reader attachment and maximise sales.

This paper examines the use of emotion in just one magazine. A comparative study would be beneficial to see whether this exploitation of emotion was widespread.

The paper suggests the importance of emotion as a tool for attaching consumers to brands and for maintaining that attachment through financial difficulties.

This paper supports the turn to the study of emotion in history and, specifically, in the development of consumer culture.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the emergent consumer tribe literature to facilitate a more complete understanding of the antecedents and roles implicit within consumer tribal membership. Principally a conceptual paper, this study focuses upon how a more complete understanding of consumer roles can be leveraged to create sustainable loyalty.

This study comprised an examination of the tribe's social behaviour, membership roles and influence on individual consumption. The research was approached interpretively with a case study design investigating a tribe of vinyl record collectors in a New Zealand context.

Key findings include the confirmation of Kozinets' antecedents of tribal membership and the four roles of tribal members previously conceptualised by Cova and Cova. The tribe was found to have a core set of values that moderated any individual differences. A hierarchy, managed through the distribution of “cultural capital”, was found to exist amongst the group. In an extension of Cova's modelling a fifth role of “Chief” was identified, whereby the Chief was found to act as an opinion leader and organiser amongst the group.

Owing to constraints of both time and research funding, only one tribe was examined in this case study, hence the results are very specific to the group studied. Future research should apply the managerial implications from this study to other case contexts to test and expand understanding of consumer tribe dynamics and the creation of consumer loyalty.

This paper creates a link between extant consumer behaviour, loyalty and consumer culture theory. The presented results have implications for the marketing manager through advancement towards creation of a model of tools a firm can use to connect with and build sustainable loyalty with consumer tribes.

The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the Transformation Model Living with Less, for possible use in consumer behavior research and marketing research.

The model resulted from the phenomenological field research which was conducted among 15 voluntary and involuntary downshifters. The study used an experiential point of view, inquiring about concrete experiences and practices following a financial decrease of at least 20 percent.

Results indicated a consistent pattern of change independent of voluntary or involuntary downshifting, or of the amount of reduction. The study also found that living with less was primarily a life matter instead of a purely financial matter: reorganizing expenses meant reorganizing life. The resulting Transformation Model is a prototypical reconstruction of this multi‐layered change process.

The model may offer an interesting direction for future research, either applied, or theoretical. The detailed description of the seven stages and of the barriers and stimuli in the process could be used as starting points for consumer behavioral change in marketing research.

Results present fruitful insights to cope with the consequences of the economic crisis that hits growing numbers of consumers.

Instead of focusing on the construction and reconstruction of personal lives through consumption, the research inquires into what happens when people are confronted with limited financial possibilities. Moreover, the issue is studied without a priori valorization, such as poverty or deprivation. This approach offers new theoretical perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a policy map of professional learning networks (PLNs) in Spain. It includes initiatives prompted in Spanish schools in which social, political, cultural and educational elements are integrated. At the same time, it analyses which organization promotes each of the networks, the objectives pursued and the scope of the network in the territory in which it is created.

The methodology followed is essentially descriptive and incorporates the first experiences with school networks which have been disseminated in the Spanish literature. It stimulates reflection on the role networks are expected to play in relation to local developments in this specific school system.

The cases described (Castellon, Catalonia, Malaga and Seville) suggest a way forward for practitioners to advance toward an educational paradigm based on greater collaboration. This includes a partnership approach among professionals within and across classrooms, schools, communities, districts and education systems. In particular, the results place the focus of the network on the prevalence of the following school classification, included schools (community networks linking to the territory), extended schools (socio-educational networks), equity schools (equity fostering networks) and partnership schools (school-to-school support networks), whose objectives and scopes are reviewed.

With the Spanish context in mind, it is essential to recognize that more empirical evidence is still needed to make a significant contribution toward building knowledge in this research line. Indeed, sustainability seems to be an important point to consider in a short-term world where quick-fix solutions are required. However, PLNs need time to know how beneficial they really are, for example, in terms of student outcomes and school improvement.

The argument developed assumes networks as a mirror wherein the present and future of education takes place. In this sense, the scientific and educational communities have both a challenge and an opportunity to rethink the potential of networking and collaboration in education. The article tries to be attractive to a specialized reader or one simply interested in the problem of networks in education and the reality of PLNs in Spain.

The network society demands a network school environment where communities are part of a local character strategy.

This document offers an interesting view on networks that not only focus on education but on social and welfare issues and it aims to target education from a broader perspective; so resulting in opening schools to the community, which is not a widely covered topic in education research. In summary, the paper can be considered as a pioneer study in the Spanish context, which contains valuable information about PLNs, their origin and current status in this part of the world.

There are intense current debates about the place of belief systems in a secular society, and also whether the mechanistic approach to mental health care is sufficient for human beings. This paper aims to describe the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation NHS Trust (BSMHFT) spirituality and mental health research programme within that context.

The research studies are placed within a discourse of current debates, but also within the specific context of the city of Birmingham. Birmingham is England's second city to London, and is an increasingly multi‐ethnic and multi‐cultural environment.

Those who use mental health services increasingly state that they wish to have the spiritual dimension of their lives attended to by professionals. The BSMHFT project reinforces this message and demonstrates the merits of close working with faith communities and engaging with staff in their understanding of spirituality.

The research by Professor Koenig et al. in the USA has demonstrated the physical and mental health benefits of belonging to a supportive faith community. The BSMHFT project is a rare UK example of research in this area and comes at a time of intense debate in England over the nature of society.

This paper aims to show why very little progress was made in arresting climate change. Managing climate change is one of the greatest challenges humanity has encountered in the 21st century. Responding to this greatest challenge, the United Nations has organized numerous climate change conferences. Four agreements (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], Kyoto, Copenhagen and Doha) have emerged in the process of developing a potential international climate change policy but failed to produce any ambitious agreement to arrest climate change.

The pledges made by Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to reduce the greenhouse gases (GHGs) are contextualized with the ever increasing emissions of GHGs by exploring the databases of UNFCCC, International Energy Agency (IEA), Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the Netherlands Energy Assessment Agency (NEAA) for this study.

However, GHGs have continued to rise and no globally binding agreement is seen to be forthcoming. Quantified targets to address the problem have yet to be agreed while major emitters remain free riders. This paper argues that the state-centric negotiating framework and the principles of the climate change negotiations were the main reasons for the inadequate outcomes leading to the continuing rise in emissions.

This is an original research. It has presented the overview of climate change agreements, finds the problems and presents a way forward. The research is useful for governments of the world, climate negotiators, students of climate change, researchers, NGO communities and every single human being who understands that managing climate change is not only complex but also extensive.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The purpose of this article is to phenomenologically explore the reflective practices of leaders in public organisations amidst a complex societal context in combination with rapid changes. In this article, the authors specifically explore the lived experiences of public leaders to generate new hypotheses concerning their reflective practices.

The phenomenological methodology consists of analysing the lived experiences of 13 public leaders, collected in an in-depth interview and written reflections.

The thick data offer new and up-to-date insights into the daily experiences of public leaders concerning their challenges, the effect of the addictive and alienating forces, their reflex to withdrawal when facing emotional incidents and the effects of their contradictory mindsets.

The practical implication is a critical approach towards reflective practices of public leaders. The risk is that reflectivity is approached as a socially desirable instrumental ritual. Considering the needs and desires the public leaders shared, the authors wonder: Is there a growing importance of reflective time and space – or, above all, meaningful relations and resonant moments amidst the alienation forces?

The phenomenological exploration offers concrete insights into the daily experience of public leaders', as opposed to the often-abstract theory. The new hypotheses provide a new starting point for further critical phenomenological research.