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Suggests, with statistics, that a substantial part of any software development budget is spent on revisions and maintenance. Argues that systems are long overdue to measure the quality of software applications rather than focusing on the quality of the procedures and management approach. Feels the quest for software quality must not be held up by standards debates or management philosophies and that investment in CASE tools or 4GLs, though valuable, simply puts the majority of software budgets into areas where the smallest productivity improvements are to be made. Arguest that as only a tiny percentage of the money spent on software tools is devoted to products for application testing, yet test and maintenance consume over half the development effort, it is time this imbalance was rectified.

At London Underground Ltd (LUL), getting engineers and their equipment to and from site quickly and safely is a major task for its engineering safety support division. A huge DEC VAX database helps the division maximize the time available for track maintenance and repair. The database is the core of LUL′s Co‐ordination of Railway Engineering Works (CREW) computer system. The introduction of automated software testing has improved the quality of the system as enhancements are introduced. The story reveals how manual testing had not only proved a bottleneck in development but was incapable of delivering the required level of consistency; neither could it properly assess CREW′s performance under heavy load.

This article describes the National Social Inclusion Programme's Communities of Influence workstream, the premises on which it was founded, the innovative social inclusion practice it proposed, what was learned and how the work will be taken forwards in the future.

This article aims to introduce the special issue which arose from a conference about urban regeneration in post industrial cities hosted at Bradford University in 2008. The event focused on the sustainable and intangible aspects of individual and community well‐being.

The article discusses the background to urban regeneration and introduces the papers in the issue.

The papers investigate and understand how policies, programmes and projects can increase well‐being in the built environment, and what this means for those involved. Specifically the papers address key features of well‐being in terms of the economics of regeneration, participation, sustainability, social enterprise, migration, partnership, management, and the importance of place and space.

The article focuses on the papers of the special issue that encourage pragmatic and workable solutions based on sound theory and practice.

This paper explores an important yet overlooked concept in place branding literature, unplanned messages. Focusing on unplanned messages, this study aims to contribute to a better understanding of the concept of spontaneous order in place branding and how to manage the unplanned communication process so as to ensure a high reputational status for a place.

This paper builds on past research on place brand communication and proposes a conceptual framework for unplanned messages.

Classification schemes for places and place brands are proposed, contributing to place brand management in three aspects: reviewing of decisions and strategies undertaken, assessing current situation and planning way forward when it comes to priorities for place management and development.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that introduces the emergent image and presents a classification scheme for places that contributes to a strategic management program of unplanned messages in place branding.

This paper aims to gain an understanding of the nature and extent of the practice of “public relations” in history.

The paper uses an analysis of popular narratives (in particular rumour, legend and myth) to inform a detailed case study of Glastonbury abbey in the medieval period.

Glastonbury Abbey worked in partnership with the Crown to develop a detailed promotional campaign based on powerful narratives. As a consequence it was able to grow to become one of the wealthiest communities in the country. The Crown, meanwhile, consolidated its position by being able to engender a whole national “brand” around the mythical corpus.

Methodologically, using folklore and other popular narrative material is useful as to an extent it is outside official control, but also provides information about the story tellers and the audiences.

The research builds on Watson's recent work on St Swithun and Winchester, taking the ideas forward several hundred years (and finding many of the same patterns). It finds new developments in terms of co‐branding and brand revivals.

For western companies pursuing, or considering pursuing competitive strategy through Keiretsus recent indications from Japan of problems between Keiretsu partners will provide food for thought.

The purpose of this paper is to identify ways to reconfigure physical retailing to ensure it maintains a sustainable position within the town centre ecosystem in the twenty-first century. The discussion draws on the evolving service-dominant logic (S-DL) and its service ecosystems perspective and evidence of best practice provided by actors involved in town centre regeneration between 2013 and 2018.

The research adopts a case methodology drawing on data submitted and analysed as part of the Grimsey Review 2, an independent review of the UK town centres. The data set provides examples of good practice sourced from industry leaders, trade bodies, local authorities and extensive social media engagement.

The paper evaluates the response of physical retail through an S-DL and service ecosystem lens. The review of best practice suggests that physical retailers have the best chance of survival if they proactively collaborate with other actors within a wider community hub solution, align their strategic position and operations to a holistic centre place plan and take steps to actively engage operant resources of consumers in creating physical store experiences.

The paper provides an evaluation of best practice in town centre regeneration implemented between 2013 and 2018. The case offers a rich bank of examples, illustrating how physical retailers are responding to the twenty-first-century challenges facing town centres. It makes recommendations for further improvement in the three critical areas identified above.

This paper provides further empirical support for the application of an S-DL and service ecosystem perspective to place marketing. To achieve effective value co-creation, physical retailers need to align themselves more closely with other actors in the system and maximise the potential of operant (and operand) consumer resources.

Aims to study the pricing decisions of small firms. Conventional wisdom argues that small firms tend to use relatively unsophisticated methods of pricing; however, indicates that small firms may in fact be a good deal more sophisticated in their techniques of pricing than has previously been supposed. Reviews the theory and empirical evidence to date and notes a significant gap in the research into small business pricing. Using a case study method based on 12 detailed cases of the pricing policies of small companies, concludes that there is little evidence to support the findings of previous studies which indicated the predominance of full‐cost pricing. It was found that small companies avoided “head‐on” competition and sought to exploit their own market niche as a means of exercising more control over their prices.

ALL THE FIGURES go to prove that the recession is behind us. There is no question but that business is once again on the up and up. Order books, for the first time in ages, are full and, what is quite as important, all the indications are that delivery dates will be met in the future — as they should always have been.