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Riding on the coattails of TQM and reeengineering, teams seem to have become the organizational structure of choice. But is a team always the best choice for the job? What happens when teams fail? What is management's role in team success or failure?

Collateral consequences (CCs) of criminal convictions such as disenfranchisement, occupational restrictions, exclusions from public housing, and loss of welfare benefits represent one of the salient yet hidden features of the contemporary American penal state. This chapter explores, from a comparative and historical perspective, the rise of the many indirect “regulatory” sanctions flowing from a conviction and discusses some of the unique challenges they pose for legal and policy reform. US jurisprudence and policies are contrasted with the more stringent approach adopted by European legal systems and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in safeguarding the often blurred line between criminal punishments and formally civil sanctions. The aim of this chapter is twofold: (1) to contribute to a better understanding of the overreliance of the US criminal justice systems on CCs as a device of social exclusion and control, and (2) to put forward constructive and viable reform proposals aimed at reinventing the role and operation of collateral restrictions flowing from criminal convictions.

The literature is reviewed to show likely future trends of public library services in the USA. The role of libraries, the nature of users, library buildings and charges for library services are all examined and general conclusions drawn.

Discussion of the 2016 electorate has centered on two poles: results of public opinion and voter surveys that attempt to tease out whether racial, cultural, or economic grievances were the prime drivers behind the Trump vote and analyses that tie major shifts in the political economy to consequential shifts in the voting behavior of certain demographic and geographic groups. Both approaches render invisible a major development since the 1970s that has been transforming the political, social, and economic landscape of wide swaths of people who do not reside in major urban areas or their prosperous suburban rings: the emergence and consolidation of the carceral state. This chapter sketches out some key contours of the carceral state that have been transforming the polity and economy for poor and working-class people, with a particular focus on rural areas and the declining Rust Belt. It is meant as a correction to the stilted portrait of these groups that congealed in the aftermath of the 2016 election, thanks to their pivotal contribution to Trump's victory. This chapter is not an alternative causal explanation that identifies the carceral state as the key factor in the 2016 election. Rather, it is a call to aggressively widen the analytical lens of studies of the carceral state, which have tended to focus on communities of color in urban areas.

When Eugene O'Neill died, theatre critic Brooks Atkinson said of him, “A giant writer has dropped off the earth….He shook up the drama as well as audiences and helped to transform the theatre into an art seriously related to life.” (New York Times, 30 December 1953).

It is generally accepted that new information technologies are an integral part of most forms of business initiatives. Evidence suggests that many of these innovations are ineffective and under‐utilised. The information systems/information technology (IS/IT) industry often does not seem to be capable of delivering what business clients expect. Owing to this “expectation gap” and various behavioural issues, business experts have a negative perception of the IS/IT function. It is proposed that a new way of alignment between IT and business is necessary The research aims to address two problems, namely, what factors are influencing business‐IT interface within organisations, and how the IT executive could contribute towards fusion fulfilling an organisational development (OD) role.

A triangular and qualitative research approach was followed, including a literature study, questionnaire and interview.

Results indicated a number of reasons leading to IT/business failure and also indicate how fusion can be created by fulfilling an OD role.

Only companies in the Gauteng region, which is considered to be the economic heart of South Africa, have been included in the study. The small sample size might hinder the generalisation of the results and could be further extended.

The research indicates how a healthy business‐IT interface can be achieved through the fusion of the IT function and the rest of the business by integrating OD initiatives.