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The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

Knight's Industrial Law Reports goes into a new style and format as Managerial Law This issue of KILR is restyled Managerial Law and it now appears on a continuous updating basis rather than as a monthly routine affair.

This paper aims to investigate the subject matter of Islamic economics that will be the object of a study as a discipline by classifying and unifying different approaches proposed by Islamic economists.

The paper is a conceptual paper using discursive analysis analysing the perspective and approaches proposed by Islamic economists in defining economic problems from an Islamic perspective. The perspective and approaches proposed are classified and analysed for their implications in constructing the subject matter of discipline.

Islamic economics, as a new body of knowledge, needs to clarify the economic problems that will be its subject matter. The paper brings an insight into the subject matter of Islamic economics as conceived by scholars in two approaches, namely, economic problems “as they are” and economic problems “as they should be”. The paper also proposes a unified perspective in defining the subject matter of Islamic economics for further development of the discipline.

This paper only provides philosophical guidance for researchers in mapping the problems and the goals of the policy being studied, although it does not offer any practical use for policymaking as each policy is faced with different and specific cases. This paper may be used to assist future researchers in shaping other unexplored fields in Islamic economics as a body of knowledge.

Islamic economics as a discipline will be strengthened if it has a clear subject matter that will be the object of study. However, the conception of economic problems proposed by Islamic economists is based on life-reality, i.e. of what human beings face in their life (practical-type economic problems as they are) and based on life guidance from the Qur’an on how human beings should live as well as life-objectives, i.e. of what goals he should strive for (ideal-type economic problems as they ought to be) brings implication that there are differences in determining the object of study of Islamic economics.

This paper promotes the unification of two conceptions of economic problems proposed by scholars by defining Islamic economics as “a study of resource appropriation to realize human well-being (maslahah)”. This suggests that economic problems as manifested in life reality will be studied within the grand objective of life in Islam (maqasid al-Shariah), and economic problems as perceived in life goals will be studied in the context of life reality. Islamic economic theory will be formulated not only to solve the apparent problem of “what is” but also formulated in a way that refers to goals (ideals) of “what ought to be” that will provide solutions to current economic problems according to certain vision and to take steps to move in that visionary direction.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation in Malaysia had raised various responses from many parties involved when the new tax was introduced in 2015 until its abolishment in 2018. GST complexity has been stated as part of the reasons for its resistance and abolishment. The purpose of this paper is to identify causes of GST complexities during its implementation in Malaysia.

This paper draws on causes of tax complexity from previous studies and conducted semi-structured interviews with tax experts. The respondents comprised of subject matter experts in GST and the findings are based on their numerous years of experiences handling clients with diverse backgrounds.

Findings from this study are categorised into legal complexity and declarative complexities. Almost all the causes of complexities from prior studies were encountered by Malaysian businesses. This study concluded that the most likely reasons for the abolishment of GST in Malaysia are: numerous rules and exception to the rules (e.g. 35 tax codes, gifts rules, 21-day rules), frequent changes of GST rulings and guidelines, GST computations that were too difficult for mixed supply and process of GST refund that were onerous and lengthy.

Limitations of this paper include reliance on the respondents’ ability to accurately and honestly recall details of their experiences, circumstances, thoughts or behaviours that are being asked.

Despite the abolishment of the GST in Malaysia, it is pertinent to identify the causes of GST complexities that can be learnt by the relevant authorities. Measures can be formulated to mitigate the identified GST complexities to ensure high compliance among businesses with other existing taxes or new taxes (if any) to be introduced in the future. This includes addressing the competency of RMCD officers and businesses on the rules and regulations, minimal rules and exception to the rules, a simplified GST computations for mixed supply and a systematic refund process.

The research method used is a flexible and powerful tool to capture the voices and the ways respondents make meaning of their experience dealing with the GST matters. The findings reveal a deep understanding of the issues from the views of the experts in the field.

This study examines the views of a group of managers about the value of the collective bargaining process as a means of dealing with a variety of job‐related issues. The views reported indicate that collective bargaining is considered most effective in dealing with the traditional wages, hours, fringe benefit, grievances subjects of bargaining, which are in turn considered the job‐related issues of major concern to workers. The success of collective bargaining in dealing with these traditional matters did not seem to be related to the existence of clear cut differences between union and management goals on these matters. There was also found to be little management support for extending the subject matter of collective bargaining, except in the area of job security.

This article presents a theoretical investigation of the concept of ‘subject’ or ‘subject matter’ in library and information science. Most conceptions of ‘subject’ in the literature are not explicit but implicit. Various indexing and classification theories, including automatic indexing and citation indexing, have their own more or less implicit concepts of subject. This fact puts the emphasis on making the implicit theories of ‘subject matter’ explicit as the first step. A very close connection exists between what subjects are, and how we are to know them. Those researchers who place the subjects in the minds of the users have a conception of ‘subject’ different to that possessed by those who regard the subject as a fixed property of the documents. The key to the definition of the concept of ‘subject’ lies in the epistemological investigation of how we are going to know what we need to know about documents in order to describe them in a way which facilitates information retrieval. The second step therefore is an analysis of the implicit epistemological conceptions in the major existing conceptions of ‘subject’. The different conceptions of ‘subject’ can therefore be classified into epistemological positions, e.g. ‘subjective idealism’ (or the empiric/positivistic viewpoint), ‘objective idealism’ (the rationalistic viewpoint), ‘pragmatism’ and ‘materialism/ realism’. The third and final step is to propose a new theory of subject matter based on an explicit theory of knowledge. In this article this is done from the point of view of a realistic/materialistic epistemology. From this standpoint the subject of a document is defined as the epistemological potentials of that document.

This chapter briefly reviews the research related to the construct of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) over the past 25 years. Despite the remarkable implications of the PCK conceptualization, questions remain concerning the vagueness of the construct and the studies conducted on the PCK research line, questions which may lead to new developments in defining the nature of the conceptualization, its validity, and its utility. However, agreement exists concerning the need to portray specific cases of PCK of successful teaching. The work argues for a need to develop models of teacher learning and professional development that are subject matter specific. The chapter ends with a call for basing professional development on the conceptualization of PCK.

The purpose of this paper is to show that concept naming alone in document annotation is not sufficient to convey the thought content of the information resource. The paper presents an outline of semantic document annotation which combines two major processes: facet analysis and concept categorisation. This is also an effort to show how RDF schema can be designed and implemented so that the properties of the schema are able to express the basic structure of the subject matter of the resource.

This paper presents a methodology for representing the subject matter of a document in terms of RDF. For the purposes of faceted subject annotation, it has developed an extended RDF schema for simple knowledge organisation system (SKOS). The facets and relationships of the faceted subject indexing language postulate‐based permuted subject indexing system (POPSI) have been transformed into RDFS classes. The elementary categories of POPSI form the property classes in the POPSI/RDF Schema. These property classes have been used to formulate the subject description of a document.

The subject annotation of a document using this schema expresses all the components of the thought content of an information resource.

The examples given in this paper show the applicability of this schema in describing resources in web directories and annotating scholarly documents in digital libraries. In a broader perspective, this provides a methodology for formulating the subject metadata of web resources. This schema helps in formulating the subject string(s) for a resource outlining the skeleton structure of its thought content.

SKOS has been developed as an RDF schema representation of the traditional knowledge organisation systems. But the schema has limited room to accommodate subject indexing languages. The present schema extends the SKOS schema to accommodate the representation of faceted subject indexing languages. The faceted subject annotation system has been adopted for the very reason that it has precedence over the enumerated classification systems, controlled vocabulary lists, etc. The potential to describe the specific subject of the document with more accuracy and representation of context gives the faceted subject indexing languages strength to make the subject description explicit and machine processible.

This conceptual chapter re-actualizes the Didaktik-inspired discussions in entrepreneurship education, initiated by Kyrö, Blenker et al., and Bechard and Toulouse over 15 years ago. Didaktik in the German educational tradition is a pedagogical sub-discipline which, unlike the Anglo-American understanding of “didactics” as teaching methods, focuses on the relations between the subject, teacher, and students, and considers questions regarding what to teach, how to teach, and why, as being interdependent. A review of literature on entrepreneurship education published in the last decades shows that research in the German Didaktik tradition is sparse, and that the awareness of the differences between Didaktik and “didactics” has been overlooked. This chapter has practical implications for entrepreneurship educators as it presents Didaktik as an approach which comprises planning, implementing, and evaluating teaching in a way that includes an awareness of the learners’ relationship to the subject without excluding the teacher’s key role in education. In a theoretical perspective, the chapter challenges the Anglo-American understanding of “didactics” and proposes Didaktik as an approach to developing entrepreneurship education research and practice to be scientifically based in two fields and encompass transformative learning and critical perspectives, rather than being driven by political agendas and focusing on results.

This exploratory study investigates the extent to which lesson study (LS) in initial teacher education (ITE) teams address subject-pedagogical aspects during their conversations and what subject-pedagogical aspects are addressed.

The two-case design of the study – one LS team in ITE comprised of an ST and experienced teachers and one comprised of an ST and novice teachers – is aimed to discover similarities and variations in their focus of attention.

The conversations of both LS teams were to a large degree about subject-pedagogical aspects. Both teams paid relatively less attention to discussing the themes “subject matter” and “learning objectives” and more to “pupils” learning and “teacher activities.” Concerning the theme of “pupils” learning, the LS team with experienced teachers focused more than the novice LS team on discussing the aspects “pupils” initial situation and “expected learning behavior.” The novice LS team focused more than the experienced team on discussing their observations of individual pupils' thinking.

The results indicate that LS in ITE with a mix of ST and experienced teachers can facilitate exchange on subject-pedagogical aspects of the research lesson. This may help develop and deepen the subject-pedagogical knowledge, views and routines of STs. The differences found between the two LS teams provide starting points for differentiation in the support of LS teams in ITE. Follow-up research could focus on the questions of whether and how LS teams in ITE bring more coherence to their attention for subject-pedagogical aspects of the lesson.