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Samples of sandwiches were taken from all petrol filling stations in the Bolton area selling such foodstuffs. These were bacteriologically examined and, when the results were obtained, all the petrol stations were visited and advice was given where improvements could be made. Resampling was carried out and the results were compared with the initial samples. The second set of results indicated a significant improvement in microbial flora. Further recommendations were made where necessary and it was possible to produce a Code of Practice from the results obtained.

Reviewing the Food Standards Report on Misdescriptions contained in this issue—the terms, names, phrases widespread in the field of agriculture and food—one cannot fail to notice the impressive role that words generally play in everyday use of language, especially in those areas where widespread common usage imports regional differences. The modern tendency is to give to words new meanings and nowhere is this so apparent as in the food industry; the Food Standards Committee considered a number of these. The FSC see the pictorial device as making a deeper impression than mere words in relation to consumer preference, which is undoubtedly true. Even Memory can be compartmentalized and especially with the increasing years, the memory tends to become photographic, retaining visual impressions more strongly than the written word. Auditory impressions depend largely on their accompaniments; if words are spoken with the showing of a picture or sung to a catchy tune, these will be more strongly retained than mere words on a printed label. At best, pictorial devices give rise to transient impressions, depending on the needs and interests of the viewer. Many look but do not see, and as for spoken words, these may “go in one ear and out of the other!”.

In this chapter, the author provides an overview of some central issues of the book. First she shows the similarities in the challenges to increase the participation and success of Roma people in education and lifelong learning in the selected European countries; then she discusses their policies and support programmes, which on the one hand try to improve the social situation of the Roma while promoting minority language and culture on the other hand. The author finds the reason for their similarities regarding the wording, defining and communicating and also concerning the main ideas and concrete projects for possible solutions, in the Roma inclusion policy of the European Union in the frame of the Open Method of Coordination, which has been introduced within the Lisbon Strategy, linked to the idea of lifelong learning. She considers the realisation of these policy measures at national, regional and local levels to have shown only unsatisfactory results until now.

In this chapter, Andrea Óhidy provides an overview of some central issues of the book. First, she shows the similarities in the challenges to increase the participation and success of Roma people in education and lifelong learning in the selected European countries; then, she discusses their policies and support programmes, which, on the one hand, try to improve the social situation of the Roma while promoting minority language and culture, on the other hand. She finds the reason for their similarities regarding the wording, defining and communicating and also concerning the main ideas and concrete projects for possible solutions, in the Roma inclusion policy of the European Union in the frame of the Open Method of Coordination, which has been introduced within the Lisbon Strategy, linked to the idea of lifelong learning. She considers the realisation of these policy measures at national, regional and local levels to have shown only unsatisfactory results until now.

The objective of the paper is to explore and evaluate practical accounting education to find its weaknesses and suggest avenues to build strengths which will provide the market with effective accountants from the universities (the primary source of accountants).

The study uses semi-structured interviews to understand and extract the study problem and build the questionnaire; the final step is to analyse and interpret the questionnaire results based on structured interviews, dividing the research community into professors and market elements, business managers and university graduates.

The market has provided a negative evaluation of practical education. Reasons include a shortage of instructors with professional experience; curriculums that lack the topic of professional and ethical skills; and internships if provided, with unsatisfactory results. The study suggests accounting simulation labs as a reasonable substitution for the placement year (internship) if the labs are qualified and the internship results unsatisfactory.

This article is based on a multiregional research community, making results transferable to any country that faces a lack of professional accounting education. The applied evaluation method is capable of use by any other field in the business industry since accounting is part of this industry.

Despite double deviation being an acknowledged phenomenon in services marketing, less research has been devoted to the evaluation of the underlying relationships between cognitive appraisals, customer forgiveness and postrecovery actions following a double deviation. Therefore, this study aims to develop and empirically test a conceptual model to determine the role of customer forgiveness and its boundary conditions in double-deviation scenarios based on the stress and coping theory.

This study aggregated 290 survey data by adopting the retrospective experience sampling method and examined the proposed model using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping analysis.

The results confirm that customer forgiveness mediates the link between service recovery dissatisfaction and postrecovery customer complaints (i.e. online and third-party complaints). Additionally, attribution-based factors (i.e. stability and controllability attributions) positively moderated the service recovery dissatisfaction–customer forgiveness relationship. Finally, these findings exhibit that relationship-based factors (i.e. relationship duration and affective commitment) had negative moderating effects on the service recovery dissatisfaction–customer forgiveness link.

Without ensuring customer forgiveness, customers who experience failure twice in a row may act more aggressively to damage service firms. Yet, knowledge of customer forgiveness in a double-deviation scenario is still lacking. The results make twofold contributions to the service recovery literature. First, this study emphasizes customer forgiveness as an integral coping response that has a mediating role in the relationship between service recovery dissatisfaction and postrecovery customer complaints. Second, this study shed insights into boundary conditions of customer forgiveness by identifying attribution- and relationship-based factors as moderators.

First January 1973 will not only mark the beginning of a New Year but a year which history will mark as a truly momentous one, for this is the year that Britain, after centuries of absence, re‐enters the framework of Europe as one of the Member‐States of the enlarged European Community. This in itself must make for change on both sides; Britain is so different in outlook from the others, something they too realize and see as an acquisition of strength. There have been other and more limited forms of Continental union, mainly of sovereignty and royal descent. Large regions of France were for centuries under the English Crown and long after they were finally lost, the fleur de lis stayed on the royal coat of arms, until the Treaty of Amiens 1802, when Britain retired behind her sea curtain. The other Continental union was, of course, with Hanover; from here the Germanized descendants of the Stuarts on the female line returned to the throne of their ancestors. This union lasted until 1832 when rules of descent prevented a woman from reigning in Hanover. It is interesting to speculate how different history might have been if only the British Crown and the profits of Tudor and Stuart rule had been maintained in one part of central Europe. However, Britain disentangled herself and built up overwhelming sea power against a largely hostile Europe, of which it was never conceived she could ever be a part, but the wheel of chance turns half‐circle and now, this New Year, she enters into and is bound to a European Community by the Treaty of Rome with ties far stronger, the product of new politico‐economic structures evolved from necessity; in a union which cannot fail to change the whole course of history, especially for this country.

When competing in a turbulent environment, strategic flexibility can be a competitive advantage. One source of flexibility is the new product development (NPD) process, or more specifically product design. The purpose of this paper is to investigate platform-based product design and its relationship to environmental turbulence, strategic flexibility, and market performance.

A theoretical model is developed and relationships are empirically tested using structural equation modeling. Data were collected from engineering design managers in the US manufacturing industry.

The paper found that the higher the level of environmental turbulence the more firms turned to platform product design. Also, the higher the level of platform design the higher the level of market performance, both in the short term and the long term. Finally, the paper showed that strategic flexibility positively and partially mediates the positive relationship between platform design and performance.

Platform-based product design is a research area noticeably devoid of empirical work. Furthermore, research has called for a better understanding of the different contexts in which platforms are applied stating that platform planning is too often decoupled from NDP strategy resulting in unsatisfactory results.

The purpose of the paper is to present the performance management process and the core competency frameworks of six Canadian public libraries. The core competencies that characterize the qualities for superior performance of library staff are described, as well as the way in which competencies are used throughout the performance management process and other related human resource functions.

A survey of 59 public libraries serving populations greater than 50,000 was undertaken. A total of six libraries reported using core competency frameworks for performance management purposes. Managers responsible for human resource functions were interviewed about the process of developing the competencies and the ways in which the competencies are used in their library systems.

The core competencies identified by the six public libraries are communication skills, interpersonal skills, customer service, analytical skills, accountability, adaptability, technological competence, planning and organizing skills, knowledge of the organization, creativity/innovation and leadership. Employees are evaluated against the core competencies in the performance appraisal process. Unsatisfactory performance in any competency requires an action plan to improve the necessary knowledge and skills.

The number of libraries which have implemented core competencies for performance management is very limited. Future research should examine whether competency‐based performance management has achieved the aim of improving performance.

The paper provides a useful overview of the concept of performance management and summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of competency‐based performance management.

The paper presents an overview of competency‐based performance management as implemented in six Canadian public libraries. The core competencies that characterize the qualities required for superior performance of library staff are described.

This paper seeks to report selective findings of a wider study to identify the mechanisms that end users employ to overcome their information seeking failure on the web.

Data collection was conducted by semi‐structured and in‐depth interviews. The study adopted a qualitative approach and was carried out based on grounded theory. The biology community at the University of Sheffield was selected as the research population.

Identified coping strategies are divided into active and passive categories. Active strategies such as revising and help‐seeking require further actions to obtain more satisfactory results. In contrast, passive strategies entail less action to modify the situation and mainly relate to accepting the existing circumstances. Web users prioritise their coping strategies according to the importance of the search topic and their determination to fulfil the search successfully. They develop coping strategies through training courses, using trial and error, knowledge sharing and employing pre‐web coping strategies.

This study was limited to a small group of web users in academia that cannot be easily considered as an acceptable representative of the heterogeneous population of web users. Moreover, the collected data was based on web users' perception of their search failure rather than an objective measure of it.

Most studies in this area are concerned with users' information seeking behaviour and focus on how people find what they want. However, this paper addresses an aspect of this process that has received little attention up to now. The paper explores users' reaction to, and conceptualisation of, information seeking failure and their coping strategies to overcome the failure in web searching. The findings provide us with a better understanding of users' information seeking behaviour on the web.