Financial protection in the UK building industry: bonds, retentions and guarantees

Financial Protection in the UK Building Industry provides comprehensive treatment of a complex aspect of construction management which is increasingly important in modern construction contracts. The term 'Financial Protection' refers to refers to the various mechanisms by which funds are made available to ensure the due performance of a partys contractual obligations. This book is based on material written for a research project funded by the Reading Construction Forum. Financial Protection in the UK Building Industry looks at the legal and economic background to the problem of providing financial protection to clients to guard against poor performance and or the insolvency of contractors, consultants and sub-contractors. The inclusion of practical guidance notes and summaries makes this a valuable guide for the construction professional as well as for the researcher. * provides in-depth analysis of financial protection measures * explores the ways in which financial protection can increase efficiency in the industry * financial protection in construction is beset with problems - this book points toward practical solutions

Achievement of dietary fatty acid intakes in long-term controlled intervention studies: approach and methodology

Objective: To describe the calculations and approaches used to design experimental diets of differing saturated fatty acid (SFA) and monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) compositions for use in a long-term dietary intervention study, and to evaluate the degree to which the dietary targets were met. Design, setting and subjects: Fifty-one students living in a university hall of residence consumed a reference (SFA) diet for 8 weeks followed by either a moderate MUFA (MM) diet or a high MUFA (HM) diet for 16 weeks. The three diets were designed to differ only in their proportions of SFA and MUFA, while keeping total fat, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), trans-fatty acids, and the ratio of palmitic to stearic acid, and n-6 to n-3 PUFA, unchanged. Results: Using habitual diet records and a standardised database for food fatty acid compositions, a sequential process of theoretical fat substitutions enabled suitable fat sources for use in the three diets to be identified, and experimental margarines for baking, spreading and the manufacture of snack foods to be designed. The dietary intervention was largely successful in achieving the fatty acid targets of the three diets, although unintended differences between the original target and the analysed fatty acid composition of the experimental margarines resulted in a lower than anticipated MUFA intake on the HM diet, and a lower ratio of palmitic to stearic acid compared with the reference or MM diet. Conclusions: This study has revealed important theoretical considerations that should be taken into account when designing diets of specific fatty acid composition, as well as practical issues of implementation.

Conceptualizing change in the Portuguese footwear industry: regional voices and cognitive spaces of agency

Expanding national services sectors and global competition aggravate current and perceived future market pressures on traditional manufacturing industries. These perceptions of change have provoked a growing intensification of geo-political discourses on technological innovation and ‘learning’, and calls for competency in design among other professional skills. However, these political discourses on innovation and learning have paralleled public concerns with the apparent ‘growth pains’ from factory closures and subsequent increases in unemployment, and its debilitating social and economic implications for local and regional development. In this respect the following investigation sets out to conceptualize change through the complementary and differing perceptions of industry and regional actors’ experiences or narratives, linking these perceptions to their structure-determined spheres of agent-environment interactivity. It aims to determine whether agents’ differing perceptions of industry transformation can have a role in the legitimization of their interests in, and in sustaining their organizational influence over the process of industry-regional transformation. It argues that industry and regional agent perceptions are among the cognitive aspects of agent-environment interactivity that permeate agency. It stresses agents’ ability to reason and manipulate their work environments to preserve their self-regulating interests in, and task representative influence over the multi-jurisdictional space of industry-regional transformation. The contributions of this investigation suggest that agents’ varied perceptions of industry and regional change inform or compete for influence over the redirection of regional, industry and business strategies. This claim offers a greater appreciation for the reflexive and complex institutional dimensions of industry planning and development, and the political responsibility to socially just forms of regional development. It positions the outcomes of this investigation at the nexus of intensifying geo-political discourses on the efficiency and equity of territorial development in Europe.

Community engagement and social organization: introducing concepts, policy and practical applications

This chapter provides an introductory overview of how the term ‘community’ has been conceptualized in sociological literatures, noting that there remains considerable uncertainty with regard to the way in which communities could or should be defined. The chapter examines the salience of underlying concepts of social organization that can shape and influence the extent to which programmes of engagement are likely to be successful. Drawing on recent empirical work some of the key opportunities and challenges for local government in translating the concepts into practice are considered.

Regional performance and characteristics of Indian manufacturing industry

This paper investigates the regional characteristics of Indian manufacturing industry. Its aim is to assess whether geography plays any major role in determining the performance or characteristics of Indian manufacturing firms, and in order to do this, it presents the results of cross-section regressions estimated on the basis of a balanced sample of 1607 firms across the 30 Indian states. The results suggest that firm performance and characteristics are related to many of the expected industrial organization variables. However, there is also evidence of significant region–state influences on both the performance and characteristics of Indian manufacturing industry. As such, the results demonstrate that analyses which focus solely on standard non-spatial industrial organization variables will fail to explain much of the cross-sectional variation in firm performance and characteristics. In particular, while there are no systematic simple centre–periphery variations in the Indian regional economic system, there is evidence to suggest that industrial spatial concentration, regional specialization, and regional market size play a key role in determining the performance and characteristics of Indian manufacturing industry.

Climate change and the emergence of new organizational landscapes

There is general agreement across the world that human-made climate change is a serious global problem,although there are still some sceptics who challenge this view. Research in organization studies on the topic is relatively new. Much of this research, however, is instrumental and managerialist in its focus on ‘win-win’ opportunities for business or its treatment of climate change as just another corporate social responsibility (CSR) exercise. In this paper, we suggest that climate change is not just an environmental problem requiring technical and managerial solutions; it is a political issue where a variety of organizations – state agencies, firms, industry associations, NGOs and multilateral organizations – engage in contestation as well as collaboration over the issue. We discuss the strategic, institutional and political economy dimensions of climate change and develop a socioeconomic regimes approach as a synthesis of these different theoretical perspectives. Given the urgency of the problem and the need for a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy, there is a pressing need for organization scholars to develop a better understanding of apathy and inertia in the face of the current crisis and to identify paths toward transformative change. The seven papers in this special issue address these areas of research and examine strategies, discourses, identities and practices in relation to climate change at multiple levels.

Science drives horticulture's progress and profit

Horticultural science linked with basic studies in biology, chemistry, physics and engineering has laid the foundation for advances in applied knowledge which are at the heart of commercial, environmental and social horticulture. In few disciplines is science more rapidly translated into applicable technologies than in the huge range of man’s activities embraced within horticulture which are discussed in this Trilogy. This chapter surveys the origins of horticultural science developing as an integral part of the 16th century “Scientific Revolution”. It identifies early discoveries during the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries which rationalized the control of plant growth, flowering and fruiting and the media in which crops could be cultivated. The products of these discoveries formed the basis on which huge current industries of worldwide significance are founded in fruit, vegetable and ornamental production. More recent examples of the application of horticultural science are used in an explanation of how the integration of plant breeding, crop selection and astute marketing highlighted by the New Zealand industry have retained and expanded the viability of production which supplies huge volumes of fruit into the world’s markets. This is followed by an examination of science applied to tissue and cell culture as an example of technologies which have already produced massive industrial applications but hold the prospect for generating even greater advances in the future. Finally, examples are given of nascent scientific discoveries which hold the prospect for generating horticultural industries with considerable future impact. These include systems modeling and biology, nanotechnology, robotics, automation and electronics, genetics and plant breeding, and more efficient and effective use of resources and the employment of benign microbes. In conclusion there is an estimation of the value of horticultural science to society.