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The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

This paper aims to explore the effect of business strategy on socially responsible supply chain management (SR‐SCM).

This study draws on data from 178 UK‐based companies, and 340 buyer‐supplier relationships. A novel data collection approach is used, which minimizes social desirability and common methods bias, to capture socially responsible supply chain management. The data are analysed through a set of OLS regressions.

Business strategies significantly influence socially responsible supply chain management. Low‐cost producers largely neglect their social responsibilities in the supply chain. In contrast, firms pursuing differentiation strategies are considerably more engaged with these issues, partly because they have better supply chain processes.

Practitioners should carefully consider the fit between strategic position and level of engagement with SR‐SCM, since our results emphasise the relationship between SR‐SCM and business strategy. Proactive engagement with SR‐SCM, however, also implies sound supply chain processes, which must also be aligned with business strategy. Policy‐makers should consider the low engagement with SR‐SCM of low‐cost producers and the implications for SR‐SCM in cost sensitive and competitive global markets.

This is the first systematic cross‐sectional study of the relationship between business strategy and socially responsible supply chain management (SR‐SCM). These results suggest that there is a clear relationship between the strategic position of the firm and their SR‐SCM practices. These results contribute to the on‐going debate on relationships between strategy and supply chain management, and the emerging debate on the relationships between strategy and SR‐SCM.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the role of relational power/dependent asymmetries and symmetries in shaping socially responsible supply chain management, whilst also examining how these issues are moderated by geographical distance between buyer and supplier.

The study draws on data from 339 buyer‐supplier relationships, and the authors use a set of regression models to test their hypotheses.

Joint dependency positively influences socially responsible supply chain management, whilst supplier power constrains it. Both joint dependency and buyer power become increasingly important determinants of socially responsible supply chain management as geographic distance increases.

Further work is needed to examine the conditions under which organisations will exercise their power advantage or their joint dependence position to improve socially responsible processes in the supply chain, as there may be situations where the buyer chooses not to exercise their power positions.

The authors' results indicate that jointly dependent relationships create the best conditions for socially responsible supply chain management, but they also find that supplier power advantage can constrain such initiatives.

This is the first paper to systematically analyse the implementation of socially responsible supply chain management, within a model that considers power a/symmetric positions of the buyer‐supplier relationship, and the role of geographical distance as a moderating influence on these power positions.

IN July we sugggested that one outcome of the formation of a European Work Study organisation could be a standard certificate of competence, recognised by all the participating countries. That opinion is confirmed after reading carefully through the various memoranda compiled for the conference by representatives. They showed a wide variance in training methods and in the subjects regarded as important.

MUCH has been written about industrial engineering, especially in regard to American practice, but a good deal of confusion still exists about the whole subject.

MANY who realise the implications of White's book on The Organisation Man have probably closed it with the self‐satisfied reflection that ‘it can't happen here.’ That is the anodyne we generally swallow to protect us from disagreeable fears.

The “unplannable” is a welcomed exception to the formal order of urban planning. This opinion article explores some examples of informal urbanism and discusses its ambiguous relationship to public space and unplanned activities in the city. The informal sector offers important lessons about the adaptive use of space and its social role. The article examines the ways specific groups appropriate informal spaces and how this can add to a city’s entrepreneurship and success. The characteristics of informal, interstitial spaces within the contemporary city, and the numerous creative ways in which these temporarily used spaces are appropriated, challenge the prevalent critical discourse about our understanding of authorised public space, formal place-making and social order within the city in relation to these informal spaces.

The text discusses various cases from Chile, the US and China that illustrate the dilemma of the relationship between informality and public/private space today. One could say that informality is a deregulated self-help system that redefines relationships with the formal. Temporary or permanent spatial appropriation has behavioural, economic and cultural dimensions, and forms of the informalare not always immediately obvious: they are not mentioned in building codes and can often be subversive or unexpected, emerging in the grey area between legal and illegal activities.