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Five years ago Alstom Transporte, the Spain‐based railway systems maintenance unit of Alstom, knew nothing about how it was seen by its customers or employees. With the rigorous use of assessments it has been able to build a continuous improvement culture around the needs of its stakeholders.

Purpose: This chapter introduces a choice modeling framework that explicitly represents the planning and action stages of the choice process.

Methodology: A discussion of evidence from behavioral research is followed by the development of a discrete choice modeling framework with explicit planning and action submodels. The plan/action choice model is formulated for both static and dynamic contexts; where the latter is based on the Hidden Markov Model. Plans are often unobservable and are treated as latent variables in model estimation using observed actions.

Implications: By modeling the interactions between the planning and action stages, we are able to incorporate richer specifications in choice models with better predictive and policy analysis capabilities. The applications of this research in areas such as driving behavior, route choice, and mode choice demonstrate the advantages of the plan/action model in comparison to a “black box” choice model in terms of improved microsimulations of behaviors that better represent real-life situations. As such, the outcomes of this chapter are relevant to researchers and policy analysts.

The purpose of the current study was to assess the impact of information technology on strategic flexibility for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Results of the study show that under conditions of low environmental dynamism, IT capabilities are associated with greater reactive strategic flexibility. Specifically, IT capabilities enabling the management of internal activities was significant. Under conditions of high environmental dynamism, IT capabilities are associated with greater proactive strategic flexibility. Specifically, IT capabilities enabling the management of competitor information was significant. Managerial as well as future research implications are discussed.

IN NOVEMBER 1989, RONALD W. SKEDDLE, chief executive of Libbey‐Owens‐Ford Co., stood before a group of financial executives and delivered a sobering speech about business ethics. Four years later, he was standing before his own board members trying to explain certain alleged irregularities in the running of the company. Apparently they didn't like what they heard, and he (along with two other Libbey‐Owens‐Ford executives) was asked to step down. According to court documents filed in Columbus, Ohio (the company, a division of Pilkington P.L.C., is based in Toledo), Skeddle et. al. had bilked over $7.7 million from Libbey‐Owens‐Ford through various schemes. Skeddle could not be reached for comment.

Aims to fill the gap in understanding about services marketing in the East. Uses an eclectic methodology in surveying services marketing in the Arabian Gulf, offering some East‐West comparison, including explanation for and implications of differences. Demonstrates that environmental constraints have great effects on services produced in a society, concluding that services mirror their society and its culture, history and socioeconomic circumstances.

For the past ten years or so, librarians have been discussing the way reference service is provided, the most conspicuous recent installments being the “Re‐thinking Reference in Academic Libraries” conference and the widely publicized changes at Brandeis University. No one has heard every statement in this debate because it has been so extensive in time, space, and medium. Nevertheless, it seems safe to say that mathematical queuing theory has not played a significant role in it. At first, this lacuna is puzzling, since queuing problems are one of the fundamental types treated in operations research, which in “those thrilling days of yesteryear,” the fifties, sixties, and early seventies, was taught in some library and information science programs. By 1978 articles that applied the theory specifically to reference work appeared. Yet, the second edition of a text on operations research for librarians that appeared in 1991 says not a word about reference queues. Perhaps this theory has been neglected in recent discussions because it is usually applied to telephone calls or local area networks and other configurations of computers, while its use in analyzing queues of people in banks, supermarkets, and the like was passed over as too mundane. Perhaps, too, the failure of banks to take the theory to its logical limits in arranging the queues for bank tellers has led to caution.

Describes an approach to competitive analysis that focuses on inter‐industry learning. Examines examples which show how the approach can provide insight into identifying new product opportunities, ways of repositioning existing products, and ways of adding value to existing products. Concludes that an inter‐industry learning strategy is more likely to succeed because it delivers innovative ideas while escaping the codes of conduct that develop within particular industries.