Business games and implementation research

This paper reviews some recent research in OR implementation and suggests that a new approach is required, which will take fuller account of the perceptions of managers concerned with the problem. Research games in business settings seem to offer a means for such approach. Some lessons learned from a business game used in this way are described and their implications for modelbuilders are discussed.     

Needs, rights, and the human family: the practicality of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an important document that has both policy and practice implications. Its practicality as a working document hinges on its implementation. This article proposes that the CRC be viewed from a child rights perspective that has five building blocks. These building blocks relate to specific articles in the CRC. They also each allow for the CRC to be realistically interpreted and to be actively promoted.     

Preparing social work students to work in culturally diverse settings

Social workers have been in the forefront of the debate surrounding multiculturalism and are delineating guidelines on how to appreciate, work with, and embrace cultural diversity. This paper presents a structured format for presenting multicultural material into a BSW field seminar course based on a three-point paradigm. It focuses on allowing the students to develop an awareness of their cultural identity while at the same time attempting to increase their awareness of other cultural and ethnic customs and values.     

Pathways to solutions

Problems may be viewed from many different angles and in many different ways. The order in which facts are collected, the attitudes of the people involved in the problem, the climate in which the problem finds itself to be, all play their parts in determining what the problem is perceived to be and how it is tackled. This paper reports on the several ways in which an apparently simple problem was approached and recognises that the process of solution which is adopted can dictate the eventual outcome and determine what the recommendations will be.     

Government,management and the environmental crisis

In case there should be any doubt that the human predicament will soon be a global crisis the reasons why this must be so are discussed. The increased use of resources and the growing dependence on a fuel-based technology are crisis enough, but to this is added the growing population of the part of the world less advanced in technology, where attitudes are different and cannot be changed to conform to the richer population's idea of what is what in the world.Most of our problems are created because the total effect of an operation is not properly considered when it is undertaken for the part that is wanted. Thus the rich countries have got themselves into a predicament the fault for which the poor see lying entirely with the rich, while the rich see the danger in the growing poor populations.The mechanism of evolution by selection from spontaneous variety must be followed because we cannot foresee needs. To keep the process healthy we must retain room for manoeuvre and choice and we must studiously avoid trying to operate monolithic technological ways of maintaining our society.Policies should seek to anticipate the imminent pressures of the future so as to retain freedom of movement, and the most obvious policy should be to make the price of fuel artificially high to conserve resources and stimulate the right kind of new technologies.     

Post Gulf War Forum Assault on Iraq

This article does not have an abstract     

Adapting production for private label goods

Linear Programming (LP) is a valuable tool of operational research and has been applied successfully to problems of production scheduling, particularly in the process industries. It is dependent to a large degree on forecasts of demand for the products: when demand is erratic, production scheduling suffers, whatever the technique employed. LP is sometimes adopted, however, in situations which do not necessarily warrant its use. Such a case arose when considering the production difficulties of private label goods in the food industry. The problem was eventually modified with the full cooperation of management, despite initial opposition. The solution found was to adapt as a company to market conditions, instead of forcing the production function to operate within artificial constraints.