Serials spoken here: reports of conferences,institutes, and seminars

Abstract

Reports on the Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians (OVGTSL) Annual Conference, the April 2004 New England Technical Services Librarians (NETSL) Conference, the 2004 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge, and the 2004 Conference of the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG).

Reports are from four conferences held in various parts of the United States and cover a wide range of topics. The Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians program emphasized the relationship between technical and public services. Education, both formal and continuing, was the theme for the New England Technical Services Librarians. Timberline Lodge hosted another Acquisitions Institute featuring sessions on new discoveries. The report on the 2004 North American Serials Group Annual Conference allows Conference Student Grant Award winner Chris Brady to include some personal reflections along with summaries of the sessions he attended.     

Decision Sciences Research in China: A Critical Review and Research Agenda—Foundations and Overview*

This article focuses on decision sciences research in China, providing an overview of current research and developing a foundation for future China‐based research. China provides a unique research opportunity for decision sciences researchers, owing to its recent history, rapid economic development, and strong national culture. We examine recent economic reforms and their impact on the development of research questions in the decision sciences, as well as discuss characteristics of the diverse regions in China and their potential as sites for various types of research. We provide a brief overview of recent China‐based research on decision sciences issues relating to national culture, supply chain management, quality management, production planning and control, operations strategy, and new product development and discuss some of the unique methodological challenges inherent in China‐based research. We conclude by looking forward to emerging research opportunities in China.     

“Us” versus “Them”: communication barriers in post‐socialist Russia

The paper addresses the general socio‐cultural consequences of economic and political globalisation. With regard to the dispute between “universalists” and “culturalists” it holds the view that—contrary to expectations of cultural convergence and the emergence of universal values and institutions‐‐the “universal grip” of globalisation has produced a mirror effect of “localisation”; it has strengthened old boundaries and created new ones between religions, ethnic groups, regions or nations. This is the background against which the present communication between East and West Europeans is explored in the paper.

For Europe, globalisation has some additional effects, such as the collapse of the Soviet system in Eastern Europe. There, (a) globalisation coincides with the painful process of political and economic transformation and (b) revitalises the pre‐socialist context of the West‐East dichotomy. It shows that the East European variety of the opposition global‐local acquires additional drama due to being superceded by the opposition West‐East: the defensive reactions against globalisation are sharper and more powerful—and they are largely perceived and experienced as an East‐West controversy.

The paper explores the new mental barriers between West and East, the “wall in the heads”, and presents them as a major obstacle to the effective interpersonal communication in post‐socialist Europe. It is based on field research in Russia and Germany and uses the concept of “otherness” (Fremdheit) and the related ingroup‐outgroup category as key instruments for the interpretation and understanding of intercultural situations. The strengthening of the “us vs. them” boundary largely determines the communication process: it creates potential for conflict and has a negative effect on the motivation for cross‐cultural learning. Some implications for cross‐cultural educators and trainers are pointed out.     

Strategic Design Responsiveness: An Empirical Analysis of US Retail Store Networks

This study uses a service operations management (SOM) strategy lens to investigate chain store retailers' strategic design responsiveness (SDR)—a term that captures the degree to which retailers dynamically coordinate investments in human and structural capital with the complexity of their service and product offerings. Labor force and physical capital are respectively used as proxies for investments in human capital and structural capital, whereas gross margins are proxies for product/service offering complexity. Consequently, SDR broadly reflects three salient complementary choices of SOM design strategy. We test the effects of “brick and mortar” chain store retailers' SDR on current and future firm performance using publically available panel data collected from Compustat and the University of Michigan American Customer Satisfaction Index databases for the period 1996–2011. We find that retailers that fail to keep pace with investments in both structural and human capital exhibit short‐term financial benefits, but have worse ongoing operational performance. These findings corroborate the importance of managers strategically maintaining the complementarity of design‐related choices for improving and maintaining business performance.     

PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH LESBIAN COUPLES: INDIVIDUAL ISSUES,FEMALE SOCIALIZATION,AND THE SOCIAL CONTEXT*

Relationship patterns in lesbian couples vary systematically from relationship patterns in heterosexual couples in ways that are related to the exclusively female composition of these couples, their stigmatizable identity, and the lack of social recognition and acceptance for such family units. These patterned differences are addressed from a systemic perspective in five arenas: distance regulation and boundary maintenance, sexual expression, financial arrangements, breaking up, and stage differences in coming out and acceptance of lesbian identity.