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There has been long‐term interest in the processes that affect human‐computer interaction, particularly those causing stress. Computer related stress has previously been correlated to general stress (Cohen, Kamarack, and Mermelstein 1983) and to somatic complaints (Derogatis et al. 1974). A negative correlation between perceived stress and academic performance has also been documented (Hudiburg and Jones 1991). This study compares computer related stress levels in three business student populations (239 students): juniors who have not begun their major course work, seniors who are MIS majors, and graduate MBA students. Using standard analysis of variance, we found that MIS students experienced a significantly higher number of stressors than the other two groups and a greater average severity of stress than the premajors. Human‐computer interaction is suspected to be more stressful for MIS students than other business students because their use of computers is greater and their grades are more heavily weighted toward computer work. This study further considers the various personality types/learning styles of these students and investigates how they might be accommodated to minimize anxiety. The Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test and a computer assignment preference test were administered to the 239 students. Recommendations for different learner types, in terms of environment variables and computer assignment characteristics, were made.

This paper studies current trends in the teaching of operations management. Research questions focus on how well operations management curriculum in American business schools match employers’ perceptions of required skills. Through surveys of both universities and business firms, we assess the value of general skills such as communication, team building and mathematical modeling. We also assess the importance to employers of incorporating specific computer‐based applications into the curriculum, and well as the value of building stronger management information system (MIS) skills in operation management majors.

Describes a networked virtual environment, a type of virtual reality most commonly known as a “MUD” or a “MOO”, which was used at an internationally‐attended scientific conference held on the Internet. Interviews with conference attendees indicated enthusiasm for the effectiveness of the medium, and revealed how the virtual environment can be modified to improve conferencing efficacy. Such alterations included: novel input‐output control management; automation of conference registration; control of anonymous or guest connections; simplification of conference center topography; an improved methodology for recording discussion sessions; use of moderated rooms to compensate for network lag; and providing buffers to update late arriving participants. Concludes that networked virtual environments provide an inexpensive means for effective international conferencing on the Internet.

The study of interorganizational systems (IOSs) has been an important area of interest in information systems research. Proponents of “transaction cost” economic theory predict that IOSs will tend towards a market‐driven orientation over time. Other researchers, however, suggest that there is a reverse trend occurring towards more hierarchical systems (fewer and closer relationships between buyers and sellers). This study examines the theoretical and strategic perspectives that tend to promote one form of network relationship over the other. An exploratory qualitative study of both a market (Amazon.com’s Internet book sales system) and a hierarchical (the Wallace Information Network system) network structure supports the development of a framework to guide future research and strategy.

Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Consumers often use inappropriate food‐handling practices and improving these could help to reduce the incidence of foodborne disease. However the development of an effective food safety education strategy is considered complex and could be improved by having a greater understanding of the consumer. This paper proposes investigating the modes and channels of communication that maybe used in education strategies.

A self‐complete postal questionnaire was distributed to a linked demographic quota of adults in South Wales. Responses were entered into a specially constructed food safety database.

Results indicated that the Environmental Health departments and UK Food Standards Agency were perceived to be the most trusted and credible organisations that can provide food safety information. The most believable spokespersons for promotion of food safety advice were determined as Environmental Health officers and the Chief Medical Officer. The most preferred source of food safety information identified were food packaging, followed by advice from a medical doctor.

Although only a relatively small sample size, many of the findings have been corroborated by qualitative data from nationwide focus groups. The data have been used as the precursor for a large nationwide study of over 2,000 consumers and this should further validate the data.

The results will be of benefit to a range of organisations currently engaged in food safety education as well as identifying potentially underutilised channels of communication.

This paper explores the phenomenon of collecting a plethora of memorabilia associated with a specific brand – in this case, the British Royal Family (BRF) brand. We explore the lifeworld of “Elizabeth,” an über-collector of BRF memorabilia, and describe how her collection can be interpreted as extensions of three separate identities – Collector, Business Owner, and Media Expert. Within these three identities, Elizabeth expressed different emergent roles to the various social networks within whom she interacted (e.g., as a collector, she often acted as “Rescuer,” taking in others’ BRF collections in order to preserve them). We illuminate these different roles and offer suggestions for future research.

The use of an observational approach in conjunction with isolation techniques for campylobacter and salmonella detection has facilitated a detailed evaluation of the risk of cross contamination during food preparation. Identification of suspected exposure routes has linked naturally contaminated raw foods with important food‐handling malpractices, contaminated contact surfaces and ready‐to‐eat foods. In a model domestic kitchen, 29 per cent of food preparation sessions resulted in positive campylobacter isolations from prepared salads, cleaning materials and food‐contact surfaces. Typing results showed that specific campylobacter strains isolated from prepared chicken salads were the same as the strains isolated from the raw chicken pieces, indicating microbial transfer during food preparation. Data obtained from this study can be used for exposure assessment, risk management and in the development of consumer risk communication strategies.

The new Fair Trading measure aims at the establishment of a strong, bioadly‐based central direction of consumer protection; a new Director‐General of Fair Trading with wide responsibilities “for protecting consumers” with authority to “make proposals for the exercise of order‐making powers in relation to trading practices which adversely affect consumer interests”, and “to act against those who persistently follow a course of conduct unfair to consumers”. This supremo is to work closely with the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and the Restrictive Practices Board, and no less than five junior Ministers are to be given special responsibilities for protecting consumer interests, handling these aspects of the new system in their own departments.

Factors which influence consumer spending, among the most sought after in any field of market research, things people buy and why, is valuable data on which much industrial planning, advertising techniques and marketing is based, but in no other field of trade is consumer preference so closely related to pure economics, i.e., value received in money terms, as in food. With most other commodities, from clothes to cars, hair‐do's to houses, factors affecting consumer choice have different results; appearance, aesthetic quality and neighbourly competition, all play a part, though appearance in a few foods is not entirely without significance, e.g., white bread. Present high levels of consumer spending are said by politicians to be a danger to the country's economy; a more prosaic thought would be that Government spending, or squandering, constituted the greater threat. In the main, factors which influence household food expenditure are essentially down to earth—palatability, digestibility, keeping quality and how far a food will go in the preparation of meals, its value in money terms. The king‐pin in all market research on food must be the woman of the house; it is her laying out of the household purse that determines the amount of food expenditure and the varieties purchased week by week. A housewife's choice, however, is a complex of her family's likes and dislikes, rarely her own, and also determined by the amount allocated from her purse for this part of the household budget and the number of mouths she has to feed. Any tendency to experiment, to extend the variety of food, is only possible with a well‐filled purse; with a large family, a common complaint is of monotony in the diet. A factor of immense importance nowadays is whether the housewife is employed or not, and whether whole‐time or part‐time, and which part of the day she can be in her own home. To this may be attributed, as much as anything, the rise in consumption of convenience foods. Fortunately for the purposes of reasonable accuracy in the results of enquiries, housewives form a class, reliable and steady, unlikely to be contaminated by the palsied opinions of the so‐called lunatic fringe in this unquiet age. Any differences in food choice are likely to be regional, and settled dietary habits, passed on from one generation to another. Statistics from the National Food Surveys show the extent of these, and also consumer preferences as far as food commodity groups are concerned. The Surveys have been running long enough to show something of consumer trends but, of course, they do not exhibit reasons—why consumers buy and use certain foods, their attitudes to food marketing practices, and, in particular, to advertising. Advertising claims, misleading undoubtedly but within the law, have long been a source of controversy between those who worship at the shrine of truth and others less particular. Elsewhere, we review a special study of consumer reactions to aspects of the grocery trade in the U.S.A., and note that 32 per cent do not accept advertisements as being true, but 85 per cent find them interesting and informative. Advertising practices are probably subject to less statutory control in the United States than here, and the descriptions and verbiage certainly reach greater heights of absurdity, but the British housewife is likely to be no more discerning, able “to read between the lines”, than her counterpart in that country. A major difference, however, is that in Britain, more houswives prepare and cook meals for their families than in the United States. The greatest importance of advertising is in the introductory phase of a commodity; new and more vigorous advertising is necessary later to delay the onset of the decline phase of the commodity's life cycle; to ensure that sales can be maintained to prevent rises in supply costs. Advertising helps considerably in the acceptance of a branded food, but housewives tend to ignore cut‐throat competition between rival brands, and what weans a consumer from a brand is not competition in advertising, nor even new and more attractive presentation, but reduction in real price. The main pre‐occupation of the woman of the house is food adequacy, and especially that her children will have what she considers conforms to a nutritious diet, without argument or rebellion on the part of her progeny and without distinction. She knows that bulk foods, carbohydrates, are not necessarily nutritious, although her ideas of which foods contain vitamins or minerals or other important nutrient factors tends to be hazy. She does not pretend to enjoy shopping for food and therefore tends to follow a routine; it saves time and worry. Especially is this so with young married women, who may have to take small children along. Each housewife has her own mental standard of assessing “value”, and would have difficulty in defining it. Nutritional value forms part of it, however, in most women, who connote their food provision with health. The greatest concern is not necessarily positive health, but prevention or reduction of obesity, which is seen among adult members of the family, especially growing girls, as an adverse effect on their appearance, and the types of clothes they can wear. A few of the more intelligent families have an indefinable fear of ischaemic heart disease and its relation to food. When they take positive steps to control the diet for these purposes, they are quite frequently in the wrong direction and rather confused even when this is done on medical advice.