Better,faster, cheaper: Pick any three

A strategy called software product line engineering, or SPLE, is taking hold in industries in which software is an integral part of product offerings. Where it has found a foothold, SPLE has brought about remarkable results such as unprecedented product variation, substantial production cost savings, slashing of time to market, and massive productivity gains. SPLE is the software version of an old manufacturing concept: building a suite of products from common parts assembled under a common design in a common production facility. The special properties of software make SPLE a particularly high-payoff proposition. SPLE exploits the commonalities among products to achieve economies of scale, by creating core assets—assets that will be applied to multiple products in the product line. SPLE accommodates the differences among products by explicitly identifying and planning for those variations in product behavior and qualities. This management of variation allows the organization to achieve economies of scope and provides the capability of mass customization where every market is treated as a niche. Management ensures that core asset developers create effective core assets and product builders efficiently build products by using them. This requires oversight, coordination, and melding of purpose of groups that have slightly different inherent goals.     

Bringing complexity and convergence governance to consumer policy

Consumer policy is already being shaped by a combination of governance models. This position paper argues that complexity‐oriented convergence models are a timely addition. Modern day consumer policy is characterized as interactive and integrative, replete with shifting boundaries and coalitions and evolving roles for each of state, market and society. This paper focused on governance in the consumer policy arena, arguing that this process needs to acknowledge and reconcile complexity. After describing the basic tenets of complexity theory, two characteristics of contemporary tri‐sector interaction (i.e., sector blurring and sector distortion) were discussed. These boundary characteristics necessitate the need for approaches that can accommodate complexity during consumer policy governance. Three examples of the latter were profiled: sector convergence, network governance and cross‐sector governance. These conceptualizations accommodate the dynamics, complexity and emergence of contemporary consumer policy governance.     

Home and away: graduate experience from a regional perspective

The recent establishment of regional assemblies adds a further policy dimension to higher education. This paper consists of an empirical analysis of the choices made by the 1991 Northern Ireland cohort of entrants to higher education to stay in or leave Northern Ireland for universities and subsequently then for employment. The data indicate that the probability to leave was firmly linked to A level scores, though this interacted with religion and social class. The choice of labour market for most students reflected the location of university. Those who returned to Northern Ireland after graduation were less able and earned less on average than those who remained. Employment in the locality of the university improves earnings, possibly due to the information this generates for both parties.     

Critical thinking in consumer studies: part 2 of a content analysis of Canadian university consumer studies courses

Abstract This paper concludes a two-part study on a content analysis of Canadian university consumer studies courses offered in human ecology, home economics or related programmes. Phase 1 of the study profiles the programmes, professors, students and the results of a content analysis of these courses. This companion research examines the inferred level of learning associated with consumer concepts in the course outlines. Instructors were choosing verbs associated with knowledge and comprehension rather than application, analysis, synthesis or evaluation. Implications regarding the appropriateness of these courses to prepare graduates for consumer-related careers are discussed. Lessons to be learned from the Canadian experience are tendered, especially the need for critical theory, a systems of actions perspective and an ethical, value-based approach in consumer studies courses.