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This paper outlines the participatory design processes adopted within the COSPATIAL project which is developing interactive, collaborative technologies for children and young people on the autism spectrum to support collaboration and social conversation skills. The project has involved a ‘core design team’ of teachers in a series of design workshops from the start. Groups of typically developing children and those on the autism spectrum have also been regularly involved in design and feedback activities to inform the development of our technology prototypes. Initial impressions from pilot testing suggest that children have enjoyed using the prototypes and teachers have found them useful; we suggest that our participatory design methods have strongly contributed to this positive response.

Online retailing is continuing to grow at a time with many fashion brands are closing retail stores. Social media is now an essential component within the purchase journey of a fashion consumer. As social media networks continue to develop transactional capabilities, this has giving rise to the expansion of social shopping. Fashion brands need to consider how best to optimise social shopping opportunities as an extension of the retail shopping experience. Reviewing developments within retailing, a conceptual model of social shopping is proposed, which places mobile technologies as central to the social shopping experience both on social media and in store.

THE joint publication, by the Institute and Society of County Treasurers, of Public Library Statistics for 1963–4 provides material of considerable topical interest at this time. The Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 came into force on 1 April 1965 and only a day or so before this date the Department of Education and Science issued Circular 4–1965, which, in addition to giving a general description of the provisions of the Act, includes an appendix drawing attention to the report of the Ministry of Education published in 1962 (“Standards of Public Library Service in England and Wales”) which, the Circular says, “gives guidance on the factors to be taken into account in considering the adequacy of the service”.

The second annual conference of the Research Alliance of Fashion and Textiles (RAFT), hosted by the Department of Clothing Design and Technology of Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), took place in Manchester in June.

It is the rage in the literature today for archivists and records managers to address the issue of recordkeeping in The New Millennium. It is an idea that must be worthy of its own acronym, TNM. It has a nice, seductive ring to it that gives one the sense of joining the ranks of the pundits and visionaries. This author has succumbed like all of the others. And I know I'll do it again — soon. I can't wait. At my age, when one begins to get the idea that it might be the last chance one will have to talk about a TNM, it is downright irresistible. One has to bleed it for all it is worth.

Companies consider logistics outsourcing for strategic reasons, and build close‐knit relationships with third‐party logistics (3PLs) providers. The purpose of this paper is to analyse logistics outsourcing in Spain from the viewpoint of 3PLs.

The paper suggests three propositions and conducts a case study of four 3PLs in Spain, chosen because of their market coverage and their range of services.

The results identify the main reasons why companies choose to outsource logistics, what kind of relationship they build with providers, and how much involvement in the management of their supply chain they seek from providers.

Most companies in Spain continue to outsource mainly on the basis of costs, and do so tactically. However, the option of developing an alliance with a 3PL provider is not always more economical, as cost reduction is due more to optimisation of the supply chain than to outsourcing itself. Based on the experiences of the four 3PLs providers under analysis, the paper makes a set of recommendations for senior management in the sector.

The research helps to fill an existing gap in the study of logistics outsourcing in Spain because it analyses logistics outsourcing from the perspective of the 3PLs provider and not from the viewpoint of the outsourcing organisation, as the vast majority of the studies conducted in Spain have done to date.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate website quality in rural firms in four countries, by using Gonzalez and Palacios's Web Assessment Index (WAI). There is an assertion in the literature that quality is lower amongst rural firms than urban firms, and lower amongst small firms than large firms. The disadvantages of lack of access to skills and economic peripherality in rural areas are attributed to this. Concurrently, there is reason to surmise that the websites of firms in transition economies may be higher quality than those in market economies. The paper aims to explore websites in distinct rural regions to investigate if variation occurs.

To evaluate website quality the WAI was applied to a sample of 60 rural firms representing 15 each in Scotland, New Zealand, Southern Russia and Hunan Province in China. Analysis of the categorical data was performed using a variety of established methods.

The WAI is of use in terms of website quality management. Additionally, comparisons between the quality of websites in the sample of small rural firms with those of large firms in previous studies support the contention that large firms generally have better quality websites. Results also illustrate that there are some differences in website quality between rural small businesses in the different locations. In particular, small rural firms in Hunan Province in China had websites of observable better quality than those elsewhere. The authors conclude that skills, knowledge and infrastructure have a bearing on the sophistication of small firms' websites.

Implications include that variation in the rural economy by region prevails as the rural economy is not, as often implied, a homogeneous concept.

There are implications in terms of exploring the effects of regulation, culture and infrastructure on rural small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The internet may indeed contribute to rural economies, but only insofar as it is facilitated by infrastructure and access to skills, and by culture and perceived usefulness by business owners.

The paper contributes to the understanding of rural entrepreneurship as a heterogeneous concept by comparing practice in four distinct rural regions. It also adds weight to the emerging identification of exogenous factors as being at least as much a factor in determining the use of ICT in rural SMEs as endogenous motivations, skills and resources.

This paper has as its aim to research the factors affecting the risk perceived by family firm executives in relation to international activity.

The paper examines the factors which can modify risk perception, placing special emphasis on those arising from the coincidence of ownership and management in family businesses.

Focus on the international commitment assumed by family firms and using a sample of 92 Spanish family companies, this paper shows that risk perception decreases with the presence of the first generation and the size of these organisations. Additionally, it has been found that the risk perceived is higher when the firm advances in its international commitment level.

If family firms know the factors which can affect the risk perceived about international activity, they will stand a better chance to handle them properly with a view to move forward in their internationalisation process.

An effort is made in this paper to deal with the risk perception associated with international activity in family firms, an issue treated in a small number of research works so far.

The purpose of this paper is to do a systematic assessment and testing of identified human rights norms alongside social determinant approaches in relation to identified health issues of concern in four Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) to show how social determinants and human rights frameworks improve population health.

To do so, in the first part the authors analyze the inequalities both between and within each of the selected countries in terms of health status and health determinants of the population. Then, in the second section, the authors analyze the level of recognition, institutionalisation and accountability of the right to health in each country.

From the data used in this paper it is possible to conclude that the four analysed countries have improved their results in terms of health status, health care and health behaviours. This improvement coincides with the recognition, institutionalisation and creation of accountability mechanisms of human rights principles and standards in terms of health and that a human rights approach to health and its relation with other social determinants have extended universal health coverage and health systems in the four analysed countries.

Despite of the importance of the relation between human rights and social determinants of health, there are few human right scholars working on the issues of social determinants of health and human rights. Most of the literature of health and human rights has been focussed specific relations between specific rights and the right to health, but less human right scholar working on social determinants of health. On the other hand, just a few epidemiologists and people working on social medicine have actually started to use a universal human rights frame and discourse. In fact, according to Vnkatapuram, Bell and Marmot: “while health and human rights advocates have from the start taken a global perspective, social medicine and social epidemiology have been slower to catch up”.