There has been some concern about the extent to which models and practices of HRM are capable of being transferred from one country to another. This emerged in the late 1970s as concern that Japanese ideas might be adopted uncritically by US companies, and during the 1980s as concern that these ideas, after recycling within the US, might not be totally appropriate for consumption in other parts of the world. Further urgency is added to the question by the pressures on many organizations to develop their businesses internationally, or globally -since this increasingly means they have to consider and establish HRM policies which can span different national systems and cultures.This paper considers the problem through a direct comparison of practices in matched Chinese and UK companies in order to establish where variations occur both within and between countries. It is evident that there are considerable variations in the form of HRM in different settings, but also some surprising similarities. Thus, for example, there are more similarities in manpower planning systems between Chinese companies and some of the UK companies than there are between all the UK companies. In this case it can be concluded that these elements are not greatly affected by national (and assumed cultural) differences. On the other hand, there is a sharp difference between the UK and Chinese companies with regard to pay and reward systems, but much consistency within each country. This suggests that there may be deep-seated differences between the two countries with regard to attitudes towards rewards which will limit the transferability of HRM ideas in this area.

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An exploratory case study of the features of the service encounter within the concept shop Sh! forms the startingpoint for building theory to describe and conceptualize such encounters. Sex shops exclusively targeted at women are a new and ground-breaking phenomenon, challenging the traditional notion of sex shops as male domains. Illustrates a shift towards a postmodernist merging of production and consumption patterns. The participant observation study investigates the drama perspective of the servuction systems model as a potential framework applicable to the intersubjective construction of a postmodern feminist perspective of hedonistic consumption. Concludes that Sh! offers unique opportunities for co-creations of a new service encounter -a female playspace.

Throughout its history feminism has produced``grey'' literature. This material has played an important part in communicating women's knowledge(s) and instigating activism. This paper considers the development of grey literature within feminism and its value to feminism, in brief.The key focus of the paper is in the potentials of the Internet as a communication mechanism and for feminist grey literature. Consideration is given to rapidly expanding forms of feminist grey literature on the Internet, and the potentials and concerns raised by this grey medium are discussed. Despite fears raised by some writers about the dangers and difficulties of cyberspace for women, overall this paper is optimistic about the potentials for feminist grey literature. Hence, it is suggested that grey literature on the Net offers global feminist sustenance; potential empowerment; and a means to challenge social inequalities.