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Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to examine the agile supply chain management practices adopted by UK clothing retailers in order to effectively manage the supply of innovative, high-margin, high-fashion content product offerings in a complex global environment. Design/methodology/approach — A case study approach was adopted examining the whole of the global retail fashion supply chain, from typical UK-based retailers through to their main production and logistics suppliers based in two low-cost locations, China and Romania. The cases of the UK retailers were followed by a study tour of China and Romania, where ten cases of fabric and finishing manufacturers, intermediaries and logistic providers were carried out. Findings — Many aspects of accepted risk management and agile practice, such as market sensitivity, postponement activities and collaborative information-sharing partnerships were apparent in the early product definition and the later product delivery stages of the supply chain. However, the responsibility for supply, including the key aspect of managing the complex supply network, was almost exclusively left to intermediaries located in low-cost countries. These intermediaries in the main could best achieve agile supply from a significantly underutilized low-cost country supply network through a traditional adversarial price and lead time auction sourcing process. Research limitations/implications — While the cases considered reflected what seemed to be a typical and widely adopted approach to managing such a supply chain, this may not, of course, be the only approach taken by organisations in the clothing industry. Originality/value — By examining a whole supply chain associated with agile supply in an important sector, the paper identifies the relative importance of some existing practices and brings into sharper focus those most relevant to this type of supply. The paper also identifies key elements of contemporary supply chain management practice, namely the growing use of global supply for innovative products and the essential and valuable role played by intermediaries in such supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "A New Map of the World," by Ian Linden. Linden has already moved on since writing the book, and if the book has emphases and approaches in it that are not mine, the development the paper seems to show brings people into almost complete agreement. Linden now, for example, draws into the analysis the enormously significant cases of India and China, which together make up about 40% of the world's population. Nor does he now lay so much emphasis on the Asian collapses of 1978.

This article responds to the diversity of approaches in the five papers presented at the Matthew Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, held in Boston (Massachusetts), 21-25 November 2008. This response focuses on an overarching question: what does it mean to read Matthew in a global context? It considers two key areas. The first is location and voice/language and the second, the hermeneutics and methodologies employed and how these enabled John Y.H. Yieh (Virginia Theological Seminary), Andries van Aarde (University of Pretoria), Dorothy Jean Weaver (Eastern Mennonite Seminary), Laura Anderson (Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley) and Lidija Novakovic (Baylor University, Waco) to read Matthew within a global context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]