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The major concern in this paper has been to examine conflict in export manufacturer distributor relationships, and the degree of association between conflict and the stake of the manufacturer in the relationship, and the performance of the channel in question. This paper reports findings from a survey of Canadian manufacturers using an exporting arrangement to run their own overseas marketing operations. A number of factors militate against this choice, such as low sales volumes in individual markets and high start-up and running costs of overseas sales branches. The survey sample comprised nineteen Canadian manufacturing companies exporting industrial goods to Great Britain and selling through independent distributors. The study reported here is an early attempt to empirically examine behavior in export marketing channels. Whilst a good amount of channel field studies have been conducted, the focus of studies extent has almost exclusively been domestic. While channel management is universally important, the separation of most exporters and their overseas distributors makes the matter critical once goods flow across international boundaries.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of two research studies which examined the differences in the attribute profiles of profitable as compared to unprofitable companies in Great Britain wool textile industry and the Canadian leather accessory industry. The attribute profiles consisted of a wide range of factors which measured managerial attitudes, organizational design, financial variables and many other attributes of the firm. The research study was confined to two individual industries to eliminate problems associated with comparing companies from separate industries having differing industry structures and market pressures. The group profiles of profitable and unprofitable companies for Great Britain wool textile industry were found to differ on 41 attributes. The appropriate non-parametric tests of statistical difference and association were used to ensure that these results were significant at the 95 percent confidence level. The profiles for the Canadian leather industry differed significantly on 43 attributes.

This section offers news briefs on issues related to pharmacovigilance. Neurogen Corp. has suspended a clinical trial investigating the treatment of insomnia with a bilayer tablet formulation of adipiplon due to a higher rate of unwanted next day effects. The Canadian government is planning to invest to the establishment of the Drug Safety and Effectiveness network. The British Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has revised the European Pharmacopoeia monographs for heparin preparations.