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In a world of transition for all our disciplines, actuaries can get and keep ahead of the changes by, first, getting our thinking right. Right behaviour and actions will follow. We will think about the needs of our employers and clients and present our findings more in the business context; we will look through their needs to the needs and interests of their employees and customers. We will grasp financial economics and learn banking thinking. The profession will raise issues of public interest and inform the debate.

The study investigates a practical freight carrier collaboration problem in a carbon-constrained business context. It examines to see if collaboration between carriers can reduce the environmental issues of freight movement. The introduction of carbon credit systems will stimulate freight carriers to decide whether it should trade carbon credits with its collaborators. This issue is examined by formulating the problem as a two-stage stochastic program to minimize the joint emission of the carriers while meeting their service commitments. The collaborative model developed can reduce emissions across a freight network by 3–20%.

A practical example and real-life case study is presented illustrating how one UK software company, Vrisko, has approached and managed the issues and problems of developing intelligent agent software and applying it in a business context. Describes some of the lessons learnt by the company in building applications which are currently being used by knowledge intensive organizations such as Citigroup, the world’s biggest bank and Linklaters, the UK’s second largest law firm, to interface with highly structured content from some of the world’s major business and financial publishers. Highlights the importance of content and the way content is organized and structured, to reinforce the point made by various pundits, that intelligent agent software works best with well structured content. Offers four predictions: that online content will be better organized and structured; that intelligent search tools will continue to improve; that users will expect external content integrated with their internal applications and intelligent agents to reflect and support their internal business processes; and that the skills of information professionals will become even more important, as organizations increasingly use intelligent agents and other technologies to build applications which optimize the value of information to their business.

This paper 1 examines the issue of sustainability in the internal operations of companies. It examines what sustainability means in the business context, looks at how the concept can be measured with an example applied to companies in Brazil and examines the economics of corporate sustainability. It briefly explores the business case and raises a number of issues and questions that need to be discussed further. The paper ends with a suggested memo of concrete actions that a forward looking CEO could write to the company's senior managers.

Several indirect methods for quantifying the economic value of Systems Engineering practices are described. All are easily recognized as conventional valuations. Systems Engineers are more effective when marketing their core skills in a business context. This paper supports those SEs who participate in the marketing of Systems Engineering as Engineering.

We formulate a model of the decision of when a new venture should enter the market based on the uncertain evolution over time of environmental volatility and market competition. We characterize the performance-maximizing time to enter the market, and show how this entry time is affected by changes in the business environment. By further focusing our modeling assumptions, we are able to translate our time-based criteria into environmental terms and propose that management set a target environment level that must be met before entering the market. We also demonstrate that management should adjust this target over time to respond to changes in the business context. This modeling feature is important because it allows for a better assessment of when to enter a market based on future performances. We translate the model's theoretical insights into testable propositions, and explore possible ways to operationalize these for empirical testing.

The influence of technology developments on the content and arrangement of work is a recurring theme in many publications. Advances in information and communication technology (ICT) are reshaping internal organizational design and necessitate new types of employee capabilities and behaviour. As will be illustrated, ICT developments create a heightened level of business and market dynamics. Arguably, these dynamics affect the required capabilities and behaviour of employees even more strongly. Similarly, the way businesses are operating, and customer, supplier and business partner relationships are formed, is also affected by the rapid ICT progress. Key drivers shaping the new business context will be addressed. This paper argues that the trends and developments illustrated necessitate revision of traditionally held beliefs and paradigms. Said revision has important implications for the strategy and management of human resources, whereby the focus on employee behaviour is crucial. Two key aspects of a huma...

This article proposes that action research projects in a large business context may need to fit within organizational funding and political cycles. It outlines some of the problems that may occur in attempting to implement an action research project in a large organization. It gives a case study of such a project that aimed to introduce a systemic human resource strategy to bring about organizational cultural change. Part way through the completion of the project the cycle changed, funds were cut, and the project was abolished, although significant portions of it had been implemented and other parts were later reestablished. The article establishes a link to punctuated equilibrium theory in exploring the political and funding cycles that influenced the decision to cut funding. It considers whether this could have been foreseen, and gives some recommendations for future action research projects.

To confirm the sustainability of the SERVQUAL framework within an Eastern business context, a replication study was conducted in Macau, a small place which is adjacent to Hong Kong and has just been returned to the PRC from the Portuguese administration. In March, 1999, about 230 customers of a local bank were surveyed on the 22 items of the SERVQUAL. Factor analysis established the existence of six service dimensions, which is different from the original findings of Parasuraman et al. (1988). The new solution thus requires considerably different interpretations.

Every day, a large volume of information is downloaded onto organizations without a management plan for this resource, damaging the work processes, which require the employee to have effective competence against the use of this information. Thus, this research aims to interrelate the information management and information literacy as processes that can subsidize the work practices of the organizations inserted in the business context. The research problem is defined: how can information management and information literacy contribute to organizations within the business context? Why does information management require Information Competence and vice versa? For this, a research of the bibliographic type and qualitative nature was used as methodology, where a survey of relevant materials on the concepts in question was carried out. The results showed that it is relevant to unite these fields of information science (information management and information literacy) and insert them into the organizational environment, in order to optimize the daily processes related to work practices and decision making. This interrelationship can be identified as strategic planning for the achievement of competitive advantage and success in the market.

The aim of the paper is to present an approach toward creativity and learning in business context in two lines. The first is referred to the processes of creativity as organizational assets and capital. The second line involves a focus on actual learnings settings where the evaluation of results produces new ideas, approaches, contexts, vision, efficiency, organizational needs and goals. This paper discusses Amy Edmondson’s scientific approach to execution-as-learning and the research on execution-as-efficiency (2008). The results include the assumption that a larger independence in assertions from each group (on execution-as-learning and execution-as-efficiency) is needed in an organizational context.

When an engineer thinks about the IT industry, a tendency to consider only the technical side of it is likely to appear. That is quite natural as successes in this area are obviously related to the innovation and exciting inventions that are presented throughout the pages of our magazine. However, as in the case of each industry, there are also other very important aspects, i.e., economic, legal, etc. Therefore, to be effective in practical IT, a network specialist needs not only to be expert in one’s own field; they also need to be aware of the general business context, since in many cases this is the source of inspiration or, on the other hand, problems influencing the every-day operation. This book authored by two distinguished practitioners will help with getting the required knowledge. The content is divided into 10 chapters, each of which is some 30-40 pages long. Hence, it is possible to get acquainted with a single piece of the presented material during an afternoon. While almost all of the presented notions are described in the context of IT issues, some of the chapters cover very general economic problems related to business operation: business strategy concepts; corporate finance and governance; customers and marketing; and people and organizational development. These general topics are intertwined with the chapters detailing specific aspects of the field interesting for us: regulation in telecommunications along with the recent emphasis on opening markets, economics of network design, and the management of networks and services. Although throughout the book the British perspective of the authors is seen, there are many examples covering European, American and (rarely) Asian markets. Anyway, globalization, so important for today’s big IT businesses, is tangible for the reader. The book can be recommended to students as a handbook, being a perfect supplement for the lectures on entrepreneurship or practical project management courses that are typically a part of the curriculum for a future IT engineers. This is also a good summary of various aspects of networking from the organizational and global viewpoint, a perspective that might sometimes be lost when a student encounters various topics covered during different courses separately. On the other hand, the book will be useful for network specialists who would like to understand what are the basic categories of thinking for management or marketing staff. “

As the innovation is increasingly important, training of business innovation is becoming popular. In developing countries like Vietnam, training mostly involves foreign partners as they provide experience and knowledge that domestic lecturers are lack. Through completed Finnish-Vietnam joint training projects on business innovation, we analyzed the feedbacks of all participants, foreign and domestic lecturers. Results show that the international cooperation is among the critical factors to deliver innovation to business in developing countries. However, there are barriers to an effective cooperation such as language, motivation, and business context. It seems that all barriers are coming from cultural differences and can be solved by building trust through long-term strategic partnership. Â Keywords - innovation training, cultural barriers, international cooperation

For two reasons, Business-to-Business (B2B) marketers face greater challenges in measuring return on marketing investment than Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketers. First, business buyers have an irregular purchase pattern. Second, marketing efforts take a longer time to build a business relationship. The purpose of this research is to capture the effect of marketing contacts such as direct mailings and telephone calls on buyer-seller relationships with heterogeneous buyer responses. Previous literature captured the effect of marketing contacts on buying behavior through a Hidden Markov model (Netzer, Lattin, and Srinivasan 2008). However, existing models are not able to capture heterogeneous marketing response parameters. This research developed from the above literature but has distinguishing features. First, marketing response parameters are heterogeneous across buyers. Allenby and Rossi (1999) suggest that uncertainty in individual level estimates should be incorporated, so that the marketers can make decisions based on customer differences. Second, this paper gives an in-depth examination of buyer-seller relationships in a business context. Third, this research provides detailed justification as to the reasons a Bayesian Hidden Markov model should be used and introduces the preferred approach of forward-backward method in Bayesian Hidden Markov model literature. Fourth, the hidden states are recovered through a forward-backward algorithm (Chib, 1996).

Facebook, the leading social networking site, has opened its platform to developers and allow them to publish applications. Subsequently, numerous Facebook applications of various types were designed and deployed. Despite a huge portion of applications without business context, there exist a substantially increasing number of applications tailored specifically for marketing and advertising. From a business perspective, a Facebook application possesses the advantages of low development costs and strong word-of-mouth effect, which provide an ideal alternative to traditional advertising formats. This paper utilizes the well-known Bass model for forecasting product diffusion, and proposes its adaptation to produce an optimal promotion budget allocation for Facebook applications. For a given application promotional budget to be used over a fixed timeframe, the model offers a unique solution for allocating the funds between direct promotion and indirect promotion (word-of-mouth) in order to achieve a maximum percentage of user installations from the target population of potential users. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the optimal solution and suggestions are made for future research necessary to validate the model for possible use by practitioners.

International audience; Attributes credibility, trustiness and accuracy are often considered, but not incorporated in decision making algorithms. In this paper a credibility-based risk/business context model is proposed, to profile communication service requests using sources' credibility, as well as observed intensity and customizable policy-based prioritization. The paper proves that this Credibility-based approach can cope with the complexity and uncertainty of context models, which Bayes probabilities cannot, and with degrees of discordance and uncertainty, which DST cannot. The paper provides reviews of concepts and techniques to determine credibility from its components and aggregate corroborated credibility within observations and ultimately key factors of the model. The paper tests and proves the effectiveness of the modelled credibility, intensity and policy, and shows that incorporating Credibility is a better way to make informed decisions

With economic development and globalization, many multinational enterprises have been established. Because of the cultural and economic context differences, traditional management strategies could not be effectively implemented in multinational companies. Therefore, management innovation is necessary for those companies to achieve business success. Various studies on multinational management seem focused on differences in business environments and cultures between countries and comparative management styles. However, few studies have paid attention to the process of cross-cultural adaptation and transformation through day-to-day practices in multinational enterprises. Therefore, based on the concept of management innovation and the integrative theory of cross-cultural adaptation, this chapter intends to begin building a model to explore management innovation in multinational enterprises from the perspective of cross-cultural adaptation. Qualitative data was collected from Chinese-owned multinational companies. The results support the model conceptually and provide suggestions for further studies.

Esta pesquisa explora: (a) as atitudes dos gestores relativamente aos trabalhadores mais velhos; (b) as perceções dos aposentados acerca dos gestores e as suas (dos aposentados) últimas experiências enquanto trabalhadores. As atitudes de 14 gestores foram estudadas através de entrevistas semiestruturadas. Os dados sobre as perceções dos aposentados foram obtidos em 4 focus groups (com 6-8 aposentados). Os resultados sugerem o seguinte: (a) os gestores, especialmente os mais experientes, reconhecem que os trabalhadores mais velhos têm características positivas (e.g., extenso conhecimento e experiência; sabedoria; vastas redes de relacionamentos; lealdade organizacional); (b) no entanto, os mesmos gestores (embora especialmente os mais jovens) alegam também ter perceções negativas acerca dos trabalhadores mais velhos (e.g., os trabalhadores mais velhos rejeitam formação; estão menos motivados para trabalhar). Os aposentados afirmam que: (a) gostariam de ter tido mais oportunidades para continuar a aprender e a melhorar as suas capacidades; (b) se sentiam mais comprometidos com o trabalho no final das suas carreiras. Alguns aposentados também revelam que, se tal lhes tivesse sido proposto, teriam continuado a trabalhar além da idade típica da reforma. O estudo comporta várias limitações, designadamente o facto de terem sido utilizadas amostras de conveniência e de reduzida dimensão. Além disso, (a) os gestores e os aposentados pertenciam a diferentes organizações e (b) variáveis moderadoras, tais como escolaridade, setor de atividade ou nível hierárquico, não foram consideradas. Estudos futuros deverão incluir amostras de dimensão superior, explorar díades gestores-aposentados e incluir variáveis moderadoras. As ideias preconcebidas que os gestores têm acerca dos trabalhadores mais velhos podem ter efeitos perversos na motivação e na identificação destes trabalhadores com a organização. Com o aumento da idade da reforma, os efeitos destas ideias preconcebidas intensificam-se. Medidas para reduzir estas conceções erróneas são necessárias. Estudos empíricos, em especial no contexto português, sobre as perceções/atitudes mútuas de gestores e aposentados são escassos., Conferência - Investigação e Intervenção em Recursos Humanos, n. 4 (2013): IV Conferência em Investigação e Intervenção em RH

In order to pave the way towards the emerging business perspective of the IoT-based applications, the “Web of Objects” project contributes to the development/establishment of the application layer on the top of the IoT-related technologies, enabling to include in complex business applications various devices that are connected to Internet by means of IoT technologies. More precisely, the WoO project provide solutions for ensuring the interoperability of heterogeneous devices in such application, for developing semantic-based service composition and reasoning functionalities, as well as for ensuring the devices privacy. For considering Smartphone as a device example, its sensors are capitalized by the WoO approach both for making Smartphone as an actor in IoT business applications and for extending the scope of Smartphone integrated applications.

The aim of this research is to study the effect of ambient scents on consumers’ responses and in particular themoderating effect of consumer type (hedonic vs utilitarian) and his accompaniment state (accompanied vssingle).An experiment was conducted in a real business context (NIKE store), where 400 customers were surveyed. Theresults indicate that a pleasant ambient scent improves evaluation of store environment, products, quality ofservices provided, the level of pleasure experienced, the level of stimulation, their intention to revisit the storeand customers’ spending. However, ambient scents have no effect on the real time spent in the store. Finally, inthe presence of an ambient scent, it was found that hedonic customers intend more to revisit the store thanutilitarian ones and that accompanied customers tend to spend more and have more fun shopping than single customers.

Social networking in this context, refers to people interacting together or people interacting with organizations forming and maintaining relationships that are referred to as social networks. It is this cross-fertilization of flowing information that drives the creation of new ideas or refinements of existing ideas. Within the business context, a social network represents an opportunity for players such as individual people or organizations to interact, discuss ideas and exchange information leading to innovative products or services.

Many of us picture negotiations as having a diplomatic or business context, and focusing on matters such as ending armed conflict or sealing multi-million dollar deals. In our minds, negotiations connote people in suits discuss weighty things. However, the literature on negotiation solidly agrees on one thing. The spectrum of negotiation interactions we engage in goes far beyond the limits of this preconception, and includes many - perhaps most - of our interpersonal interactions, in our personal, family and professional lives. In this paper, I present the wide range of negotiation activity we engage in, through the perspectives offered by leading books on negotiation. This resource aims to provide negotiation teachers and trainers with a convenient teaching resource to supplement classroom activities on this topic.

First in a series of three, this paper describes how the redecision approach (Goulding & Goulding 1979) has been applied over many years within executive coaching workshops internationally. The potential controversy about using a therapeutic approach in a business context is addressed, participant profiles and leadership characteristics are described, the impact of the group environment is considered, and the links between working on ‘problems’ and Berne’s (1961) stages of cure are explained. The stages of working are related to those described by Goulding & Goulding (1979) and supplemented with material from McNeel (1999-2000) and Allen & Allen (2002). This paper describes the interventions that are evaluated qualitatively by Widdowson & Rosseau (2014) and that will be further evaluated quantitatively in the future.

As technically trained personnel, we are often expert at finding the deficiencies in the data, given the analytical mindsets and skills emphasized within such training. However, being able to take the next step from identification of the “soft spots” in the data set or problems associated with a given scenario to creating solutions in a business context is often missing. Exploring issues is a great skill but without being able to create solutions, through skills like alternative generation and deliberations, can result in marginalization of our input. Understanding that we can be both analytical and solution focused is important to drive value creating opportunities and decisions for the organization.

In this chapter we describe the mathematics of Perturbation Theory and how it can be implemented in a business context to expose dynamic complexity. Perturbation Theory is closely related to methods used to solve complex problems around an exact solution by adding a number of inequalities that represent the disturbing effects on the exact solution. These inequalities (e.g. a formal power series) are representing direct or indirect perturbations exerted on the characteristics or the behavior of the exact solution. Whether you are mathematically inclined or not this chapter presents the formulae to demonstrate how mathematics can be applied to uncover and predict the future effects of dynamic complexity. Your ability to benefit from the mathematics presented in not dependent on your ability to solve these complex equations. Fortunately machines and applications are now available to do the computational work for us with great speed and accuracy.

We present a proof-of-concept prototype that demonstrates novel collaborative features for supporting enterprise system users. The purpose of the prototype is to illustrate the implementation of design principles derived from field studies of Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) users. Its novel features are designed to improve the users’ understanding of the business context of their interactions with the system and help them learn to operate it by viewing how tasks have been performed in the past.

The purpose of this paper is to extend existing research on entrepreneurial team formation under a competence-based perspective by empirically testing the influence of the sectoral context on that dynamics. We use inductive, theory-building design to understand how different sectoral characteristics moderate the influence of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition on subsequent entrepreneurial team formation. A sample of 195 founders who teamed up in the nascent phase of Interned-based and Cleantech sectors is analysed. The results suggest a twofold moderating effect of the sectoral context. First, a technologically more challenging sector (i.e. Cleantech) demands technically more skilled entrepreneurs, but at the same time, it requires still fairly commercially experienced and economically competent individuals. Furthermore, the business context also appears to exert an important influence on team formation dynamics: data reveals that individuals are more prone to team up with co-founders possessing complementary know-how when they are starting a new business venture in Cleantech rather than in the Internet-based sector. Overall, these results stress how the business context cannot be ignored when analysing entrepreneurial team formation dynamics by offering interesting insights on the matter to prospective entrepreneurs and interested policymakers.

To win in turbulence, senior executives must continually review three dimensions of their business context: their industry’s source and level of turbulence, their own strategic position within their sector, and their financial strength. The author reports on a study that suggests that there is a significant opportunity to win in turbulence. The companies that were prepared for bad times captured a disproportionate share of industry growth and profits. These companies had developed situational strategies that could be called upon immediately when the market changed. The article describes the key steps in developing and implementing these alternative strategic moves.

Existing examples of Business-to-Business (B2B) e-Commerce in the literature tend to be drawn from the experience in developed economies, and existing theories are also implicitly grounded in this context. Emerging economies present a significantly different business context, owing largely to their less developed financial, legal, and physical infrastructures. Emerging or non-western economies also have different business philosophies and cultures, which influence the relationship between companies and the marketplace. As an example of the challenges facing an electronic marketplace in an emerging economy, the experience of i-Metal.com Limited in setting up a non-ferrous metals exchange in China is examined in detail. It becomes apparent that setting up a successful B2B marketplace in emerging or non-western economies may require the creation of basic services that are taken for granted in developed economies, as well as requiring a careful consideration of the underlying business philosophy and culture.

This paper provides two illustrations of recent projects where an appreciation of the true impact of a new and expensive integrated system upon the wider organisation was not considered until well into system design and in one case at prototype delivery. The case studies provide an operational context and support for investment in development of the operational concept prior to system design. Furthermore, the case studies emphasize that a developed operational concept in the form of mission scenarios or use cases provide an invaluable tool for design validation in an agreed operational/user context.

The question that this study addresses is whether the shareholders of New Zealand firms benefit from the process of gaining ISO registration. Three major questions with regard to ISO registration within the New Zealand business context are raised. First, how do New Zealand public firms’ stock prices react to the announcement of ISO registration? Secondly, do ISO registered firms perform any differently to the New Zealand market on average? And finally, does the choice of certifying authority (organisation that awards ISO registration) have an influence on the subsequent performance of the ISO registered firms’ performance? This study is conducted from a financial perspective. The New Zealand market is found to have no reaction to ISO registration announcements; supporting the existence of semi‐strong market efficiency. ISO registered firms are found to perform below average when compared to the New Zealand capital market and the choice of certifying authority does hold influence on subsequent firm performance.

This article aims at improving our understanding of the preconditions for success for the millions of unemployed workers in Africa struggling to build their own busi nesses. Based on some 'classical ' entrepreneurship theory, a simple three-step process model of business development makes the starting point for discussing empir ical findings from two case studies in Arusha, Tanzania. The case study methodology takes the advantage of the actor approach, viewing the business context from the point of view of an individual entrepreneur. The potential role of mentors is under lined for 'strengthening entrepreneurial attitudes'. A platform of knowledge and access to information is crucial for 'picking business opportunities', The role of gov ernment is limited only to providing support in 'navigating towards success'. It is underlined that policies should aim at promoting true innovators, not only copyists.

The globalisation of business and the internationalisation of companies witnessed over the past decade has increased the need for business people operating across cultures to become both culturally and linguistically aware. The evolution of multimedia computing means that learning material can be created which amalgamates video, subtitles, tasks, text and a variety of support tools. This environment lends itself to the provision of learning opportunities and materials which aim to develop cultural understanding. This paper describes an on-going development project entitled SELECT which is creating multimedia courseware to develop cross-cultural awareness of the British business context. The paper outlines the background to the creation of the courseware and the needs it aims to meet. The theoretical underpinning of the development is outlined, covering the nature of cross-cultural competence, its development and the fit between the capabilities of multimedia and such competence. The approach taken and methods used to research and construct a valid, empirically-based cross-cultural syllabus relevant for those doing business with Britain is described and exemplified. The process of creating the courseware, including the authentic video assets and configuration of the learning design is discussed. The paper concludes with projections of future developments in technology assisted development of cross-cultural competence.

This paper presents an ESP case study which took place in a specialised business context involving senior German bankers. It reflects the all too common situation of many overworked EFL teachers who are underprepared for the ESP assignment they are asked to undertake, and is especially of value to newcomers to the field of ESP in terms of recommendations for both published and authentic materials, as well as suggestions for learner tasks.

To determine what aspects of writing are most important in a business context, previous researchers have often surveyed business professionals as well as business faculty. We recently took a different approach. We asked business professionals to critique and evaluate a set of writing samples. We then asked business faculty to evaluate the same samples, and we analyzed the results from the two groups. We found that professionals judge writing on different criteria than do faculty. While both groups emphasize organization, professionals also emphasize wording/style, content, and sentence structure more than do faculty, who emphasize conciseness, spelling/grammar, appearance, and purpose. In addition, professionals are signifi cantly more lenient in assigning grades than are faculty and spend less time in evaluating the writing. In general, business professionals judge papers more on substance (content) and less on style (mechanics) than do business faculty.

The next generation of intranets should facilitate the structuring of information as well as the organizing of communication in networking organizations. For many organizations, one step in that direction is to structure information by adding metadata. We have encountered problems when applying Dublin Core, a metadata element set developed for discovery of existing information resources on the public Internet, on an extensive intranet. Our conclusion, argued in this paper, is that these problems are a consequence of trying to describe information resources without taking into account the context in which end users create and consume information. The next generation of intranets calls for a more contextual approach. The contribution of this paper is such an approach. We propose a framework including: (1) A model for describing three different areas of resources: business, information and communication, and integrating the resources description areas by means of generic classes, constrains and relations. (2) An extension to the model describing and integrating nodes and relations in networking organizations. (3) An extension to the model describing and organizing the communication of information in the business. The framework suggests an extensible use of RDF (Resource Description Framework) in a business context.

This paper presents a model designed to analyze written business genres within their business context. Within a context specified at the levels of organization, business sector and business community, business genres are studied with respect to writing, distribution and reading practices. As such, the model extends beyond generic textual features and allows analyses of individual and collective writing activities and textual choices writers make (i.e., writing practices), the selection of particular channels and text formats for generic textualizations (i.e., distribution practices), and the way recipients read genre texts and make choices based on their readings (i.e., reading practices). In the model, the actual analysis of textual features of genre texts is clearly embedded in a wider situational framework. This paper argues that such a framework is a prerequisite for a proper understanding of textual realizations of business genres. Moreover, it provides business professionals with a tool to design texts that are effective responses to specific communicative needs.

Information technology is a major element of most organizational changes attempting to improve organizational performance and market position. The success of such technological investments lies primarily on their successful management and integration with the targeted business context. Our research has taken place in Greece where a number of organizations have been investigated through a field survey and two in-depth case studies. The objective of the paper is to identify and analyze the main issues associated with the decision making process of managing investments in information technology in the context of less developed national environments. A number of conclusions are drawn in the areas of how, who, why and when of the IT investment management.

This paper is part of a series addressing the topic of business excellence from a practical, evidence‐based approach. One of the critical aspects of being successful in a modern business context is having clear vision, a balanced journey for the future based on a market‐oriented approach and building core competencies of the organisations concerned. The richness of best practices covered in this paper demonstrates that policy and strategy has to be tackled as a whole process which needs to be managed and reviewed on a regular basis.

Subjects provided creative responses to memoranda from an in‐basket exercise. In a 262 design, contingent/noncontingent extrinsic reward conditions were crossed with intrinsic motivation/no intrinsic motivation conditions. Results indicated that intrinsic motivation was associated with improved creativity, while offering contingent, extrinsic rewards were not. Thus, the hypothesized inoculation effect associated with intrinsic motivation was not supported. Results are discussed in terms of specific work history and creativity outcomes, with particular attention focused on defining creativity in the business context (i.e. applied creativity) rather than in more artistic settings (i.e. pure creativity).

This paper describes an exploratory study of financial reporting practices amongst small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) engaged in manufacturing in Australia. Non-linear principal components analysis is employed in empirical derivation of an overall measure of the comprehensiveness of financial reporting practices undertaken in the SMEs investigated. Non-linear principal components analysis is also used in empirically capturing the business context in terms of enterprise and financial management characteristics. Polytomous logistic regression modelling reveals development orientation, extent of owner-management, technological complexity, degree of reliance upon external financial advice, and the financial reporting climate to be the most significant influences on the extent of financial reporting practices in the SMEs under study. Of the business context factors identified, development orientation and financial reporting climate seem to have greatest impact. The study appears to reinforce the impression that SME growth is a key driver towards more sophisticated financial reporting practices. Alternately, better financial reporting may be viewed as an important enabling factor in realising the growth aspirations of such concerns.

Preamble. It is the Purpose of this Corner to serve as an information and communication channel as well as a discussion forum between science and policy in general, as well as between research and management, in business and public administration with regard to goods and services (products). It is the aim of this Corner to improve awareness of, and to help more effectively implement, life cycle thinking in all stages of decision making in business and public administration. This Corner ‘EU Life Cycle Policy and Support’ appears regularly. Contributions are invited and uninvited articles, as well as discussion comments from the LCA community. They outline practical experiences, information on new regulations, directives and other policy instruments, as well as important theoretical considerations. This first edition of the Corner provides, for discussion, a broad commentary on our underlying thoughts and ideas. This builds on ideas presented in e.g. the business context in the Life Cycle Management special edition (Int J LCA Special Issue 1, 2007), as well as recent policy developments in the European Union. This editorial is illustrated with example references related to each issue that were recently published in the journal (see [1–11]).

The attitude of male managers toward the advancement of women in the industrial context: A compantive cultural study. The main aim of this study was to determine the attitudes of male managers towards the advancement of women coming from the four cultural groups - white, black. Coloured and Indian, as well as women in general, within the business context. Five independent questionnaires were developed for this purpose. In general, it was found that black male managers were more positive in their attitudes towards women, than white male managers. In comparing the attitudes of male managers towards women coming from the various cultural groups, it appeared that white male managers exhibited a particular hierarchical order of preferences/ whilst black male managers only indicated differences regarding whites versus Coloureds, and Indians versus Coloureds. Opsomming Die hoofdoelstelling van hierdie studie was om die houdings van manlike bestuurders jeens die vordering van vroue komende uit die vier kultuurgroepe - blank, swart, Kleurling en Indiër, asook vroue in die algemeen/ binne die bedryfskonteks te bepaal. Vyf onafhanklike meetinstrumente is vir hierdie doel ontwikkel. Daar is bevind dat anderskleurige manlike bestuurders in die algemeen 'n gunstiger houdmg jeens vroue huldig as blanke manlike bestuurders. Uit 'n vergelyking van die houdings van manlike bestuurders jeens vroue komende uit die verskillende kultuurgroepe, blyk dit dat daar 'n bepaalde hiërargiese orde van voorkeur onder blanke manlike bestuurders is, terwyl anderskleurige manlike bestuurders slegs verskille ten opsigte van blanke- teenoor Kleurling- en Indiër- teenoor Kleurlinggroepe aandui.

Analyses the business context of management development in the late 1990s, and presents some surprising survey results on the effectiveness of development methods ‐ results which challenge many of our past assumptions. Describes two central “principles” of effective management development today: “Work hard at developing people” and “Go for benefits with little cost”. Illustrates these principles with assessment and development planning applications.

This study compared ratings of discomfort on the receipt of gifts and intentions to repay gifts between male and female purchasing executives. Significant main effects of sex and years of purchasing experience on discomfort ratings were found. In addition, no significant main effect of sex on intention to repay scores was uncovered. These results suggest that in a business context the giving of gifts to male or female purchasing executives may not be an effective method for influencing future commerce. At the very least, business decision makers need to consider carefully the efficacy of gift-giving as a form of persuasion.

One definition of a leader is a person who has followers. Argues that, to be a skilled leader, the role of follower needs to be clearly understood ‐ indeed a good leader should make a good follower _ and that somewhere within this concept is the very basis of teamwork. Using examples from the US military and the world of sport, explains the authors’ understanding of followership in relation to today’s business context, and offers a series of guidelines for effective “followership”.

This paper focuses on the BA in Business Studies (BABS) drawing on interviews with 31 lecturers across four representative institutions. The first section examines the impact of institutional trends on the BABS degree. Fragmentation and diversification of degree programmes is explained by reference to a post‐Fordist analysis of system‐wide change across UK higher education. The second section analyses the pedagogy of lecturers who contribute to a BABS degree. Lecturers with disciplinary roots in social science disciplines such as Economics or Sociology argued that their primary goal was to produce ‘critical thinkers’ better able to adapt in a post‐Fordist business environment. Other lecturers, who identify with subject areas more closely allied to the business context, such as Accountancy or Information Systems, favour a pedagogy emphasising student acquisition of technical knowledge and skills. These lecturers expect students to synthesise and select from a body of knowledge, rather than evaluat...