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Knowledge about government auditor job satisfaction is essential in the areas of recruitment, evaluating audit quality, and improving the job and work environment. The Association of Government Accountants surveyed 173 members on the issue of job satisfaction and found that all government auditors were satisfied with promotion opportunities and women auditors were satisfied with their pay. However, the survey revealed that auditors as a group expressed less-than-average satisfaction with supervisors. Survey results indicate that recruitment literature should stress the upward mobility present in the government auditing profession as compared to public accounting and that equality of pay should be stressed to women recruiting prospects. Survey results also indicate that supervisors should interact more with employees to ensure job satisfaction in order to improve audit quality.

The letters to the editor refer to articles published in previous issues of "Harvard Business Review." A reader comments on "How to Get a Good Consultant," by Jean Pierre Frankenhuis, which is in the November-December 1977 issue. The comment is followed by an editors' note and a reply from the author. A Philip Kotler article about sales and marketing effectiveness is praised. Other topics include the costs of regulation, marketing effectiveness, zero-based budgeting, logistics, nonprofit organizations, action learning, restricted stock plans, and accounting for inflation.

The article presents business news briefs. Female executives are slightly more autoratic in their decision making than male executives, according to a 15-year survey conducted by Discovery Learning. The U.S. golf industry began targeting kids to boost sales after stagnant in sales for two straight years. Water company Suez Lyonniase des Eaux will pay a city museum in Brussel to outfit a bronze statue of a naked boy peeing dubbed as Manequin Pis. Suez's reason for agreeing to oversee the museum is part public relations and part business. In 1999, Fannie Mae funded 2.9 million mortgages worth $306 billion.

Those in favor of giving the President line item veto power claim that the item veto works in the 43 states where it is used, and that the item veto would reduce waste in government. The reports of a nationwide study on the spending of states with and without the line veto are examined in order to assess these claims. State expenditures were measured as a percentage of per capita income. Results indicate that expenditures were lower in states with the line item veto, and even lower in states that had special line item veto authority.

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles in previous issues including "Management's drag on productivity," which appeared in the December 3, 1979 issue, "The petro-crash of the '80s," which appeared in the November 19, 1979 issue and "How indexation builds in inflation," which appeared in the November 12, 1979 issue.