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Having an interest in behaviour and attitudes at work, I had ideas, when appointed to the company, of involving employees in its affairs. However, the setting‐up of a works council in so small an organisation, where all the employees are known to me, seemed somewhat artificial. Every employee who wanted it already had access to the managing director! The works council idea was shelved. About a year ago the question of a bonus scheme was raised by employees. Earlier attempts to introduce bonuses in the company had been abandoned as being too difficult or too costly to install or run. An examination of various possibilities showed that an added value bonus scheme could be appropriate and had the great advantage of being participative in style. Here was a basis for employee participation with a genuine purpose. What follows describes how the scheme evolved and its effects so far.

PLANNERS INVOLVED WITH Milton Keynes—Britain's space‐age city being built on 22,000 acres of north Buckinghamshire—have become embroiled in a classic ‘chicken and egg’ dilemma which poses a disruptive threat to any new town development.

Although the idea of linking a shape grammar to a genetic algorithm is not new, this paper proposes a novel way of combining these two elements in order to provide a tool that can be used for design exploration. Using a shape grammar for design generation provides a way of creating a range of potential solutions to a design problem which fit with the designer's stylistic agenda. A genetic algorithm can then be used to take these designs and develop them into a much richer set of solutions which can still be recognised as part of the same family. By setting quantifiable targets for design performance, the genetic algorithm can evolve new designs which exhibit the best features of previous generations. The designer is then presented with a wide range of high scoring solutions and can choose which of these to take forward and develop in the conventional manner. The novelty of the proposed approach is in the use of a shape code, which describes the steps that the shape grammar has taken to create each design. The genetic algorithm works on this shape code by applying crossover and mutation in order to create a range of designs that can be tested. The fittest are then selected in order to provide the genetic material for the next generation. A prototype version of such a program, called Shape Evolution, has been developed. In order to test Shape Evolution it has been used to design a range of apartment buildings which are required to meet certain performance criteria.

This paper aims to offer a critical biography of Joan Woodward, often considered the founder of contingency theory. This paper examines Woodward’s background to develop a more complete understanding of the factors that influenced her work.

This paper draws on insights gained from personal correspondence with two colleagues of Woodward, one who recruited her to the Imperial College where she conducted her most prominent work and one whom she recruited while at the college. In addition, Woodward’s original work, academic literature, published remembrances and a plethora of other secondary sources are reviewed.

By connecting these otherwise disparate sources of information, a more complete understanding of Woodward’s work and its context is provided. It is argued that Woodward’s education, training, brilliance, values, the relative weakness of British sociology and the need to improve the economy helped to make Woodward’s work both original and practical.

The originality of this work is to examine the work of Woodward through the lens of critical biography. Despite Woodward’s contributions, Woodward remains an underappreciated figure. The purpose is to provide her contribution against the backdrop of the British industrial and educational sphere.

This paper examines the potential relationship between the history of American generations and the development of American management thought. The paper reviews the recently developed generational theory of American history, along with the generational concept itself. Then, the leading thinkers in the history of the management discipline are classified according to their generational membership. The potential theoretical and research implications of the interplay of managerial and historical generations are then discussed.

Continual rising fuel costs and rapidly increasing vehicle costs have generated management awareness of the costs incurred in physical distribution. Inevitably, management attention on the distribution function is drawn towards potential cost savings and increases in efficiency. Where transport costs represent a significant part of the total distibution costs, then one area which determines the efficiency of all others is the vehicle routing and scheduling activity which could collectively be known as load planning.

C.A.R. Crosland (1918‐1977) was a British politician and a Cabinet Minister. He was also a former lecturer in economics at Oxford. His interests in Labour politics and in the mixed economy led him to write The Future of Socialism. Published in 1956, it is a contemporary classic of political economy and social economics. Abridged when it was reprinted in 1964, however, the edition of the Future which readers today will know is significantly different from the original edition that exercised so much influence in the 1950s. Attempts to provide a variorum that identifies the differences between the editions. Finds that 172 pages were subject to alteration and deletion. Suggests the ways in which the changes might have altered the message that the author intended to convey.

This paper aims to analyze the political background of the Hawthorne criticisms, positing that the political atmosphere of the 1940s, influenced by the decline of the new deal liberalism and the rise of the conservative coalition, stimulated scholars to challenge the Hawthorne studies.

Primary sources used in the guise of archival commentaries, journal articles and other published works (books and book chapters). Secondary sources are offered to provide additional insight and context.

The findings show that politics unnecessarily discredited Mayo. As a result, contemporary scholars failed to recognize Mayo’s work as an important part of the basis for modern management theory.

The purpose of the research is to look into the political context of the Hawthorne studies to understand how management practice and research is impacted by ongoing political issues.

To date, no work has fully accounted for or understood the political climate of the time in considering the criticisms of the Hawthorne studies. By more fully understanding the political context, scholars can reevaluate the weight they place on the then criticisms of the Hawthorne studies.