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The purpose of this paper is to reflect back over his career as a management and business historian so far as to consider opportunities for the future of management and business history as a disciplinary area.

The paper consists of two segments – the first half is an auto-ethnographic personal reflection looking at the author’s research journey and how the discipline as experienced by the author has evolved over that time. The second half is a prescriptive look forward to consider how we should leverage the strengths as historians to progress the discipline forward.

The paper demonstrates opportunities for management and business history to encompass new agendas including the expansion of the topic into teaching, the possibility for the advancement of empirical contributions and opportunities for findings in new research areas, including the global south and public and project management history.

The paper demonstrates that historians should be more confident in the disciplinary capabilities, particularly their understandings of historic context, continuity, change and chronologies when making empirical and theoretical contributions.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

The purpose of this paper is to show how one of the biggest phenomena of the twenty‐first century is the internationalisation of professional sports and how premier league football epitomises this. With the influx of foreign players, managers and now owners, European League Football has become big business. This paper aims to provide a theoretical analysis of the management implications of foreign players in the English Premiership League football – renamed the Barclays Premier League to suit the needs of its major sponsors.

The approach adopted is purely qualitative in nature, evaluating the top Barclays Premier League teams and the impact of globalisation on their reconfigurations since the early 1990s to date. The study draws mainly from a review of the extant literature on sports and management, as well as a critical analysis of media reports.

Globalisation has emerged as a new force that has changed the way corporations are managed. Financial services, retail and information technology firms have all responded to this new wave – and so also has sports. Unfortunately while sports have the potential to teach lessons on management strategy, management researchers seem to have relegated sports to the sociology and psychology disciplines.

The Barclays Premier league football provides a unique environment for management decisions and processes to occur in a range of markets and at varied levels. However, the globalisation of professional sports has received relatively very little attention in the academic literature – especially in the field of business and management.

This paper contributes to the scant literature on the management implications of football by highlighting how globalisation has affected and reconfigured professional sports using the influx of foreign players into the English football league as a point of departure.

ONE of the pressing problems that faces the public librarian of to‐day is the finding of adequate protection for the property committed to his care. The open‐access library loses books; at any rate now‐a‐days. But there is no means of prosecuting borrowers who take an extra book from the library in their pockets. There are model standing orders which may be adopted, which regulate the conduct of readers in reference libraries and reading rooms, but a book‐thief may plead that he meant only to borrow a book that has been found in his possession, and his offence will be treated merely as a technical breach of the rule that a book must be “charged” before it is taken from the library. When a clear case has been made, as in the notorious Walthamstow case, a foolishly sentimental Bench will refuse to help the libraries. We would urge the Library Association to give some consideration to the drafting of model standing orders which will give legal effect to the present “rules” under which libraries work, rules which the vicious may defy almost with impunity. The safety of the books in most libraries depends, actually, on public ignorance of the fact that most of our rules have no legal authority behind them.

THREE years of the new age are coming to an end, and the cynic may feel that it is not achieving much. In the greater outside world, perhaps not, but the necessity of all who believe in life is to keep on trying to realize our hopes. In libraries there could be no spectacular material progress in 1947 because the conditions were worse for building, for the production of fittings and even for substantial internal library development were worse than in 1946. Yet we cannot help noticing here and there active signs that our work is not stagnant. The publications of libraries that reach us, and especially the revised and in many cases, their greatly improved annual reports are one encouraging sign.

OUR readers may be amused this month by the microfilm imaginings of our correspondent in “Letters on Our Affairs,” but there is undoubtedly a more marked disposition now than formerly to reduce to a mechanism many of the usual routines of libraries. We suppose routine is always mechanical, is repetitive and, for the enterprising ambitious library worker, a matter of boredom. How far the “electronic brain” and other more recent developments of science can be adapted to our simple processes remains to be seen, but all experiment is good even if it does not survive the initial stage. What is to be most feared in any profession is the standardizing inflexibly of its techniques ; that way lies its old age, perhaps its petrification. It is for this reason that we welcome such things as those we have already discussed at times in our pages—the central cataloguing experiment of Harrods, the punched‐card vouchers and other records sponsored (so far as libraries are concerned) by Mr. T. E. Callender, the highly mechanised method of classing propounded by Dr. Ranganathan, the placing of D.C. numbers on the title pages of the books they publish by Jonathan Cape and Harrap, the visible fines receiving box and many more such things. No one uses them all. They free librarians, it is urged, for more specifically library service. We hope that they do. We have always before us the undoubted truth that the good man scraps methods that are obsolescent and the librarian (if one now exists) who is not a business man—especially if he is charged with a large library—is a somewhat pathetic person.

WITH record attendances during the first days of the Motor Show this year, Exhibitors are asking if it would not be possible to have certain times, or days, reserved for trade buyers. The promoters are obviously concerned with any possible loss of gate money, but it is very true that at times, when stands are crowded with mere sight‐seers it is very difficult for genuine potential buyers and trade personnel to see what they want in the short time that may be at their disposal. These record attendances may not be repeated always; this year is the first time for a long time that anyone can order any car with a reasonable delivery date, and most cars with only a few weeks wait.

This invited article aims to show how the papers in the special issue highlight the advantages of using discourse analysis in order to contribute to our understanding of organizational change.

The article begins by exploring the traditional perspectives used to make sense of organizational change including the behaviorist and cognitivist views. It then discusses how the papers in the special issue highlight the advantages of using discourse analysis.

Compared to either the behaviorist or cognitivist perspectives, a discourse analytic approach is shown to offer greater potential for understanding the nature and complexity of organizational change, especially issues pertaining to the construction of stability and change, and the role of agency.

Provides some insights into the advantages of discourse analysis in organizational change.

This article sets out to highlight some of the positive outcomes in the development of rising female leaders. Latest research shows that organizations and women need to be aware of the challenges hindering the realization of female talent. The article provides an overview of how the strengths approach can help address these challenges through its integration into future female leader development programs. It also presents a pilot case study of strengths‐based development from Thomson Reuters, the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals.

Thomson Reuters explored using the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology's (Capp) 3S‐P model of talent development in relation to the development of female leaders. The 3S‐P model looks at the effect that working on strengths, strategy and situation has on performance. As part of this exploration, Capp's 4M model of strengths development was also used in a coaching and development environment to help delegates align their strengths to their organizational objectives.

The pilot, which was targeted at emerging female future leaders, showed that the strengths‐based “Women in Leadership” program at Thomson Reuters was just as effective for delegates who received the program face‐to‐face as those who received the training virtually, and demonstrated that strengths awareness had an impact on their capacity to deliver their goals and ability to influence.

Strengths‐based emerging female leadership development provides an effective and reliable methodology for developing talent at this level and helps ensure that future female leaders can align their unique strengths profile to their goals and career aspirations.

Thomson Reuters is the first organization to take an explicit strengths‐based approach to the development of its rising female leaders. It is also one of the few organizations to maximize the use of virtual technology in order to develop women at this level in locations around the world. This approach is consistent with the organization's commitment to developing future leaders who demonstrate global mind set and embrace technology to effectively communicate and influence virtually.