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Examines the impact of compulsory competitive tendering on the management of UK local government. The changing managerial skills required under conditions of competition are considered alongside overall changes in the role of local government. Drawing directly from the authors′ recent research study, the “three Cs” of local authority management are identified: the client‐side, the contractor, and the corporate manager. Considers the characteristics of each in turn, before a general review of the implications for a “new” public management. Concludes that there has been a fundamental diversification in the needs of (and skills required of) local authority managers in a competitive environment. This may be moving UK local government either towards greater efficiency or towards a fragmentation of its central activities.

On April 2, 1987, IBM unveiled a series of long‐awaited new hardware and software products. The new computer line, dubbed the Personal Systems 30, 50, 60, and 80, seems destined to replace the XT and AT models that are the mainstay of the firm's current personal computer offerings. The numerous changes in hardware and software, while representing improvements on previous IBM technology, will require users purchasing additional computers to make difficult choices as to which of the two IBM architectures to adopt.

This case examines the merger of two nonprofit organizations from the point of view of the board of directors and senior staff leaders.

The case is designed to teach students about the complex issues in nonprofit mergers and to stimulate thinking about the role of the board of directors in mergers.

EVIDENCE of the importance which automation is assuming comes from the Institution of Production Engineers, who announce that they will hold a National Conference in Margate from 16th to 19th June, 1955, when it is proposed to examine the implications of the automatic factory, and to promote discussion on the technical, sociological and managerial problems involved. The impact on smaller factories will be particularly considered.

PROGRAMME Evaluation and Review Technique, familiarly known as PERT, is a vital subject which is growing rapidly. Recognition of this drew an interested audience to a symposium at Keele University on July 13, when 14 companies contributed papers on different aspects of critical path‐planning techniques and their experience as users in such disparate fields as shipbuilding, aviation, nuclear and civil engineering, the chemical and electrical industries, and management consultancy.

Examines the concept of institutional (university) image from a cultural studies approach and from a quantitative perspective. Building on these and other research findings, posits that multiple changing images exist within each individual and that these images are affected by certain factors. Examines university image from an external stakeholder perspective, based on a telephone survey study of respondents from across the university’s home state. The results confirm multi‐image conceptualization of the university setting and, importantly, examine the factors – personal, environmental, and organizational – that give rise to the multiple image concept. Complementing much corporate image research that views image(s) as primarily controlled by the organization, these findings suggest that corporate image, considered also as a receiver‐oriented and audience‐specific construct, can vary as a function of other, external, determining factors but that organizational factors are, nevertheless, very influential factors for one’s decision making about image.

Multiple forces that shape the identities of adolescents and young adults also influence their subsequent career choices. Early work experiences are key among these forces. Recognizing this, youth service programs have emerged worldwide with the hope of shaping participants’ future trajectories through boosting engagement in civically oriented activities and work. Despite these goals, past research on these programs’ impact has yielded mixed outcomes. Our goal is to understand why this might be the case.

We rely on interview, archival, and longitudinal survey data to examine young adults’ experiences of a European youth service program.

A core feature of youth service programs, namely their dual identity of helping others (i.e., service beneficiaries) and helping oneself (i.e., participants), might partly explain the program’s mixed outcomes. We find that participants focus on one of the organization’s identities largely to the exclusion of the other, creating a dynamic in which their interactions with members who focus on the other identity create challenges and dominate their program experience, to the detriment of a focus on the organization and its goals. This suggests that a previously overlooked feature of youth service programs (i.e., their dual identity) might prove both a blessing for attracting many diverse members and a curse for achieving desired outcomes.

More broadly, our results suggest that dual identity organizations might attract members focused on a select identity, but fail to imbue them with a blended identity; thus, limiting the extent to which such organizations can truly “redirect” future career choices.

MISS ANNE SHAW's presence on the platform at the annual general meeting of the Management Consultants Association was a solid assurance that work study still lies within its scope. The initial impression was weakened, however, when the chairman, Mr. D. J. Nicolson, mentioned that the bulk of consultancy work was no longer concerned with work study. Instead, it gave more than half its attention to policymaking and the broad aspects of organising financial, manufacturing and marketing resources.