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Access to a strategic planning software package provided a state‐based small business training provider with an opportunity to develop an innovative training/assistance program in financial management for small business. The program aimed to have accountants use the software to provide small business managers with financial management information specific to their firms, in a cost‐effective manner. It was hoped that in so doing, accountants would build the provision of such information into the services normally provided to small business, and the small business managers would recognize the value of such information and begin to use it in the management of their firms. Reports on an evaluation of the program which indicated that the program innovation was an effective means of encouraging and enabling both accountants and small business managers to undertake and utilize financial analysis in the management of small firms.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the relationship of the perceived presence of organizational practices designed to support women's career advancement and their work and extra‐work satisfaction and psychological well‐being.

Data were collected from 98 early career women in Australia using anonymously completed questionnaires. Five organizational practices combined into a composite measure were considered; top management support and intervention, policies and resources, use of gender in human resource management, training and development initiatives and recruiting and external relations efforts.

Women reporting more organizational practices supportive of women, with higher levels of job and career satisfaction, and indicated fewer psychosomatic symptoms and less emotional exhaustion. Organizational practices were unrelated to intent to quit or extra‐work satisfactions and physical or emotional well‐being.

Further research is needed to determine if results generalize to women in later career stages.

Guidance for organizations interested in supporting women's career advancement are offered.

The paper illustrates an understanding of the qualities that are part of work environments that are supportive of the career aspirations of women (and men).

This study aims to examine potential benefits from a mentor relationship to women managers and professionals in early career.

Data were collected from 98 women business school graduates using an anonymously completed questionnaire. Respondents identified a more senior individual who had a positive influence in the development of their career, provided descriptive characteristics of this relationship and described its character. Three mentor functions were considered: role model, career development and psychosocial.

There were few differences as a function of the gender of the mentor though respondents having female mentors indicated more role modeling and tended to report more psychosocial functions. Respondents reporting more mentor functions also indicated higher levels of job and career satisfaction, more optimistic future career prospects and fewer psychosomatic symptoms.

Adds to the understanding of mentoring by including psychological well‐being variables as potential mentoring outcomes.

Using social identity theory as a framework, the present study empirically tests the idea that women can maintain positions on corporate boards over a number of years through becoming part of the board’s ingroup. A sample of 32 women directors who were part of a study of corporate directors in 1995 participated in the six‐year follow‐up. A series of hypotheses are tested using nonparametric statistical techniques to test differences in women directors’ personal and board characteristics over the two time periods. Implications of the results are drawn for women seeking to maintain or gain board positions and for the applicability of social identity theory to the research area.

The purpose of this study is to examine potential consequences of workaholism among 98 women business graduates in early careers. It replicates earlier work based primarily on men.

Data were collected from women business graduates of a single Australian university using anonymously completed questionnaires. Three workaholism components identified by Spence and Robbins were included: work involvement, feeling driven to work due to inner pressures and work enjoyment. Consequences included several validating job behaviors such as perfectionism and non‐delegation, work and extra‐work satisfactions and indicators of psychological well‐being.

Workaholism components generally had significant relationships with the validating job behaviors, work outcomes and indicators of psychological well‐being but not with extra‐work satisfactions. These findings provided a partial replications of previous conclusions based on primarily male samples.

These include the small sample size, limits to generalizability of conclusions based on one Australian university, and data collection at only one point in time.

Previous workaholism research was based on North American men. This study extends this work to women in other countries.

Corporate governance and the role and functions of boards of directors have emerged as critical topics for organizations and the broader society in which they exist. As there appears to be a shortage of qualified and committed directors capable of bringing experience, knowledge, and time to these important jobs, the timing for increasing qualified women’s representation on corporate boards is opportune. This collection of papers by an international group of scholars identifies initiatives needed by organizations to increase women’s representation as well as a research agenda to further our understanding of board dynamics and functioning.

Proposes this research is seeking to combine the theory and practice of judicial independence based in Western notions of the “Rule of Law”, modern developments of this doctrine in the documents and laws of both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

A number of recent studies have suggested that many small businesses are opting to become members of strategic alliances with other firms in order to minimise the perceived barriers to adoption of electronic commerce (E‐commerce). This study compares the perception of barriers to E‐commerce adoption between a sample of Swedish small to medium enterprises (SMEs) that have become members of some form of strategic alliance and those that have remained outside such arrangements. The results show that, in general, SMEs that are part of a strategic alliance perceive barriers as less applicable than their counterparts that are not part of a strategic alliance.