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Belinda Boon is currently an Assistant Professor at Kent State University. Formerly, she was a Continuing Education Consultant with the Texas State Library and a small community library director. She earned an MLIS (1987) and PhD (2006) in Library and Information Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

In 2005, a qualitative study was undertaken to explore the educational events, personal experiences, and job circumstances that a selected group of non-MLS library directors working in small Texas communities believed were significant in contributing to their professional development. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 17 female library directors working in Texas communities with populations of 25,000 or less using open-ended questions, and interviews were recorded and transcribed for later analysis. Four major topic areas relating to the professionalization of non-MLS library directors were identified from the data: (1) job satisfaction, including library work as spiritual salvation, librarianship and the ethic of caring, making a difference in the community, and pride in professional identity; (2) professional development, including hiring narratives, continuing education and lifelong learning, mentoring and professional development, and the importance of the MLS degree; (3) challenges facing small community library directors, including gender-based discrimination, resistance from local governing officials, and geographic isolation; and (4) guidelines for success, including understanding the community, becoming part of the community, making the library the heart of the community, business and managerial skills, and people and customer service skills.

It is difficult for me to believe that this series has been around for a quarter of a century. But then it is hard to rationalize a belief that I am still a young man. As we begin the 26th volume of ALAO, it seems useful to consider the work that has come before. Twenty-five volumes of research studies and papers focused on library management and organizational issues may be a significant milestone for any monograph series in our profession, but it also represents an opportunity to step back, catch one's editorial breath, and take stock of near-term future directions. Clearly, some monograph series never see a 25th anniversary, while others have been pressed to change focus entirely. Yet others have become less-than-relevant to real-world professional challenges. For better or worse, this series has carried on, and, again, as one of our editors noted a few volumes back, offers the reader “an eclectic collection of papers that convey the results of the kind of research that managers need, mixing theory with a good dose of pragmatism.” Since the first volume in 1982, the aim has been to provide a publication venue for those manuscripts that are typically longer than most journal articles but shorter than most books. Moreover, the idea then as now was to relieve authors of the constraints that sometimes attend other genre and at the same time to encourage the presentation of thoughtful pieces that integrate theory and practice. Call me hidebound if you will, but as we offer Volume 26, I would argue that we have stayed true to our tradition of providing good research pieces that are worth reading.

Although there is growing research on the relationship between ethical leadership and subordinate work behaviors, limited research has examined the boundary conditions under which ethical leadership is more or less effective. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether subordinate perceptions of role clarity in their job role influence the relationship between ethical leadership and subordinate work behaviors. Drawing on both social exchange and social learning theories, the authors predict that in contexts where subordinates perceive low levels of role clarity, the relationship between ethical leadership behavior and subordinate helping and deviant behaviors will be weaker.

In total, 239 employees in the Chinese public sector completed surveys across three separate time points. Confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were used to analyze the data.

Analyses provided support for the hypothesized relationships. When subordinates perceived higher levels of role clarity the positive relationship between ethical leadership and helping behavior was stronger, and the negative relationship between ethical leadership and deviant behavior was stronger.

As with all research the findings of this study need to be viewed in light of its limitations. First, the use of data from a single set of respondents opens up the possibility of common method bias. Second, given the study used of a sample of public sector employees from one part of China, there would be value in future research examining whether the findings from the present study are generalizable to other industrial and cultural contexts.

This research has a number of practical implications. Given that the authors found a significant positive relationship between ethical leadership and helping behavior, and a significant negative relationship between ethical leadership and deviant behavior, it is crucial for organizations to include ethical training as an essential part of leadership development programs. However, the findings also suggest at the same time as facilitating the development of ethical leadership behaviors amongst supervisory employees, it is important for organizations to also provide employees with clarity over what is expected of them in their jobs, and the means they should employ to facilitate goal achievement.

This study responds to recent calls for more research to identify factors which may strengthen or mitigate the influence of ethical leadership in the workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence that balanced scorecard (BSC) adoption has on organizational climate, employees’ commitment, job satisfaction and job dedication.

Data were collected using a questionnaire sent to the employees working in a retail sector firm, at two different moments in time, between the years 2009 and 2010. A total of 494 questionnaires were correctly returned. The response rates were 55.6 and 60.2 percent respectively. Tests (ANOVA) were carried out related to the constructs which make up the model studied, before and after the BSC implementation.

The results indicate a clear relationship with the satisfaction of employees within the organization; it shows that the BSC implementation is significantly related to positive employees’ affective reactions.

The outcomes of the study are relevant both to the literature on strategic change and business management, since they determine that the correct implementation of the BSC causes a significant change in the employees’ behavior and attitudes toward the firm's strategic objectives.

THIS is the month when librarians and library workers everywhere, their holidays over, turn to their winter plans. There are, however, some interesting events to take place before the darker and more active months come. The first is the meeting at Oxford on September 21st and subsequent days of the Federation International de Documentation. This will be followed by and merge into the ASLIB Conference, and there is in prospect an attendance of over three hundred. Our readers know that this organization produces and advocates the International Decimal Classification. It is not primarily a “library” society but rather one of abstractors and indexers of material, but it is closely akin, and we hope that English librarianship will be well represented. Then there is a quite important joint‐conference at Lincoln of the Northern Branches of the Library Association on September 30th— October 3rd, which we see is to be opened by the President of the Library Association. Finally the London and Home Counties Branch are to confer at Folkestone from October 14th to 16th, and here, the programme includes Messrs. Jast, Savage, McColvin, Wilks, Carter, and the President will also attend. There are other meetings, and if the question is asked: do not librarians have too many meetings ? we suppose the answer to be that the Association is now so large that local conferences become desirable. One suggestion, that has frequently been made, we repeat. The Library Association should delegate a certain definite problem to each of its branches, asking for a report. These reports should form the basis of the Annual Conference. It is worthy of more consideration.

To provide a list of non‐fictional books, as published, for the use of Librarians and Book‐buyers generally, arranged so as to serve as a continuous catalogue of new books; an aid to exact classification and annotation ; and a select list of new books proposed to be purchased. Novels, school books, ordinary reprints and strictly official publications will not be included in the meantime.