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Professor Shackle is the most courteous, the most erudite, and the most radical critic of orthodox economics. The concept of profit, which apparently serves as such a convenient instrument of equilibrium, on closer enquiry is revealed to be necessarily subversive of such schemes of order; for profit can arise only where knowledge is not adequate to support any agreed — even probabilistically agreed — assessment of a situation. Thus any consideration of Professor Shackle's (1972, Chapter 35) discussion of profit focuses our attention on the insufficiency of knowledge which is the core of his criticism of orthodoxy. It should be no surprise, therefore, to find that the problem of coherence within economic systems resembles the problem of coherence in the growth of knowledge. Both appear to depend upon a productive but precarious tension between imaginative conjectures and a framework of serviceable conventions within which they may be tested.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

Style and Purpose “It's all in Marshall”. There is more truth in that once‐familiar claim than there would be in a similar claim about any other economist; yet as Samuelson (1967, p. 25) rightly observed, what is in Marshall cannot be revealed by the reading of Marshall alone. What one sees is very largely a reflection of one's own viewpoint; often it is only after thinking about a specific issue that one realises that Marshall had thought about it too, and had set down his ideas in his usual unemphatic way, as if they were already common property. His manner is very different from that of Hicks, who always explains what he is doing and why; neither in the Principles (1961) nor in Industry and Trade (1919) does Marshall attempt to distinguish his own contributions, though frequently acknowledging those of others; and his clear views on how economists should proceed, though not suppressed, are not allowed to mark out a distinctively Marshallian programme. As a consequence, though he gained a great reputation, his ideas have had very little influence.

I. Routines and Experiments Though at least as old as The Wealth of Nations, the concept of the market as an experimental mechanism finds no place in standard modern theory; it is nevertheless implicit in the “appreciative theory” by which the relative merits of markets and central planning are commonly appraised. The outstanding analyst of the experimental process and its implications is Joseph Schumpeter; and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication in English of his Theory of Economic Development (the original German version of which appeared in 1911) provides a convenient opportunity for some comment on his work. What makes this opportunity particularly timely is the citation of Schumpeter by Nelson and Winter as one of the two primary intellectual pro‐genitors of their own Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change.

It is possible to say that an expert in any field of knowledge can be expected to know particular things and techniques. This can be said of a stone mason, a physicist or a midwife. The expertise consists of a notional core of knowledge and skills (i.e. applied knowledge). Such expertise arguably can be found in other experts in the same field, although there will be idiosyncrasies of approach and valuation and quite probably divergencies in what is considered “right” and “wrong”.

Discusses research ideas on the distinctions between data, information and knowledge, the categories of knowledge and knowledge‐processing activities in Holsapple and Whinston’s (HW’s) taxonomy (1987, 1988a, 1988b), and their application to markets and the activities of the firm. Describes a manufacturing firm’s inputs, production processes and outputs in terms of HW’s taxonomy, pointing out that management must filter the information surrounding the firm to turn it into knowledge of various types, e.g. descriptive, derived, assimilative etc. Considers the role of information for customers of and investors in the firm; and the relationship between knowledge and efficiency. Identifies three types of knowledge workers (builders, stewards and appliers) and calls for further research on the taxonomy of knowledge and standards of knowledge within the finance discipline.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the international business strategy, key driving factors and the major barriers that may hinder the internationalisation progress of Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Based on the aims of the study, the paper encompasses both quantitative and qualitative data. For quantitative data, structured questionnaires were used, and a total of 216 SMEs that engaged in international business participated using purposeful sampling, covering all the states in Peninsular Malaysia. For the collection of qualitative data, the study involved in-depth interviews with 25 owners/managers of SMEs.

The findings indicate that the motives of SMEs for international expansion are varied, and that SMEs still face many institutional challenges, which have prevented them from making a greater contribution.

Due to lack of resources, firms from West Malaysia were included. West Malaysian firms may well possess characteristics concerning the challenges and issues to internationalisation that are unique to their region.

The paper addresses a knowledge gap in respect of the internationalisation process of SMEs in the context of Southeast Asia. The findings of this paper will have relevance for policymaking and supportive measures at the government level to create an environment that will stimulate the competitiveness of SMEs in their attempts for internationalisation.

This article is not the work of an expert on the period in question (see Robinson, 1971; Rheinwald, 1977); rather it is a commentary on a book whose half‐century has just passed almost unnoticed. In a sense the argument involves a further visit to what J.A. Schumpeter once described as the “lumber room” of historical knowledge, although this particular visit is prompted neither by nostalgia nor piety, but rather by the conviction that Chamberlin still has much to teach those interested in the theory of the firm and in the wider area of industrial economics. The article is also prompted by the conviction that the conventional textbook accounts of Chamberlin's work have introduced misleading simplifications in pursuing the qualities of coherence and precision in the presentation of ideas.