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Companies have been predicting marketing and economic conditions for years, but they lag behind in forecasting environmental changes that can have dramatic impact on their operations. SPIRE is a systematic approach to spotting coming problems, as a look at how one company put it to work indicates.

The purpose of this article is to provide commentary on the utility of Altman's Z‐score as a strategic assessment and performance management tool. This possibility is suggested in the recently published book Measuring Organizational Performance – Metrics for Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management Research (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2006) by Robert B. Carton and Charles W. Hofer.

This paper is a corporate manager's analysis of the utility of Altman's Z‐score as a strategic assessment and performance management tool based on published research, with suggestions for further research.

The analysis supports Carton and Hofer's findings with respect to the utility of the Z‐score as a strategic assessment and performance management tool.

While the Z‐score is both popular and widely used in the fields of credit risk analysis, distressed investing, M&A target analysis, and turnaround management it has received relatively little attention as a strategic assessment and performance management tool. The findings of Carton and Hofer's study, in conjunction with the impressive results achieved by GTI Corporation, suggest that applying the Z‐score in strategy and performance management may also be warranted, especially after more research is undertaken.

This article offers a manager's perspective on new research that indicates the potential of a popular financial distress metric to provide insight in the areas of entrepreneurship and strategic management.

Since 1975, Borg‐Warner has been developing a strategic management system that has greatly contributed to its improved performance.

The 1960s saw the birth of corporate social responsibility. In the 1970s, companies focused on the management of social responsiveness. In the 1980s, corporations are grappling with the issue of making social responsibility a part of overall strategic management. The authors examine some of the ramifications of the search for a new definition of social responsibility.

If U.S. business fails to make long‐term commitments to R&D in favor of short‐term profits, one can expect competitive advantages to be lost to the Japanese.

Literature on strategic planning and management is prolific. Articles deal with various aspects of strategic planning, its definition, process, and application. However, many of these articles concentrate on the theory and on the strategic planning models rather than deal with practical application or problems experienced at implementation levels. My interest in reviewing this literature is to identify studies which offer significant key approaches and relate them to the field of education planning. Can we learn something from the way in which strategic plans are formulated and implemented in the business world and apply this knowledge to planning and operation of academic institutions?

Over the past two decades, most major corporations have installed some sort of formal planning system. Such a system represents an important commitment to rational, professional management and should, in theory, provide a sound basis for the setting of strategic and operational objectives and the allocation of resources.

The strategic planning consulting industry has grown very rapidly during the 1970s and is expected to continue to grow in the coming years. In order to determine the nature and growth rate of the strategic planning consulting industry and the variety of services, approaches, and impacts of such consulting firms, I recently conducted a field study.

No matter what the state of the economy, no company is immune from internal hard times—stagnation or declining performance. How can management pinpoint the right turnaround strategy when it is needed—and make it work?

How do you balance the rewards against the risks when you're thinking of new international operations? Here's a technique that works for domestic businesses looking to put a toe in the water overseas as well as for established multinationals.