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This paper proposes the concepts of communities of enterprise (CoEs) and virtual communities of enterprise (VCoEs) to describe business networking patterns in regional areas where there is no central organisational or industry focus and small and medium enterprises dominate the economy.

Based on analysis of the literature this paper builds on theoretical understandings of knowledge management, clustering and regional development.

The concept of CoEs is most appropriate for regional areas characterised by many small enterprises in diverse industries. CoEs enhance development of regional clusters by contributing to their intellectual capital, innovation culture, value networks and social capital. The incorporation of information and communication technologies (ICT) creates VCoEs which provide added potential by enabling regions to expand their learning potential through innovation.

This paper provides a conceptual foundation for empirical research into regional network or cluster development using ICT.

VCoEs value creation potential is substantial but only when the socioeconomic elements of regional clusters are understood. The VCoE approach addresses the fact that without an industry focus it can be difficult to engage and link small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from different industries, although this is where the greatest potential for value creation in regional clusters is to be found.

The VCoEs concept specifically addresses the unique requirements of SMEs in regions. It has the potential to provide value for regions in a way few ICT based regional development initiatives have been able to achieve.

THE London and Home Counties Branch is fortunate in having close at hand watering places which can house its Autumn or other Conferences conveniently. Hove in fair weather in October is a place of considerable charm; it has many varieties of hotel, from the very expensive to the modest; it is used to conferences and the hospitality of the Town Hall is widely known. This year's conference was focused in the main on problems of book‐selection which, as one writer truly says, is the main purpose of the librarian because all his possibilities hang upon it. The papers read are valuable because they appear to be quite unvarnished accounts of the individual practice of their writers. Of its kind that of Mr. Frank M. Gardner is a model and a careful study of it by the library worker who is in actual contact with the public might be useful. For his methods the paper must be read; they are a clever up‐to‐minute expansion of those laid down in Brown's Manual with several local checks and variations. Their defects are explained most usefully; there is no examination of actual books before purchase and bookshops are not visited, both of which defects are due to the absence in Luton of well‐stocked bookshops; a defect which many sizeable towns share. We find this remark significant: “The librarian of Luton in 1911 had a book‐fund of £280 a year for 30,000 people. I have nearly £9,000 for 110,000. But the Librarian in 1911 was a better book‐selector than we are. He had to be, to give a library service at all. Every possible purchase had to be looked at, every doubt eliminated.” We deprecate the word “better”; in 1911 book‐selection was not always well done, but Brown's methods could be carried out if it was thought expedient to do the work as well as it could be done. The modern librarian and his employers seem to have determined that the whole of the people shall be served by the library; that books shall be made available hot from the press, with as few exclusions as possible. No librarian willingly buys rubbish; but only in the largest libraries can a completely comprehensive selection practice be maintained. Few librarians can be quite satisfied to acquire their books from lists made by other people although they may use them for suggestions. How difficult is the problem Mr. Gardner demonstrates in connexion with books on Bridge; a shelf of apparently authoritative books might possibly contain not one that actually met the conditions of today. If this could be so in one very small subject, what might be the condition of a collection covering, or intended to cover, all subjects? Librarians have to be realists; orthodox methods do not always avail to deal with the cataract of modern books; but gradually, by cooperative methods, mechanical aids and an ever‐increasing staff devoted to this, the principal library job, much more may be done than is now possible.

In this chapter, we propose a theory of perceptual distance and its implications for team leadership and team outcomes. Perceptual distance is defined as the variance in the perceptions of the same social stimulus, which in this case, is either a team leader's behavior or the team's behavior. The general research question that we will address is, “What are the consequences of perceptual distance for team process and outcomes?” Our basic argument is that the relationship between perceptual distance and team processes and outcomes is moderated by two key cultural characteristics: power distance and collectivism. For example, depending upon the dynamics of power distance, large differences in perceptions of a team leader's behavior can negatively impact team productivity. Similarly, depending upon the dynamics of collectivism, significant variations in perceptions of team cohesion can negatively influence conflict resolution.

FROM everywhere there are reports of increased issues of books from libraries. The famine in copies no doubt accounts in part for it and, probably, there is also what is almost a resurgence of effort after knowledge amongst young men and women who are endeavouring in many fields of work to recover some of the losses of the war years. We cannot recall at any time when so much hard grinding study was being done as now. Pessimists about youth and juvenile delinquency (which however is incidental to a much younger age than that we are contemplating) would do well to reflect upon this fact. Whatever the cause, the immediate prospects for libraries in universities, works, and social institutions of every sort were never brighter. We know that certain types of “economist” of the faded “retrenchment and reform” type say the situation is temporary and artificial but, even if it is, and we are by no means acquiescent in this opinion, much ground may be won and held from any temporary good period. We think librarianship, under the present leadership of the Library Association, may be able to consolidate the position both for public and for other kinds of libraries. The Association was never better led than since the war; it has had remarkably statesmenlike presidents, an active council and an Honorary Secretary who for constructive capacity, vision, literary skill and fearlessness, combined with an energy and industry that leaves most of his contemporaries breathless, has not been surpassed; and he is backed by a Staff that rises to the ever‐increasing demands of the service. We are glad to write this last sentence, for Secretary Welsford has to cover many duties and serve many causes: receive and entertain the Association's guests from overseas; look after meetings; the educational services which now are very great; attend to the troubles of librarians everywhere and advise in them about matters ranging from salaries to ethics; our publications, accounts, catering, interviewing, negotiating with public departments and other bodies. As for the meetings of the Council and its committees, we are told, not by Mr. Welsford who knows nothing of this note, that its reports and papers ran in March alone to 200 foolscap typed pages! Of course Mr. Welsford has an excellent staff which assists him with real live interest. The time has come, however, as our readers now know, when special senior officers to deal with Membership and Education respectively are to be appointed to work side by side with the Librarian, the excellent Mr. Henrik Jones (who never fails the searcher, even the youngest, and seems to know what we are all doing) to carry “at a high level” some of the burdens. Annual Reports are not always read but we were drawn to these reflections by the recently issued Report of the Library Association for the year. We commend it to those who are inclined to leave it unread.

This research is a 6-year extension of Bernardi's (2005) initial ranking of the top ethics authors in accounting; it also represents a broadening of the scope of the original data into accounting's top-40 journals. While Bernardi only considered publications in business-ethics journals in his initial ranking, we developed a methodology to identify ethics articles in accounting's top-40 journals. The purpose of this research is to provide a more complete list of accounting's ethics authors for use by authors, administrators, and other stakeholders. In this study, 26 business-ethics and accounting's top-40 journals were analyzed for a 23-year period between 1986 through 2008. Our data indicate that 16.8 percent of the 4,680 colleagues with either a PhD or DBA who teach accounting at North American institutions had authored/coauthored one ethics article and only 6.3 percent had authored/coauthored more than one ethics article in the 66 journals we examined. Consequently, 83.2 percent of the PhDs and DBAs in accounting had not authored/coauthored even one ethics article.