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Findings from a national survey in which senior marketing executives from over 700 American banks are reported and appraise the state of personal selling in their banks. They assess managerial interest in improving bank selling performance and managerial commitment to making it happen.

For the past several decades women have been moving into the United States workforce in greater numbers and they have been gaining access to the types of jobs that were, traditionally, performed exclusively by men. Despite this progress, they are still having difficulty penetrating the so‐called “glass ceiling” into upper management positions (Alimo‐Metcalfe 1993; Tavakolian 1993). Many reasons have been advanced, but the most compelling of these concerns the “glass walls” that support the “glass ceiling”. The “glass walls” refer to those invisible barriers that limit the ability of women and minorities to gain access to the type of job that would place them in a position to break through the “glass ceiling” (Townsend 1996). If women are to gain parity with men in the workforce, they need to succeed in the positions that lie inside the “glass walls” that will enable them to rise through the “glass ceiling” to upper management.

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.

Describes how customers potentially influence the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of other customers in many service environments. Explains why service marketers and operations marketers should be aware of the impact of such customer‐to‐customer relations. Examines the issues of customer compatibility and customer behaviour, finding that the classification of compatible and incompatible behaviours is often situation‐specific. Explores how the way customers affect each other can be positively influenced.

Highlights the importance of ensuring the highest possible return rates when using mail surveys. Describes a study investigating the difference in return rates between a parent company and a fictitious consulting firm. Reports that there was no difference between response rates for two different return addresses, and that response bias was not a problem. Concludes therefore that great cost savings can be made as a result of developing and mailing the materials in‐house. Summarizes research literature on response rate surveys.

Although many advertisers are reluctant to use Comparative Advertising, it is obviously increasing in popularity. One difficulty with comparative advertising is that the intended buyers may perceive it as threatening their self‐image because they view the comparison as an attack on their presently preferred brand. The purpose in writing this paper is to recognize and discuss this potential problem and to show how comparative advertisements may be structured to support the customers' previous decisions while inducing them to switch.

Randall W. Eberts, Ph.D., is the executive director of the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, Michigan.Mary Hatwood Futrell, Ed.D., is president of Education International (EI), headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, and dean of the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at George Washington University, Washington, DC.Bob Harris, M.A., Dip.T (Sec.), (Australia), advanced study at the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva, is a former EI executive director and current senior consultant based in Nyon, Switzerland.Ronald D. Henderson, Ph.D., is the director of the Research Department at the National Education Association, Washington, DC.Rachel Hendrickson, Ph.D., is the higher education coordinator in the Membership and Organizing Department at the National Education Association, Washington, DC.Kevin Hollenbeck, Ph.D., is a senior economist and director of publications at the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, Michigan.Susan Moore Johnson, Ed.D., is Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr., Professor of Teaching and Learning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Charles T. Kerchner, Ph.D., is Hollis P. Allen Professor of Education at the Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California.Julia E. Koppich, Ph.D., is president of Koppich & Associates, an education policy research and consulting firm, in San Francisco, California.Carrie M. Lewis, J.D., is a senior writer-editor in the Government Relations Department at the National Education Association, Washington, DC.Christine Maitland, Ph.D., is a former higher education coordinator for the National Education Association who now works on higher education issues with the NEA’s Pacific Regional Office in Burlingame, California.Christine E. Murray, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Education and Human Development and dean of the School of Professions, State University of New York College at Brockport.Diane Shust, J.D., M.S.Ed., is the director of the Government Relations Department at the National Education Association, Washington, DC.Joe A. Stone, Ph.D., is W. E. Miner Professor of Economics at the University of Oregon, Eugene.Wayne J. Urban, Ph.D., is Regents’ Professor of Education in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University, Atlanta.Fred van Leeuwen is the general secretary of Education International, Brussels, Belgium.Maris A. Vinovskis, Ph.D., is Bentley Professor of History, senior research scientist at the Institute for Social Research, and faculty member of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Paul Wolman, Ph.D., is a senior policy analyst in the Research Department at the National Education Association, Washington, DC.

While personal learning networks (PLNs) are not new (Warlick, 2009), social media technologies are now enabling us “to fashion new kinds of networks that extend far beyond our immediate location and face-to-face connections, and to grow our networks based not on explicit decisions, but through the ideas of other nodes (people and resources), whose ideas intersect with ours” (Warlick, 2010, para. 5). What is new then, and what is changing the nature of PLNs, is the rapid growth of information and the emergence of new technologies capable of filtering that information and connecting us to others we can interact with and learn from (Siemens, 2008). In this chapter, we discuss the steps involved in building, growing, and maintaining online connections made possible entirely through new technologies. We argue that in the context of higher education, PLNs should be viewed as an informal alternative to the more formal professional development programs that are commonplace in K-12 education.

Determining the skills required for salespersons to maximize their effectiveness was the main driver for conducting the present study. In order to identify those necessary skills, this study aims to review various research techniques drawn from multiple disciplines and applied that knowledge to salespersons.

This study used a mixed-method methodology. This study began by conducting a literature review and then interviewed experienced salespersons with varied backgrounds to develop a comprehensive list of sales skills and themes and categorize them into competency categories. This study then conducted a quantitative analysis to determine the respective importance of the skills and themes by surveying a sample of internal stakeholders of a multinational company. Finally, this study calculated the reliability and validity of the themes.

A total of 206 relevant skills (later reduced to 110) and 28 themes were identified and grouped into three competency categories: conceptual, human/interpersonal and technical. Survey respondents rated the skills and themes higher than the “somewhat important” score of 3 out of 5, with the overall mean importance for skills being in the “important” range (score of 4.27 out of 5). All identified skills were believed to be important to a salesperson’s success.

This study’s expanded list of sales skills will improve employability, reduce turnover among employees and build better groundwork for fostering learning through work, resulting in better performance. These skills represent a 2020 updated list that could be used for future academic research and training and research in the business world.