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This study aims to characterize the June 2020 COVID-19 outbreak at San Quentin California State Prison and to describe what made San Quentin so vulnerable to uncontrolled transmission.

Since its onset, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated the profound health harms of carceral settings, such that nearly half of state prisons reported COVID-19 infection rates that were four or more times (and up to 15 times) the rate found in the state’s general population. Thus, addressing the public health crises and inequities of carceral settings during a respiratory pandemic requires analyzing the myriad factors shaping them. In this study, we reported observations and findings from environmental risk assessments during visits to San Quentin California State Prison. We complemented our assessments with analyses of administrative data.

For future respiratory pathogens that cannot be prevented with effective vaccines, this study argues that outbreaks will no doubt occur again without robust implementation of additional levels of preparedness – improved ventilation, air filtration, decarceration with emergency evacuation planning – alongside addressing the vulnerabilities of carceral settings themselves.

This study addresses two critical aspects that are insufficiently covered in the literature: how to prepare processes to safely implement emergency epidemic measures when needed, such as potential evacuation, and how to address unique challenges throughout an evolving pandemic for each carceral setting.

The problem of workers at risk should be reframed to reflect the impact of social stratification, power relations and divergent interests in occupational health practices. The past two decades have seen rapid developments in technology for detecting genetic traits and abnormalities in individuals that may indicate damage from chemical exposure. Occupational physicians, industrial managers and biomedical scientists increasingly favour this technology. However these methods have only selective appeal and are quite controversial. Their accuracy in identifying high‐risk workers is disputed as well as their value and consequences. Social factors that shape the way workers at risk have been defined are discussed. These social processes help to explain the way issues of risk are framed and industrial practices are conducted. They also explain patterns of support and opposition to genetic technology.

This essay considers some of the negative effects of proxy contests and emphasizes that the proxy contest should be the choice of last resort. When costs are weighed against benefits, it would seem that there are better and cheaper ways for owners and managers to communicate and settle their differences. Recent research on this topic is considered and suggestions for research to judge the long‐term effects of proxy contests are offered. The essay concludes with some thoughts on how newly emerging corporate governance schemes may eventually obviate the need for proxy contests.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretically informed analysis of a struggle for power over the regulation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social and environmental accounting and reporting (SEAR) within the European Union.

The paper combines insights from institutional theory (Lawrence and Buchanan, 2017) with Vaara et al.’s (2006) and Vaara and Tienar’s (2008) discursive strategies approach in order to interrogate the dynamics of the institutional “arena” that emerged in 2001, following the European Commission’s publication of a Green Paper (GP) on CSR policy and reporting. Drawing on multiple sources of data (including newspaper coverage, semi-structured interviews and written submissions by companies and NGOs), the authors analyse the institutional political strategies employed by companies and NGOs – two of the key stakeholder groupings who sought to influence the dynamics and outcome of the European initiative.

The results show that the 2001 GP was a “triggering event” (Hoffman, 1999) that led to the formation of the institutional arena that centred on whether CSR policy and reporting should be voluntary or mandatory. The findings highlight how two separate, but related forms of power (systemic and episodic power) were exercised much more effectively by companies compared to NGOs. The analysis of the power initiatives and discursive strategies deployed in the arena provides a theoretically informed understanding of the ways in which companies acted in concert to reach their objective of maintaining CSR and SEAR as a voluntary activity.

The theoretical framework outlined in the paper highlights how the analysis of CSR and SEAR regulation can be enriched by examining the deployment of episodic and systemic power by relevant actors.

Within 18 months of exiting bankruptcy, Kmart's position was sufficiently strong to launch an acquisition of Sears, once the nation's largest retailer and also a core holding of ESL. Looks at a number of compelling issues related to Kmart's bankruptcy, restructuring, and rebirth under the control of ESL, a large hedge fund. Presents some of the key metrics that Eddie Lampert, head of ESL, had available to him as he made two decisions: first, in 2002, to amass a controlling stake in Kmart's defaulted debt during the restructuring; and second, in 2004, to launch a takeover of Sears. The first deal illustrates the decision-making process for a financial buyer, including the downside protection of Kmart's real estate holdings, whereas the second deal represents a traditional strategic acquisition. Illustrates the innovative use of real estate as a “hedge” for ESL in the event that the retail combination does not produce the required financial results. Also focuses on the role of investment bankers and the increasingly important position that hedge funds and LBO funds have carved out in the M&A market.

To outline the explosive growth in assets and influence of alternative investment managers, particularly LBO funds and hedge funds, and the transition of some larger hedge funds from shorter term trading strategies to longer term plays on distressed debt, restructurings, and turnarounds.

Storytelling helps clarify the concealed or less visible elements of reality in its authentic context. Story analysis read between the lines of written or oral narratives to obtain richer understanding of an event. However, storytelling practice is a double-edge sword. Skilled storytellers may employ the power of storytelling to reframe an event in a favorable or undesirable way.

In contemporary business world, corporations broadly employ expert authors who proficiently apply storytelling practices in corporate public documents. Accordingly, corporate public documents declare desirable corporate image and promising reflection of business activities hence the corporate attracts more stockholders and obtains extra resources.

In current business world, corporates that do not appropriately employ storytelling would fail to take the opportunity to brainwash stockholders, hence suffer from competitive disadvantage.

This case study analyses Sears Holdings Corporation public report to explore how its business activities are revealed to public stakeholders. This study also proposes hypotheses of the consequences of ineffective storytelling.

This paper offers a reanalysis or “re‐view” of a celebrated tale of corporate transformation – the turnaround of Sears, Roebuck and Company – which was discussed in the Harvard Business Review. Noting that “contextual” and “processual” attempts to revise the tale of Sears and its transformation would tend to exchange one monological rendering for another, albeit more critical account, the paper “re‐views” the case in an attempt to make space for perspectives and narratives normally edited out of narratives of change management.

Building upon a critical review of the literature concerned with organizational storytelling the paper “re‐views” the Harvard rendering of the Sears case as an epic tale. The paper then supplements this epic rendering of the Sears case with another two accounts of the case, which recast and review the tale first as a tragedy and then as a comedy.

The paper reveals the polysemic nature of organization and change and suggests the need for approaches to the narration of change that can give voice to perspectives denied by both celebratory and critical accounts of change management.

The paper offers an innovative “re‐view” of a celebrated account of change management and invites the reader to make room for voices and perspectives normally lost within narratives of change.

New research using the PIMS database of business performance shows that businesses delivering better value for money than their competitors are up to 200 percent more profitable than those which do not. The evidence very strongly indicates that where improvements in value for money can be made, profitability will increase over time. Previous research data demonstrate that market share is a key driver of profitability. The new study was therefore devised to assess the impact on market share of the two elements of value for money ‐ customer perceived quality and price. It reveals that, overall, quality is nearly 50 percent more important in driving market share upwards.

This paper introduces the base‐case‐valuation pattern, which is derived from the modern Graham and Dodd valuation methodology, and it demonstrates how that pattern could be utilized in M&A by way of a case study.

The paper presents a case study of the 2004 acquisition of Sears by hedge‐fund manager Eddie Lampert. It draws on previously published Graham and Dodd methodological materials as well as Sears' publicly available financial information. The valuation calculations presented in the case is the sole work of the author.

The results of the case suggest that base‐case valuation could be practically utilized in M&A. Significantly, it could also be utilized in the formulation of an M&A‐negotiating strategy, shareholder‐communication plan, and performance‐improvement plan.

The paper demonstrates how that acquisition contained a reasonable margin‐of safety, or price discount to estimated value, even though it occurred at a multiple of 1.8x Sears' book value at the time.

This case demonstrates the practical utility of base‐case value in M&A by way of the 2004 Sears acquisition.

This work introduces the base‐case‐valuation pattern, and it is the first work, as far as we are aware, that applies the Graham and Dodd methodology to the Sears acquisition even though Eddie Lampert is a noted Graham and Dodd‐based practitioner.

This paper discusses the lives and contributions of five key members of the Management History Division: Arthur G. Bedeian; Alfred A. Bolton; James C. Worthy (now deceased); Charles D. Wrege; and Daniel A. Wren. Each has proved himself a teacher and intellectual leader in matters of fundamental concern to management history.