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Audio-diary methods are under-utilised in contemporary qualitative research. The purpose of this paper is to discuss participants and researchers’ experiences of using audio-diaries alongside semi-structured interviews to explore breastfeeding experiences in a short-term longitudinal study with 22 first-time mothers.

The authors provide a qualitative content analysis of the participants’ feedback about their experiences of the audio-diary method and supplement this with the perspectives of the research team based on fieldwork notes, memos and team discussions. The authors pay particular attention to the ways in which the data attained from diaries compared with those from the interviews.

The diaries produced were highly heterogeneous in terms of data length and quality. Participants’ experiences with the method were varied. Some found the process therapeutic and useful for reflecting upon the development of breastfeeding skills whilst negative aspects related to lack of mobility, self-consciousness and concerns about confidentiality. Researchers were positive about the audio-diary method but raised certain ethical, epistemological and methodological concerns. These include debates around the use of prompts, appropriate support for participants and the potential of the method to influence the behaviour under scrutiny. Interview and diary accounts contrasted and complemented in ways which typically enriched data analysis.

The authors conclude that audio-diaries are a flexible and useful tool for qualitative research especially within critical realist and phenomenological paradigms.

This appears to be the first paper to evaluate both participants and researchers’ experiences of using audio-diaries in a detailed and systematic fashion.

This paper aims to provide insights into the development and management of a customer community, informing product innovation and engaging customers in co‐creation of a consumption experience.

A review of the state of current knowledge about co‐production, co‐creation and customer communities is followed by discussion of the case study methodology. The case history of a leading player in the UK and international “sportkiting” market focuses on product innovation and customer‐community development. Discussion reflects in more detail on the lessons from the case for application of the principles in practice.

The case company's innovative product development strategy provides the catalyst for co‐creation of a customer experience. Its marketing actions extend beyond product development and innovation to actively co‐creating experiences with customers, fostering a sense of community among users, facilitating communication within that community, acting on the feedback, and continuously developing and maintaining the community relationship.

The company's marketing strategy can be summed up as “customer community leadership”. This paradigm proposes a new role for businesses in sectors where there is a potential to develop and engage communities. It provides a context for the effective facilitation of customer knowledge management, within which marketing intelligence plays a significant role. The findings offer scope for further research into the nature of this phenomenon and its relevance to co‐creation in other industry sectors, and into numerous aspects of the processes and impacts associated with customer communities.

The case contributes to the literature of co‐creation, demonstrating how it has been achieved through a marketing strategy and marketing mix in a particular customer community.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

The purpose of MBA education is to provide training in the theory and practice of business management. In Malaysia, several public and private institutions of higher learning offer such programmes. A survey of 112 organizations revealed that 67 per cent had executives with MBA degrees in their employment while the rest cited demand for high salaries and company policy to promote internal staff as two main reasons for not doing so. About 73 per cent said that they had no special preference for graduates from specific business schools. MBAs with good work ethics, sound management and leadership skills as well as critical thinking and analytical abilities, are more likely to be hired. In future, employers expect more MBAs with the ability to understand local, Asian and global business practices.

The purpose of this study is to examine linkages of gender and gender-related variables to aspirations to top management over a period spanning five decades.

During each of the past five decades, samples from two early-career populations (n = 2131), undergraduate business students and part-time (evening) MBAs, completed an aspirations to top management measure and described themselves on an instrument that assessed self-ascribed masculinity and femininity.

Aspirations to top management were predicted by respondent gender for undergraduates, with women’s aspirations lower than those of men, and by masculinity for both populations. Suggesting a shifting role of gender, undergraduate women’s aspirations to top management declined during the 21st century, whereas undergraduate men’s aspirations did not.

Any decline in early-career women’s aspirations to top management over a sustained period may contribute in the long run to perpetuating the under-representation of women in top management.

The finding of a striking decline in women’s aspirations to top management during the 21st century in an early-career population is an original contribution to the gender in management literature.

To establish the concept of identity as the bridging concept of cybernetics and sociology.

The approach is a pincers movement. On the one hand, it is argued that there has been a move towards an identity society; identity is a foundational concept for an understanding of contemporary society. On the other hand, the paper argues that in the work of Beer, identity became the key to his proposal that the VSM is the optimal form of variety management in a social system. The study is based on an extension and application of Finalizierungstheorie to the problem.

Identity is the key concept for the articulation of cybernetics and sociology. There has been a singular failure to apply cybernetic ideas to sociological materials in a manner that has met with the approval and satisfaction of the sociological community. Beer's formulation of the identity phenomenon and its extrapolation in the social sphere proposes a solution to this long‐standing problem.

The approach allows for a broad ranging multi‐level research programme in sociological cybernetics to be formulated and pursued in a manner congenial to the accumulation of a substantial knowledge base ranging from micro‐ to macro‐issues.

This paper presents a unique synthesis of cybernetics and sociology building on and extending the work of Beer in the field of managerial cybernetics.

Maintaining an adequate nutritional state, important at all times, is never more so than during the dark days of Winter. The body reserves are then taxed in varying degrees of severity by sudden downward plunges of the thermometer, days when there is no sight of the sun, lashing rains and cold winds, ice, frost, snow, gales and blizzards. The body processes must be maintained against these onslaughts of nature — body temperatures, resistance against infections, a state of well‐being with all systems operating and an ability to “take it”. A sufficient and well balanced diet is vital to all this, most would say, the primarily significant factor. The National Food Surveys do not demonstrate any insufficiency in the national diet in terms of energy values, intake of vitamins, minerals and nutrients, but statistics can be fallacious amd misleading. NFS statistics are no indication of quality of food, its sufficiency for physiological purposes and to meet the economic stresses of the times. The intake of staple foods — bread, milk, butter, meat, &c., — have been slowly declining for years, as their prices rise higher and higher. If the Government had foreseen the massive unemployment problem, it is doubtful if they would have crippled the highly commendable School Meals Service. To have continued this — school milk, school dinners — even with the financial help it would have required would be seen as a “Supplementary Benefit” much better than the uncontrolled cash flow of social security. Child nutrition must be suffering. Stand outside a school at lunch‐time and watch the stream of children trailing along to the “Chippie” for a handfull of chip potatoes; even making a “meal” on an ice lollie.

IT is important to open this editorial with an affirmation of faith. It is this:

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

Informed by the concept of well-being in Islam and the eudaimonic view of psychological well-being (PWB), and drawing on resilience theory, this study aims to understand (1) the implications of residing in conflict areas for entrepreneurs’ PWB, (2) the barriers facing entrepreneurs in these areas and (3) the implications of their religiosity for their PWB.

Utilizing an interpretative qualitative method, this study employed 22 entrepreneurs residing in conflict areas (Palestine and Libya). Thematic analysis was used to explore the participants’ experiences and insights.

The findings show that living in conflict areas enhances certain components of entrepreneurs’ PWB, such as self-acceptance and having a purpose in life and diminishes other components of their PWB, including environmental mastery, personal growth, the presence of autonomy and positive relations with others. Additionally, the findings suggest that religiosity, viewed through an Islamic lens, positively contributes to entrepreneurs’ PWB and identify societal (macro level) barriers faced by entrepreneurs in these areas.

The study is theoretically and contextually relevant and offers novel insights into the interplay between religion and well-being in conflict areas. It presents a reinvigorated awareness, opens specific research directions and permits the contextual applicability and possible extension of resilience theory.