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The purpose of this research was to investigate a successful company, Atlas Container Corporation, that practices the values of egalitarianism, democracy, mutuality, and transparency. Moreover, this research sought to identify the human resource policies and practices (HRPP) used to reinforce these values and create a distinctive culture.

An ethnographic approach was used to produce a case study. Interviews, observations, archives, and documents were all part of the collected data.

The HRPP were distinctively different from the normal practices in the industry. Thus, these differences appeared to explain its success.

While this case study focused only on a single organization, it provides an illustration of the importance of reflecting the organization’s culture through its HRPP, and of how they could operate synergistically for optimal impact.

This case illustrated how a company following a set of HRPP contrary to industry norms could succeed. In addition, it pinpointed some areas where HRPP either reduced costs or made the company more responsive to customer needs.

This case illustrated that a company can be both humanistic and efficient. Moreover, it demonstrated a number of ways that the financial success of the company could be shared with its employees.

A review of the literature found that companies that practiced a progressive set of HRPP and made decisions based on democratic principles are rare. Thus, knowledge of such a company should be valuable.

The purpose of this research was to investigate how Mid South Building Supply, a 100% employee-owned company, survived the Great Recession. Research has found that employee-owned companies are more likely to survive recessions than other companies. Why this happens was unclear. Thus, this research was conducted to learn why this might happen.

The case study approach was chosen to uncover the causes because this approach has played a significant role in uncovering organizational phenomena. Moreover, the industry was chosen because of the vulnerability of firms in it to recessionary forces.

Mid South uses practices that enhance both financial and psychological ownership. Prior research has suggested that both are important.

Case study research is limited because only a single frim is investigated. Thus, additional studies need to be performed to confirm the results.

Although this is a single case study, the practical implication is that enterprises that want to improve their probability of surviving should apply the findings of this study.

Firms that provide employment stability to employees are more likely to survive. In turn, research would suggest that this is associated with greater family and community stability.

Whereas prior studies have used across-industry data to find that employee-owned firms are more likely to survive recessions than others, what such firms do differently was unclear. A literature review failed to reveal a prior study that looked at the internal practices that may cause this to happen.

I have been asked to explore how James Buchanan’s work on public finance and constitutional political economy might have emerged out of themes present in Frank Knight’s oeuvre, especially his Risk Uncertainty, and Profit. Buchanan’s body of work has inspired the development of a style of political economy sometimes described as Virginia or Constitutional Political Economy to distinguish it from the Chicago Political Economy with which George Stigler is associated, and with Stigler and Buchanan both being students of Knight. While Buchanan, unlike Stigler, did not write his dissertation under Knight’s supervision, this is a minor distinction because Buchanan regarded Knight as his de facto supervisor even though Roy Blough was his de jure supervisor. The author explains how Knight’s scholarly oeuvre can in large measure be detected in Buchanan’s effort to fashion an alternative approach to public finance and to articulate the field of study now called constitutional political economy.

At the turn of the 20th-century railroad regulation was hotly debated in the United States. Railways were accused of abusing of their monopolistic position, in particular by discriminating rates. Public opinion’s pressure for tighter regulation led to the 1906 enactment of the Hepburn Act, which strengthened the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission. American economists actively participated in the debate. While most of them sided with the pro-regulation camp, the best economic analysis came from those who used the logic of modern law and economics to demonstrate how most railroads’ practices, including rate discrimination, were simply rational, pro-efficiency behavior. However, as relatively unknown Chicago University economist Hugo R. Meyer would discover, proposing that logic in public events could at that time cost you your academic career.

The field of transportation research, and the World Conferences on Transport Research Society (WCTRS), has an illustrious history. The challenge today is to look to the future in a deep and thoughtful way, to identify emerging issues and opportunities for practice and for research.

This chapter identifies several critical issues in transportation research. We then explore one issue in depth, the need to increase individual and collaborative effectiveness.

This issue points to the need for a new direction in transportation research. Historically, transportation research has focussed on two major thrusts. The analysis thrust has focussed on predicting the consequences of a given transportation plan, project, or service proposal. Associated “design” research has dealt with algorithmic and heuristic techniques for finding “good” plans or policies. The policy thrust has focussed on the organizational issues and processes around making decisions on and implementing transportation plans, projects, or services. This thrust includes public policy issues and approaches, market structures and regulatory processes, organization design issues, distributional consequences, environmental policy issues, and related areas.

Today, we see the need to add a third major thrust to the field of transportation — cognition and action:

• to manage transportation services and enterprises better;

• to use analysis more effectively to inform and influence decisions;

• to use computer support more effectively in transportation organizations and enterprises.

to manage transportation services and enterprises better;

to use analysis more effectively to inform and influence decisions;

to use computer support more effectively in transportation organizations and enterprises.

Research in cognition and action examines how people think and act, and aims to develop aids to thinking and acting that result in significant improvements in peoples' behaviours and performance. Promising research directions draw on cognitive psychology and cognitive science, and especially empirical research on managerial cognition and problem-solving. We introduce the theory of cognitive informatics, describe some applications to transportation management, and discuss relevant software tools.