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There is a growing requirement for multi‐cultural, transnationally competent managers in to‐day's global economy. However, the impact of culture, positive and negative, on management development programmes is often recognised, but not formally addressed. The cultural diversity of students undertaking management development programmes, such as an MBA, presents great opportunities to business school educators to facilitate the development of vital cross cultural management skills. Management development programmes traditionally address interpersonal skills development. However, based on our experience presented here, providing training to develop cross cultural skills specifically will be of growing importance to students, business schools and multinational companies, as they consider the effectiveness of management development programmes. This article sets out several of the key cross cultural issues which we have identified as relevant to management development programmes in an attempt to highlight the important impact of culture on students and teaching practice. These issues include teaching methods, tutor/student and peer group feedback, working in groups and cultural approaches to learning. We believe that such cultural issues can have a dra matic effect on students experience of management development programmes. We suggest a possible framework for initiating and developing cross cultural skills so that cultural richness can be taken from the classroom into the global boardroom.

From computers in Scotland to unemployment problems in South London is not the most obvious progression, which occasioned numerous explanations during the year I've just spent on secondment. The connection became more obvious to most people (though not all) when I explained that it was my business and management skills which were to be brought to bear in the setting up and running of a project to employ young West Indians.

This paper aims to introduce movements in scenario methodology, to design a moving strategic foresight approach.

The authors firstly question the limits of plausibility from an ontological and epistemological perspective to expand scenarios beyond the boundaries of end-states. To incorporate ongoing changes in scenario methodology, the authors propose to explore scenario transformations within the conceptual framework of action-based scenarios.

The authors discuss consequences of playing strategies within ongoing scenarios, as well as the research directions about moving scales, stakeholders’ dominance and time issues.

The paper proposes a method to distort and transform scenarios. The authors suggest supplementing strategic foresight in iterative processes to challenge the boundaries of plausible futures, bridging the gap between theoretical ever-changing processes and the moving rhythms of actions.

On another page we reprint some of the specially library paragraphs from the Fourth Annual Report of the Carnegie Trustees; and we believe that no apology is necessary for bringing them thus separately to all library workers. This beneficent institution is pursuing a policy in regard to our movement which, in its generosity, liberality, and at the same time cautious and wise restraint, must have the warm approval of librarians. It has been realized in a practical fashion that the library movement should not be allowed to stagnate during the war, because the most insistent calls upon the services and resources of libraries are likely to be made very soon after the cessation of hostilities, and if libraries are prepared now to meet those calls there should then be an impetus to the movement that will establish it finally.

TECHNOLOGICAL progress is a scythe which cuts ever deeper swathes in the familiar fields of the world's industrial and commercial life. It finds its justification in words like productivity, competition, modernization and similar emotive terms. This is no matter of tired waves seeking a painful inch to gain, but a flood tide sweeping forward with irresistible momentum despite Canute's command or Mrs Partington's mop.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether or not mavens’ dissemination activities are likely to promote or hinder retailers’ store brand premiumisation attempts, by revealing the relationship between mavens’ price and non-price on-pack extrinsic cue search and their store brand purchasing behaviours.

The paper adopts a hypothetic-deductive approach and develops a model of mavens’ store brand purchasing behaviour. The model is tested using SEM on a US data set containing 457 respondents. A full discussion of the direct, indirect and total effects is provided.

Mavens’ store brand purchasing behaviours are strongly linked to their price search activities and negatively related to their use of non-price on-pack extrinsic cues. This indicates that their dissemination activities are likely to stress lower prices and hence price competition rather than promote other cues used to infer quality. Thus, mavens are likely to inhibit retailers’ store brand premiumisation attempts. Mavens’ investments in time engaged in search activities are strongly linked to social returns rather than private financial savings.

The work is based on data collected using an online survey in one region of the USA where store brands are not as prevalent in other countries such as the UK.

The investigation of non-price on-pack extrinsic cues reduces mavens’ store brand purchasing behaviours while the use of price cues increases them. This suggests that even with mavens’ market expertise that a non-price extrinsic cue deficit continues to exist for these products. Consequently, retailers need to re-examine and rework the cues contained on pack to convey more positive consumption-related information if mavens are to become store brand advocates.

Rather than conceptualising the maven as possessing market wide knowledge, this research adopts a domain specific perspective arguing that price mavenism can be distinguished from product-related mavenism with consequences for the set of extrinsic cues used as part of the maven’s search process. In doing so, it reveals the conflicting effects that these maven dimensions have on purchasing behaviours and the likely effects on mavens’ dissemination activities.

This paper aims to develop and test a theoretical framework that examines the capacity of electronic open networks and closed interpersonal networks in building social capital and creating new knowledge. Specifically, this article aims to extend understanding in the field of knowledge management by examining how social networks can accumulate social capital and build up potential and absorptive capacity for the creation of new knowledge.

The authors reviewed the literature on open electronic social networks and closed interpersonal networks, social capital and absorptive capacity to examine how different types of networks accumulate different dimensions of social capital and develop different measures of absorptive capacity. A model was developed that hypothesizes that open networks can impact the structural and cognitive dimension of social capital but have less than a moderate effect on the relational dimension. The model is tested in the academic community using a sample of 22 research faculties from ten different research institutions within the MIS departments and five from Marketing.

The paper posits that electronic open networks have a significantly higher impact on the structural and cognitive dimension of social capital and a less than moderate impact on the relational dimension. Electronic open networks are, thus, best suited for acquiring and assimilating new knowledge, however the transformation and exploitation of knowledge require the cohesive ties of closed networks.

The combinative effect of electronic open networks and closed interpersonal networks is critical for the development of a potential and realized absorptive capacity and the creation of new knowledge. It is essential for researchers to examine the effect of different types of social networks on the process of knowledge creation and whether social capital accumulated in interpersonal networks can be leveraged in electronic open networks to enhance the process of knowledge creation.

Businesses benefit from this line of research in knowing how well different types of social network are suited to the different phases of knowledge creation. Leveraging the capacity of open electronic networks and closed interpersonal networks can foster innovation.

There is no existing literature that has examined the relationship between different types of social networks, social capital, absorptive capacity, and knowledge creation. This paper provides a foundation for future studies that examine the combinative effect of closed interpersonal and open electronic networks.