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The career paths which the 1988 Business Week 1000 chief executive officers (CEOs) followed on the way to the top are explored. No one organisational function or background dominates the CEO profile and no one career path can be said to breed CEOs. Almost 76 per cent of today′s CEOs worked their way up the corporate ladder after they joined their current company. The average CEO has been with his/her present company for nearly 24 years, and nine of these years as CEO. Only 19.5 per cent of the CEOs were hired directly from another company.

One MNC′s attempts to develop empowerment strategies are reviewed. These strategies are based on a cross‐cultural study of employee needs in the company′s Australian, German and Japanese subsidiaries. Although the need to control stands out in each of the three countries, employee needs patterns are different. The needs for economic security, belongingness, recognition, self‐worth, and control relate with each in different configurations and patterns. Because of significant differences in employee needs patterns, empowerment strategies enabling employees to fulfil their need to control cannot be transferred from one culture to another without major adjustments. In some instances very little is needed to empower an employee while in others almost nothing works. Some light is shed on why, within an MNC, a similar amount of control over their work and work environments empowers Japanese workers much more than their Australian and German counterparts.

The structure of the American corporation is currently changing from one with many middle managers providing the link between upper management and first‐line supervisors to one with few middle managers. A study of the content of supervisory training programmes in light of the changing role and expectations from first‐line management in Fortune 500 companies identifies whether or not corporate training programmes reinforce the technical skills used in performing the traditional supervisory reponsibilities or go beyond these functions, developing interpersonal/interactive and conceptual skills as well. Data were gathered through a questionnaire survey of the highest ranking corporate training officers of the Fortune 500 companies, with 155 responses. The most common training topic is performance evaluation (92 per cent), followed by the principles of effective delegation (90 per cent), developing listening skills (83 per cent), improving leadership effectiveness (80 per cent), and how to encourage and obtain subordinate participation in decision making (74 per cent). Almost 70 per cent of companies identified the following as most representative: how to make the work environment conducive to self‐motivation, how to improve quality of the product, how to ensure that established goals are perceived as realistic and relevant by the employees, how to assign specific duties to employees and assisting employees to understand their role in relation to overall company objectives. Most organisations are using their basic supervisory programmes to build employee commitment to the company, to modify employee behaviour and to obtain greater employee involvement. These all indicate company support of collaborative management style. However, in‐depth analysis of the specific contents of the training progammes reveals at least two‐thirds of the companies attempt to reach their goals by providing training in more specific technical skills rather than interpersonal and conceptual skills.

This is a comparative study of employee needs patterns in eight international subsidiaries of a multinational corporation. Although in each country the need to control one′s work environment emerges as the most dominant need, four different needs patterns are identified. The resulting patterns suggest that specific strategies are necessary for employee motivation in different cultural environments. Strategies that enhance work motivation in one country should be reviewed carefully before being transferred to another.

Suggests that adopting fashionable activity‐centred programmes such as TQM or re‐engineering, to parts of the entire organization without a general strategy tying them to long‐term corporate goals, seldom leads to desirable results. Indicates how an organization can build a climate which fosters creativity, harmony and teamwork, where continuous improvement becomes a way of life. Describes an integrated organizational development programme and its application in Bangor Hydro‐Electric Company. Shows how the company changed its culture, structure and operating procedures in order to to meet the demands of its rapidly changing environment.

The Center for Women’s Business Research estimates women are now the majority owners in 6.7 million privately held businesses in the United States and equal owners in another 4.0 million firms. When part owners in multiple businesses are included the female ownership total climbs to an estimated 15.6 million businesses. Women majority owners account for nearly half (48 per cent) of the privately‐held firms in the United States. Their businesses generate $2.46 trillion in sales. They employ 19.1 million people and spend an estimated $492 billion on salaries and $54 billion on employee benefits. The number of women‐owned firms increases at twice the rate of all new firms (14 per cent versus 7 per cent) and the number of employees nearly as fast (30 per cent versus 18 per cent). Women owners are rapidly moving into all industries, with the fastest growth percentages in the fields of construction (30 per cent), transportation, communications and public utilities (28 per cent) and agricultural services (24 per cent). Worldwide, with women entrepreneurs in under developed countries leading the way, women‐owned firms now comprise between one‐fourth and one‐third of all businesses. Given the numbers, it would be almost impossible to overestimate the impact of women owned businesses in today’s global economy.