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In the March issue of this journal, John Wellens reviewed a recently published book, ‘The Character Training Industry’, by Roberts, White and Parker. In this article, Ian Marsh, Director of Training at Lindley Lodge, describes how, because of the identified shortcomings of the traditional approach of ‘adventure’ or ‘character’ training described in the book, as a means of industrial training, the project was set up. Unique work in development training has been pioneered at Lindley Lodge, near Nuneaton. The response from industry has been such that plans are already in hand for the opening of further centres.

In his examination of the links between power and crime, Steven Box defined corporate crime as crime committed for the corporate organisation and not against it. Thus, employee theft, including fraud and embezzlement against an employer, would not be categorised as such. Braithwaite adopts a similar definition to Box, suggesting that corporate crime refers to ‘the conduct of a corporation or individuals acting on behalf of the corporation that is proscribed by law’. Corporate crime, then, involves illegal acts of an individual or group within a legitimate formal organisation which are in accordance with the goals of that organisation.

This study aims to investigate the impact of information, both public macro news and private information, on exchange rate volatility in an integrated framework.

The authors apply real-time data of macro announcements and high-frequency trading data (German Deutsche Mark to US dollar, DEM/USD, from 1 May to 31August 1996) to GARCH models and examine various model specifications.

Data analysis demonstrates real-time macro news and market makers’ private information both have a significant impact on exchange rate volatility, but there is no interaction between macro and micro information in the information transmission process.

This study contributes to empirical hybrid studies of examining exchange rates volatility, which is in line with literature that combine both macro and micro fundamentals in examining exchange rates variation. Particularly, a key element of this study is to use a microstructure fundamental variable, namely, order flow, to capture private information in an exchange rate volatility study.

Considers the significant shift of Australian business investment from Europe and the USA to the Asian region since 1992. Reveals that over 65 per cent of manufacturing, 90 per cent of infrastructure, and some 90 per cent of services investment, committed or under consideration in the last three years, involves projects in regional states. Survey findings suggest the need to locate operations close to customers is the primary motive, followed by the growth of particular markets. Lower labour costs have also been a factor. In recent years, Australia has also sought to position itself as a regional headquarters location ‐ and has been particularly successful in the telecommunications and software sectors. Finally, Australia has sought to attract regional firms seeking bases in, or experience of, Western environments. Argues that all these developments mark changes in business strategies and in the public policy environment. This realignment of activities creates new opportunities for international managers as it poses an array of new strategic and operational issues for Australian managers. These implications have yet to be reflected in management research.

While the strategic management literature extols the virtues of engaging in strategic planning for superior performance, how a dynamic strategic planning capability can be developed remains underexplored; a knowledge void addressed by the paper through applying knowledge-based theory.

A mail survey was sent to high technology firms randomly sampled from the Kompass Directory of UK businesses. Firms were sampled at the SBU level, given the focus on strategic planning capability.

An organization’s strategic planning capability derives from extensive information distribution and organizational memory. While learning values is non-significant, symbolic information use degrades the development of a strategic planning capability.

By investigating the contributory activities that lead to strategic planning capability development, the findings establish how strategic planning materializes in organizations. Further, the differential effects found for knowledge management activities on strategic planning capability development extend empirical studies that suggest knowledge is always a central tenet of strategic planning.

A set of key knowledge activities is identified that managers must address for strategic planning capability development: strategic planning routines and values of search, analysis and assessment should be appropriately informed by investments in knowledge dissemination and memory on a continual basis. Meanwhile, information misuse compromises strategic planning capabilities, and managers must protect against out-of-context or manipulated information from infiltrating into organizational memory.

Despite the advent of the knowledge-based theory and its core premise that capabilities derive from knowledge management activities, little research has been conducted into demonstrating the knowledge-based antecedents of a strategic planning capability.

Under the forceful leadership of its new chairman, Richard Marsh, British Rail is thrusting into new freight markets to offset heavy dependence on the declining coal and steel industries. Already, it has profitable contracts for bulk haulage of oil and liquid gases, and Marsh is confident that more deals like this will pull the railways out of their current £20 million deficit. Report by John Lawless

After decades of successful expansion, The Reader's Digest Association's products were mature. With an average readership age for the flagship Reader's Digest magazine of 50.3 in 2004, efforts to develop new products had so far failed to entice a significant number of younger customers. Following a financial downturn in 1996, positive financial results remained illusive. Several major changes instituted by Thomas O. Ryder, CEO since 1998, including acquisitions, re-capitalization, restructuring and systematic re-engineering of the corporate culture, had proven mildly successful, but RDA, as well as the entire publishing industry, faced a persistent decline in profitability. Could RDA fulfill its stated mission to create “products that inform, enrich, entertain and inspire people of all ages and cultures around the world”, and could it do this by continuing to rely on the 80-year old Reader's Digest magazine?

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Most studies pertaining to social tagging focus on one platform or platform type, thus limiting the scope of their findings. The purpose of this paper is to explore social tagging practices across four platforms in relation to cultural products associated with the book Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming.

A layered and nested case study approach was used to analyse data from four online platforms: Goodreads, Last.fm, WordPress, and public library social discovery platforms. The top-level case study focuses on the book Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming and its derivative products. The analysis of tagging practices in each of the four online platforms is nested within the top-level case study. Casino Royale was conceptualized as a cultural product (the book), its derived products (e.g. movies, theme songs), as well as a keyword in blogs. A qualitative, inductive, and context-specific approach was chosen to identify commonalities in tagging practices across platforms whilst taking into account the uniqueness of each platform.

The four platforms comprise different communities of users, each platform with its own cultural norms and tagging practices. Traditional access points in the library catalogues focused on the subject, location, and fictitious characters of the book. User-generated content across the four platforms emphasized historical events and periods related to the book, and highlighted more subjective access points, such as recommendations, tone, mood, reaction, and reading experience. Revealing shifts occur in the tags between the original book and its cultural derivatives: Goodreads and library catalogues focus almost exclusively on the book, while Last.fm and WordPress make in addition cross-references to a wider range of different cultural products, including books, movies, and music. The analyses also yield apparent similarities in certain platforms, such as recurring terms, phrasing and composite or multifaceted tags, as well as a strong presence of genre-related terms for the book and music.

The layered and nested case study approach presents a more comprehensive theoretical viewpoint and methodological framework by which to explore the study of user-generated metadata pertaining to a range of related cultural products across a variety of online platforms.