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Groups, goals and organisation development — the literature has tended to recommend a one‐to‐one MBO. Now consider the team approach.

Introduction Most management by objectives (MBO) programmes feature a one‐on‐one dialogue between a subordinate and superior about individual goals and goal attainment. However, the emphasis on this two‐person relationship, the clarification of individual goals in hopes of enhanced motivation and performance and the review of individual performance against objectives may represent some lost opportunities for increasing organisational performance. In fact, it may at times be counter‐productive. Our purpose is to identify some elements missing from many MBO programmes, to review the history of group or team approaches to goal setting, to speculate on why one‐on‐one approaches dominate the literature on MBO, and to suggest conditions for making team approaches to MBO most useful.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.

The Commercial Invoice is the first EDI message to gain worldwide acceptance, and it has been registered as a standard by the United Nations. The action was hailed by the Commission of European Communities (CEC) as a significant step towards the international agreement on technical standards needed in order for electronic communications to gradually replace paperwork in world trade.

The purpose of this two-part paper is to explore the relationship between multiculturalism and performance, and attempt to reconcile some of the varying points of views, in order to suggest practical implications for managers in the workplace.

A review of the literature regarding both diversity and performance was performed. Next, the focus was on the relationship specifically between racial-ethnic diversity and performance. To show the relevance of the paper, materials dedicated to Canadian population and immigration was included.

It is still somewhat inconclusive whether diversity can have a definite positive or negative impact on organizational performance. The literature reviewed shows that authors have differing opinions. One element appears to be clear: diversity of itself does not necessarily bring benefit. For a diverse group to perform well, it must be well managed. Diversity remains an underused tool that managers have yet to learn to utilize.

At the time of writing, there was not a significant amount of published material on the direct relationship between multiculturalism and performance. This paper attempts to gather and make sense of the various views formalized thus far and puts forth a new question of how to turn multiculturalism in the workplace into an asset for organizations.

Managers still do not agree on how to take full advantage of diversity. As the Canadian workforce becomes more and more diverse, so increases the importance of addressing and answering this question in practical terms. Especially facing the increased globalization of corporations, taking advantage of the untapped potential that resides in a culturally diverse work team should be at the top of every international company’s goals.

The importance of studying the relationship between multiculturalism and performance is crucial because in developed countries like Canada organizations are becoming increasingly culturally diverse. Much has been written about the effect of group diversity on conflict and creativity, on the performance of heterogeneous groups vs homogeneous groups, on organizational commitment among ethnic minorities, and on self-fulfilling performance expectations.

This paper is a useful source for managers interested in understanding the real value of diversity in the workplace, as well as for researchers studying the relationship between corporate diversity and corporate performance.

British government approves data network After months of preparation by HM Treasury's Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), the first phase of the Government Data Network (GDN) has now been accepted. Trials of GDN took place in January, and it has now been implemented for daily use in 178 Customs and Excise locations throughout Britain. GDN is operated by Racal Data Networks.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the moderating effect of financial literacy in the relationship between access to finance and growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing economies. Thus, this study seeks to establish whether financial literacy moderates the relationship between access to finance and growth of SMEs in a developing economy like Uganda.

Cross-sectional research design was used in the study and data were collected from 169 SMEs located in Jinja and Iganga central markets. ModGraph (excel programme) was used to test for the moderating effect of financial literacy in the relationship between access to finance and growth of SMEs in developing economies.

The findings reveal a positive and significant moderating effect of financial literacy in the relationship between access to finance and growth of SMEs in developing economies. In addition, financial literacy and access to finance also have significant and positive effects on growth of SMEs in developing economies.

The study collected data from only SMEs located in Uganda, and there is an opportunity to test this finding in other developing economies. Furthermore, the findings from the study are based on quantitative data collected through use of semi-structured questionnaires. Besides, the study was purely cross-sectional; hence, it ignores the characteristics of SMEs, which could be investigated using a longitudinal study design.

The study highlights the importance of financial literacy in promoting access to finance, which is necessary for the growth of SMEs in developing economies. Owners of SMEs could attend financial literacy programmes provided by entrepreneurial skill development organizations to enable them to acquire financial knowledge and skills to make wise and better financial decisions and choices.

The study contributes to existing international entrepreneurship literature by indicating the moderating effect of financial literacy in the relationship between access to finance and growth of SMEs in developing economies. The study shows that for SMEs to access finance to grow there is a need for financial literacy that promotes effective and efficient use of loans/credits. SMEs in developing economies need financial literacy, which helps them make wise financial decisions and choices before accessing financial services like loans.

‘Living is learning,’ Konrad Lorenz once remarked, to which multimedia system designers might add that the more life‐like the educational tools, the better the learning. Hence, the growing interest in combining interactive training and educational programs with music, moving images, colour and sound.

Buyer‐supplier relationships play an important role in an organization’s ability to respond to dynamic and unpredictable change. If the relationship is too restrictive, flexibility will be difficult to achieve and, if it is too lenient the risk of opportunism will be present. This paper provides a framework for understanding how buyer‐supplier relationships have evolved over the past two decades from transaction processes based on arms‐length agreements to collaborative processes based on trust and information sharing. To achieve this objective, buyer‐supplier relationships are reviewed from the perspectives of transaction cost theory, strategy‐structure theory and resource‐based theory of the firm. Findings from early supply chain research are contrasted with the findings of more current research to provide a better understanding of how these relationships have changed. Current theory is extended by offering two proposals that test the influence of trust and information sharing and a third proposal that rejects the notion that supply chain alliances lead to monopolistic practices.