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Narratives are central to consumers’ understanding of brands especially during change. The financial crisis that began in 2008 offered a changing marketplace from which to develop two managerially useful frameworks of consumer narratives. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Consumer focus groups, interviews with bankers and qualitative consumer surveys were used to gather consumers’ narratives about retail banking. The narratives were examined through frameworks from both the humanities and psychology (narrative identity).

The individual consumer narratives were used to create first a possible cultural narrative or bird’s eye view and later archetypal narratives of groups of consumers for a ground-level view of the changing marketplace.

Like all early research, the findings must be examined in other contexts to improve generalizability.

The narrative results revealed the impact of change on consumers’ identities, views of other entities and retail banking activity to yield managerially actionable information for segmentation, target marketing, branding and communication.

Frameworks are developed for consumer narratives which are shown to be useful tools in examining consumers’ reactions to changing markets and in formulating marketing responses.

Debates in US politics over abortion, homosexuality and other socio‐moral issues are increasingly explained by sociologists, politicians, policy advocates and the media as the result of a “culture war” in American society. Contained in this explanation is a theory that explains the moral value attitudes driving these debates as the product of conflicting worldviews. Since the worldviews that ultimately drive these debates cannot be compromised, the debates are said to be insoluble using normal democratic processes. The widespread dissemination of the hopeless aspect of this theory generates concern of self‐fulfilling prophesies. In this paper I outline the “culture war” and traditional “status group” theories and offer a critique. I conclude with an explanation of how the traditional “status group” explanations of these conflicts offers a more accurate — and more hopeful — vision of US society that avoids potentially self‐fulfilling prophesies of war.

The Library Association Conference has once more been held, and in spite of the smaller attendance and the omission of most of the usual social and local functions, there was a spirit of camaraderie and interest displayed that has made the meeting a decided success. It met at a time of such national strain that we may surely hope will never recur during the experience of the present generation, a time when all professions, occupations and business enterprises seem of small interest in comparison to the great national effort being made to defend the positions of ourselves and our Allies, against the overbearing aggression of a military despotism, so organised and trained, so powerful and unscrupulous as to call for the highest self‐devotion and sacrifice of all and every member of our immense Empire. It is therefore not a matter of surprise that although the number of members present was somewhat smaller than usual the tone of the Conference was kept at a high level, and attention was mainly focussed upon business matters.

In the early twenty‐first century organization scholars and managers face an economic outlook full of daunting challenges. With investors, workers, and other stakeholders distressed and hostile toward corporate executives and boards due to recent corporate scandals, the future for many industries and firms appears grim. In what ways can business history help corporate managers and new venture entrepreneurs overcome these leadership challenges? This paper seeks to uncover practices throughout the Boeing Company's management history that offer today's executives and board members numerous examples of industry vision and leadership.

Visionary leadership theory is used to help understand Boeing's actions. A theory of visionary entrepreneurial leadership is proposed based on Boeing's history. Four specific cases of aircraft design and development decisions and actions are presented as examples of executive and board directors' vision and leadership.

Boeing has served as the aircraft industry's innovator and leader for over nine decades by designing and building path‐breaking airplanes when no other aircraft manufacturer would venture similar risks to their reputation and capital. Furthermore, Boeing executives and board directors have repeatedly made risky decisions that – if the prototype literately crashed and burned – would probably bankrupt the company. Management's vision was always on the next great airplane, never on individual image or personal wealth.

Future research directions are presented suggesting a focus on firm executives and boards of directors' decisions and how these decisions influence industry wide innovation and development.

The paper analyses the leadership attributes of Boeing executives over the last nine decades.

For decades, managers around the globe assumed that “crisis management” referred to the sudden appearance of a television reporter enquiring about an impropriety at company headquarters. The decade now ending has witnessed a broader definition of crisis management, as public expectations of corporate behaviour on each continent has given rise to the need for proactive crisis management planning, an attribute some companies have sought too late and others too hurriedly. “Rules” of crisis management have little scholarly value, but some suggestions are offered.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the growth barriers of women’s home-based businesses (HBBs) in Iran.

The qualitative approach was used by 22 in-depth interviews with Iranian female HBBs owners/mangers.

Business growth barriers of women were categorized in a multi-level framework of individual barriers (micro), business-related barriers (medium) and environmental barriers (macro). The most important micro-level barrier is lack of skills and experience, while the financial barriers identified as the most business-related one and, finally, the problems of having work interactions with men is the most important environmental barrier women-owned HBBs mentioned.

The results of this paper can help policy-makers better understand growth barriers for women-owned HBB and attenuate these barriers by developing purposeful supportive growth policies that are commensurate with the barriers. Also, HBB women owners themselves could better concentrate on removing barriers by deepening their understanding of their business growth barriers.

The paper contributes to the scarce knowledge about women-owned HBBs in Iran, a rapidly growing, developing country, which can provide better insights from a less explored context. Moreover, as there is only a limited understanding of HBB growth, especially in relation to women business owners, the paper results can prove helpful for researchers in the domain of female entrepreneurs.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

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.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.