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There is no doubt that the application of microelectronic devices in processes and products can result in significant increases in labour productivity. There is considerably less agreement, however, on the implications of this for future employment prospects. The predictions which have been made concerning the impact of the microprocessor and its related technology on the economy and employment cover the entire range, from economic expansion and job creation at one extreme, to recession and large‐scale persistent unemployment at the other. A large number of these forecasts, however, are based on a limited analysis of the technological, economic, demographic and social factors involved and exhibit a general lack of awareness of certain basic historical trends in the labour market.

Economists John Day and David Parker examine the structural defects in the UK economy, the erratic recovery in world trade three years after the worst recession since the war and then turn their attention to studies of a noted Russian economist. Their unnerving conclusion is that after 20 years of relative prosperity, Britain could well be heading for a 30 year recession.

Much has been written about how methods of working and communicating can improve the productivity of innovation for industry. Less has been related to this from the overall development of science and policies that assist this. The changing organisational context of industrial research brings the need for scientific publishers to reinvent themselves for this market segment. Scientific communication, including one of its key functions, awareness, is examined and it is concluded that functions and processes in scientific communication may be organised more efficiently to increase the productivity of industrial research. The new context of virtual communities, exploiting the opportunities for interactivity, provides the organisational basis for introducing new methods for inculcating new approaches to knowledge management, for innovation in industry to occur more effectively. An approach to better understanding knowledge synthesis and the potential role of the publisher, as communications facilitator, is discussed.

This chapter enquires into the contribution of two British writers, Herbert Somerton Foxwell and Henry Riverdale Grenfell, who elaborated upon the hints provided by Jevons towards a description of long waves in the oscillations of prices. Writing two decades after Jevons, they witnessed the era of high prices turning into the great depression of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the causes of which they saw in the end of bimetallism. Not only did they take up Jevons’s specific explanation of the long fluctuations, but they also based their discussion upon graphical representation of data and incorporated in their treatment a specific trait (the superposition principle) of the ‘waves’ metaphor emphasized by the Manchester statisticians in the 1850s and 1860s. Their contribution is also interesting for their understanding of crises versus depressions at the time of the emergence of the interpretation of oscillations as a cycle, which they have only partially grasped – as distinct from the approach of later long wave theorists.

Charles Lindblom (Professor of Economics & Political Science at Yale University) coined the term ‘disjointed incrementalism’. Lindblom was interested in the decision‐making process — the ways in which and reasons for which planners, managers and administrators arrived at particular policy decisions.

The conference ‘The Digital Information Revolution’ was held in Westmister, London on 16–17 November 1994. It was arranged by FEI (Federation of the Electronics Industry); EURIM, an association of politicians and businessmen; and Syntegra, the systems integration division of BT. The conference was opened by the Duke of Kent and speakers were drawn from peers, MPs, general purpose dignitaries, and senior members of the electronics and tetecoms industries. Out of the many speakers, those named below talked about the particular aspects selected for discussion in this article. It was concluded that there was no doubt that a global superhighway would arrive, but speculation about when that might be and bow to define ‘arrival’ were avoided.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Organizations are in a constant struggle to predict the future, and be able to identify and jump on opportunities before they arise for the competition. This review looks at a three-layer framework that looks to aid the prediction and analysis of trends.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Previous research on institutional change has largely ignored its cyclical nature. This paper aims to introduce a four‐phase cyclical model of long‐term institutional change.

The recurrent patterns of the model have been identified from previous technological revolutions and their accompanying surges of development. The model also incorporates generational theory as a driver of institutional change.

The model predicts that a multi‐year institutional crisis is currently underway that has important implications for practitioners. The paper also describes proposed solutions to the current crisis.

The model developed synthesizes disparate institutional theories to build a new explanation for long‐term economic development.

Considering that the rate of profit constitutes a key indicator for the analysis of the evolution of capitalist economies, this chapter proposes to study the case of France from 1896 to 2019, that is, over 124 years in total. From a series of stock of productive capital reconstructed for the occasion, a rate of profit is calculated at the macroeconomic level within a conceptual framework faithful to Marx. Over this period of more than a century, three successive long waves are identified, as parts of a secular trend toward the fall in the French rate of profit. The latter, however, recovered several times during these three subperiods, but finally reoriented downwards, with fluctuations of an amplitude tending to decrease more and more and a deployment in a decreasing spiral of French capitalism. This long-term downward trend is mainly due to the rise in the organic composition of capital.