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The purpose of this paper is to examine and explain the complex interrelationships which influence the performance of politically connected firms to create value for their providers of finance and other stakeholders. In doing so, it examines the interrelationships between efficiency and delivering on corporate performance of a firm with political ties.

The authors gathered the literature from the Scopus website. They reviewed the literature of 58 manuscripts about the efficiency and performance of politically connected firms.

The research finds that the better quality of efficiency of politically connected firms is positively related to the corporate performance of politically connected firms. The authors’ theoretical findings corroborate the political theory, agency theory, stakeholder theory, resource dependency theory and stewardship theory. These theories prove that political connections have an impact on firm performance as a politician reinforces the efficacy. To better understand the effect of political connections on solid performance due to efficiency, this study classifies various efficiencies and links them with political ties.

Several avenues of research are suggested to examine further the interrelationships identified.

The authors’ conceptual findings are valuable for institutional investors, policymakers and stakeholders. To sum up, all theoretical shreds of evidence prove that politically connected firms can enhance performance via efficiency.

The paper conceptualizes the efficiency and performance interrelationships of politically connected firms. The extant literature comparison allows an assessment of the extent to which different efficiency contexts lead to differences in performance.

On April 2, 1987, IBM unveiled a series of long‐awaited new hardware and software products. The new computer line, dubbed the Personal Systems 30, 50, 60, and 80, seems destined to replace the XT and AT models that are the mainstay of the firm's current personal computer offerings. The numerous changes in hardware and software, while representing improvements on previous IBM technology, will require users purchasing additional computers to make difficult choices as to which of the two IBM architectures to adopt.

Elite individuals and groups constitute a distinctive, upper echelon and social grouping. In various shapes and forms, elites have been an enduring feature of many societies and in the contemporary era, the concept of elites and the related notion of celebrity have seen fresh interconnected developments. The purpose of the paper is to consider the literature on elite interviewing both generally and more specifically against a backdrop of an organization and management disciplinary setting. Importantly the paper examines and surfaces the role of context in relation to elite interviewing. In order to consider and illustrate this phenomenon the argument engages with the organizational environment and behaviours of the English professional football industry with the intention of offering fresh perspectives into the form and function of context in elite interviewing.

The paper's examination of the literature feeds into the fieldwork stage which employs an inductive and interpretivistic methodology. The key method employed within the methodology is semi‐structured interviews tailored for elites and conjoined with participant observation. The approach is applied within an elite interviewing process in the specific organizational context of the professional football industry.

The paper concludes that in relation to elite interviewing, there is scope to consider a contextualisation and recontextualisation of elite interviewing processes through the development of a potential range of novel conceptual and theoretical models. By engaging with interview frameworks, the paper draws heightened attention to the possibility of generating typologies for, and categorising elites operating within, those given contexts. The paper underlines the established notion of inter‐differences between elites in different sectors, and, more importantly, surfaces intra‐differences in elites within sectors. This issue of diversity of elites is currently not a factor that is clearly acknowledged or addressed in the extant literature. In the case of the present study this novel analysis and illustration are undertaken within the English professional football industry. Therein, the argument exemplifies how elites and elite interviewing may be understood in this specific context through the concepts of process, power and “positionality” and “knownness” identifying, for example, issues of arrogance, amateurism and the phenomenon of insider‐outsider.

Elites and celebrities constitute longstanding phenomena that have endured into the twenty‐first century and, as a consequence, merit on‐going close analysis. Equally replete in contemporary life are the multifarious organizational and managerial domains and contexts in which given elites reside and operate. Given the potential impact of elites and their actions on people, it would seem worthwhile and important to seek heightened understanding of them. The professional football industry is one particular instance for study given that it is high profile, represents a substantial business sector in its own right, and, plays a central role in the lives of many members of the public.

The work is an original study of the contextual issues surrounding interviewing elites in the organizational and management setting of the English professional football industry. In a more specific sense, the paper contributes insights into the issue of typologies within elite interviewing, the role of elites in English professional football and makes progress in redressing a general paucity of commentary on elite in the overall business and management research methodology literature.

IN this number we make some commemoration of the twenty‐five years so happily achieved by the King‐Emperor. As our contributors show, the cardinal event of the whole of the Reign, so far as libraries were concerned, was the passing of the Public Libraries Act of 1919. The generations change rapidly, and there are few to‐day who remember acutely the penury and struggle which were involved in the fact that all public library expenditure had to be kept within “the limit of the penny rate.” It is possibly true that the average community has taken no very intelligent advantage of the breaking of its financial fetters; in no town in the British Empire can it be said that there is anything approaching generosity, let alone extravagance, towards libraries. Even in the greatest cities, where they have built fine buildings and opened them with much ceremony, the rate allocation for their maintenance is not nearly of the scale that finds acceptance, or did find acceptance, in the United States. That is because we are young people in an old country. The tradition dies hard that education is a luxury and that libraries, which in the eyes of many are only remotely related to education, are an even greater luxury. We heard it said recently that many local authorities regarded the libraries as a sort of joke, and delighted to cut down their expenditure upon them. This lugubrious way of opening our remarks upon the Jubilee is only by way of pointing out that to‐day, at any rate, we have the power to go ahead if we convince our authorities that it is desirable to do so.

THE activity of librarianship during September was almost breathless. Visitors to Chaucer House in the third week of the month had possibly the most cosmopolitan experience of their lives. It was, as our readers know, the assembly time of the International Federation of Librarians, which divided its London meetings between Chaucer House and the equally hospitable University College. The members, coming from a score or more of countries east and west, had, many of them, been present at the successful and crowded conference of Aslib at Ashorne, and were now conferring further, and being entertained by the Library Association, together with members of the Unesco Library School. That school spent its first week in Manchester, with a tour of Derby County libraries; its second week was in London. Amongst the guests at the reception given by the British Council at Portland Place, and at the L.A's own reception at Chaucer House three days later, many distinguished librarians were met, including Dr. Munthe, Dr. Sevensma, Dr. Ranganathan, the state librarian of Ankara, the University Librarians of Istanbul, Copenhagen, Trondhjem, of Alexandria; and many others, including those of England and Scotland, the Chief Keeper of the Printed Books, Bodley's Librarian, and the Librarian of the National Central Library. Moreover, as these gatherings coincided with the meeting of the Library Association Council, the official leaders of the profession were present, including the President (Mr. Nowell).

IT IS BY direction of NLW'S Subscription Department—to whom I have the good fortune to have been married for nigh on 16 years—that I open my first column of the new year with a lot of gubbins about subscriptions and their administration. Do please read it and, if appropriate, take action, or I'll never hear the end of it.

Avant‐propos sous les auspices de l'Institut international de Coopération intellectuelle, paraissait en 1934 le t. I, consacré à l'Europe, du Guide international des Archives. Le questionnaire envoyé à tous les États européens comportait sous les points 4 et 6 les questions suivantes: ‘Existe‐t‐il un guide général pour les diverses catégories d'Archives ou des guides particuliers pour l'une ou l'autre d'entre elles?’ et ‘Existe‐t‐il des catalogues imprimés, des publications tant officielles que privées, susceptibles de constituer un instrument complet de référence pour tout ou partie importante des fonds d'archives?’ Les réponses des divers pays à ces questions, malgré leur caractère très inégal, ont fait du Guide international un bon instrument d'information générale sur les Archives. Malheureusement les circonstances ont empêché la publication du volume consacré aux États non européens, tandis que le temps qui s'écoulait tendait à rendre périmés les renseignements fournis sur les Archives européennes.

Effectively managing the cultural environment is an important stepping stone towards international business success. Cultural problems, especially between partners coming from diametrically different cultural categories represent one of the key challenges of knowledge management in international business co‐operations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of controversial cultural attitudes on collaboration and the use of most diverse knowledge capital of employees being regarded as a key resource for innovation and competitive advantage.

Based on a comprehensive literature review, the very extensive data collection phase, applying the case study method, was carried out over a 13 month period. It mainly consisted of in‐depth interviews requiring 23 of them to reach theoretical saturation, non‐participant and participant observation (seven), focus groups (four) and fieldtrip notes in two culturally diverse Russian and Austrian research settings. Theoretical sampling was used to select the participants. The grounded theory method of constant comparative analysis was used to analyze the gathered data.

The attitude towards sharing the precious resource of diverse employees' knowledge regarded as a prerequisite to international business success is influenced by national cultures. Protective attitudes for knowledge sharing limit the growth of humans' and the company's development. This paper suggests that providing the appropriate knowledge management tools and environment, especially referring to the soft aspects of emotions, will enhance and even change former institutionalised and ingrained patterns of behaviours. Therefore, the paper sheds light on the knowledge sharing contingency depending more on a social‐cognitive state rather than a static hierarchical status.

The paper poses two innovative organizational memory conceptualizations based on respondents' needs and demands entailing a synthesis of knowledge management and interpersonal interactions to achieve the highest level of efficiency and high degrees of knowledge sharing and absorption. It bridges the gap of purely knowledge based and unemotional management tools towards a lively and engaging tool. This would appear to be the first time that an investigation of this type has been conducted explaining culturally influenced factors of knowledge management in Eastern and Western European co‐operations.