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This paper aims to develop and utilize a conceptual framework to examine the impact of liquidity and solvency on cost efficiency for a sample of Kansas farms.

A standard cost-efficiency model is modified to incorporate liquidity and solvency ratios. Tobit regressions are used to determine the impact of farm characteristics on improvements in efficiency.

Results confirm that liquidity and solvency measures have a significant impact on improving cost efficiency. Farms with larger expenditures on purchased inputs relative to capital were less likely to improve efficiency when liquidity and solvency were considered.

To the authors' knowledge, the paper is the first to add liquidity and solvency ratios to the cost-efficiency model developed by Färe et al. for the analysis of farms.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

NOT for a long time have books and libraries featured in the correspondence columns of The Times and other newspapers as regularly as they have in 1960. Earlier in the year Sir Alan Herbert's lending rights' scheme had a good run, and we have clearly not yet heard the last of it. Indeed, a Private Member's bill on the subject is to have its second reading in Parliament on December 9th. More recently, the Herbert proposals have had a by‐product in the shape of bound paperbacks, and a correspondence ensued which culminated in Sir Allen Lane's fifth‐of‐November firework banning hard‐covered Penguins for library use.

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 Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

The purpose of this article is to examine how senior leaders in organizations can play a greater role in the development of leadership within their organizations. Innovative “leaders developing leaders” programs in PepsiCo, General Electric and Shell are described as examples of tangible and effective ways that can be used for successful leadership development which can also contribute to strategic change and business profitability. Suggestions and various options to incorporate senior executive involvement in leadership development programs are put forward as well as factors that need to be considered when first implementing this approach. At a time when leadership development is recognised as a vital ingredient for organization success, the involvement of senior leaders in the teaching and learning of future leaders has been shown to be a powerful and effective tool.

Using a dialogic approach to narrative analysis through the lens of fairytale, this paper explores the shared construction of corporate environmental stories. The analysis provided aims to reveal the narrative messaging which is implicit in corporate reporting, to contrast corporate and stakeholder narratives and to bring attention to the ubiquity of storytelling in corporate communications.

This paper examines a series of events in which a single case company plays the central role. The environmental section of the case company's sustainability report is examined through the lens of fairytale analysis. Next, two counter accounts are constructed which foreground multiple stakeholder accounts and retold as fairytales.

The dialogic nature of accounts plays a critical role in how stakeholders understand the environmental impacts of a company. Storytelling mechanisms have been used to shape the perspective and sympathies of the report reader in favour of the company. We use these same mechanisms to create two collective counter accounts which display different sympathies.

This research reveals how the narrative nature of corporate reports may be used to fabricate a particular perspective through storytelling. By doing so, it challenges the authority of the version of events provided by the company and gives voice to collective counter accounts which are shared by and can be disseminated to other stakeholders.

This paper provides a unique perspective to understanding corporate environmental reporting and the stories shared by and with external stakeholders by drawing from a novel link between fairytale, storytelling and counter accounting.