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The study of corporate culture is a valuable contribution to the study of organisations. Corporate culture consists of values, norms, feelings, hopes and aspirations held by members of organisations. These aspects may not be instantly discernible; however, it is important that managers are aware of culture; a shared culture contributes greatly to company success. The article concludes that managers can manage culture and cultural change by becoming more aware of the deeper assumptions of culture and how they are upheld.

The significance of corporate culture for the practising manager is highlighted, with emphasis on the hidden nature of culture and the importance of growing awareness of it so that its hidden forces can be managed. Having defined corporate culture, the types that may exist and the question of best fit between culture, company and environments is explored.

Reports a review of the Irish economic and political scene as background to a survey of best practice in Irish top management. Addresses issues of the competences required to induce added value performance from total organization. Four long‐term consultancy assignments in different sectors led to the drafting of a questionnaire distributed by the Irish Management Institute; 96 companies took part. Key competences emerged as: vision; team building; practising appropriate personal skills; communication; and generating a success‐oriented culture. Recommendations are given for top level management development.

One of the perennial problems which faces any human being trying to evaluate another is the fact that behaviour changes according to the situation in which the subject of enquiry finds himself. People who are being observed tend to perform differently from the way in which they behave when they are unaware that their activities are under investigation.

A Conference on Industrial Training Research was held on 15 November last, organised by the Industrial Training Research Unit jointly with the Ergonomics Research Society. The purpose was to give training officers and researchers an idea of the range and type of projects currently sponsored by the Department of Employment and some of the Industrial Training Boards. It has been decided that the best way to do this was to have several short papers rather than three or four longer and more detailed presentations.

Traditional sales training has concentrated primarily on the sales interview and has given salesmen a series of behavioural guidelines to use in that situation. Sometimes these have been in the form of such mnemonics as AIDA — Attention, Interest, Desire, Action; sometimes as in the rather better Rank ‘Customer and You’ films they have consisted of a series of relatively simple rules of thumb. Another approach has worked through giving the salesman some idea of the customers' motivation. Our approach to salesmen training has started at a different point — the motivation of the salesman himself. Professor David McClelland of Havard has over the past 30 years or so been researching the relationship between the level of achievement, affiliation and power motivation, on the one hand and the level of success in various occupations on the other. He found that salesmen, like entrepreneurs, they work on their own to a marked degree and have the opportunity to get quick feedback on results of their work — they either make a sale or fail to do so — are successful if they have a high level of achievement motivation. He also managed to isolate the strategies and behavioural characteristics of people with such a high level. Finally he proved that the level of achievement motivation can be developed by training.

Describes how HIV and AIDS are carried and spread, particularly for high‐risk groups, but adds that it is not only behavioural but also those behaviours in conjunction with others. Employs figures and tables for added explanation and emphasis. Chronicles some individual case studies showing different “risk” behaviours and types of “unsafe” practices. Makes clear that the use of varied types of education are of major importance in the fight against ignorance and nonchalance in the battle against AIDS.

The purpose of this paper is to stimulate discussion within mental health and psychiatric nursing as to how the open dialogue approach can contribute to their work. The paper is mainly theoretical, though relates to practical examples of open dialogue in mental health care research and practice to illustrate the actual potential in practice.

First the authors raise issue with the narrow lens of psychiatric diagnosis and question its usefulness against a contemporary backdrop of personalised care and recovery orientated practice. Open dialogue as a way of being and as a process are explored as they relate to people interaction and contribute to therapeutic interaction, organisational and community development. The authors reflect on how open dialogue can be and is practiced in different ways and at different levels.

The authors consider open dialogue as a suitable approach for working with people who have mental health and/or psychiatric problems. The approach is also recommended for working in larger circumstances as families and social network, on organisational and community levels in different ways. Open dialogue should be considered not as a method or technique but as a process of interaction which can be applied to different conditions and circumstances.

Within mental health discourse open dialogue is increasingly evident and filtering into the broader discussion on increasing effectiveness of mental health interventions. Perfectly suited to mental health and psychiatric nursing as a way of being with service user, this reflection on open dialogue offers further thoughts on how as a process it has already filtered into nursing practice and how as nurses we can easily accommodate it within the therapeutic approach.

Managing the serials portion of collection development in research libraries demands the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job. The difficulties presented by variations in format, title, and quality of content; bibliographic control; escalating costs; storage; and preservation, not to mention the shifting teaching and research needs of a large campus, require a combination of bibliographer/subject specialist, economist, cataloger, preservation expert, and bibliographic instructor. The interrelationships among library staff, faculty and the library administration can be tested to their outer limits when making decisions about serials.

An employee who is eligible to make a complaint for unfair dismissal has to prove that he has been dismissed by the employer if the employer contests that the employee has in fact been dismissed. If the dismissal is not contested, all the employee has to do is to show that he has been dismissed. This constitutes the first stage of the proceedings in an industrial tribunal.