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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.

A disturbing productivity loss occurs through the underutilization of women, and a negative effect on productivity is caused by the mis‐classification and under‐representation of truly high performers and by the inflation of the ratings of mediocre performers.

An occupational longevity programme focuses on the ways to maximise the performance and life satisfaction of managers during their tenure with an organisation. Actions are directed toward improving people involvement through participative management, a productivity culture, personal skills development, improved personal, physical and psychological health and career and retirement planning. Return on investment for an occupational longevity programme should be expected to be better than three dollars returned for every dollar invested. Payoffs include improved morale, job satisfaction, increased attendance, less turnover, less hospitalisation, fewer accidents and disabilities, and improved job performance. Recommendations are made for developing an effective productivity improvement process by implementing a comprehensive occupational longevity programme.

Traditional Reduction In Force (RIF) methods have been unpopular, damaging to morale, dysfunctional, probably too expensive and, in some cases, indefensible. The article describes an innovative and democratic solution to RIF decisions. In a steel company a productivity group was instituted to plan the means of managing RIF — fairness to employees being the most important consideration. Participative management appears to be the key to success.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

Senior managers are often called upon to make unilateral human resource decisions, yet may be unfitted for the task. What can be done to ensure that personnel are accurately—and equitably—appraised?

Improvement in performance appraisal systems are necessary because current methods are neither accurate nor fair. Recent attempts to improve performance appraisals by training raters has been shown to have the opposite effect‐actually decreasing the accuracy of the performance measures. Multiple rater performance appraisal systems (MRPAS) provide an opportunity to increase appraisal accuracy by combining judgements of individual raters. However, before MRPAS are used, numerous objections must be overcome including system acceptance, finding raters, system design, desire to participate, and the potential use of too much management time. The Objective Judgement Quotient (OJQ) performance appraisal process is used as a demonstration method that has developed solutions to each of these objections. When MRPAS are used effectively, the fairness and usefulness of multiple rater systems compared to single rater systems are so clearly superior that users of MRPAS are likely to adopt the view that single rater systems are obsolete.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

Asserts that intelligence gathered from multiple sources enhances both internal and external customer service. Notes also that multi‐source assessment or 360‐degree feedback enhances information quality, provides specific performance feedback and targets developmental areas. Uses findings from the experience of a variety of organizations which have implemented multi‐source assessment to support these beliefs. Suggests that this form of marketing research targeted to each person facilitates performance improvement by providing strong motivation to take action. Notes that optimizing performance and customer service relies on accurate information ‐ citing the provision of such information as the strength of 360‐degree feedback.

Looks at the difference between success and failure with regard to 360‐degree feedback projects, stressing the need for a formalized structure to facilitate effective implementation. Initially outlines the reasons why firms seek to adopt 360‐degree feedback, setting out the benefits for the various parties involved ‐ customers, employees, etc. Goes on to outline “fatal errors” such as insufficient communication, lack of training and poor regard for the time factors involved, which can lead to failure. Offers solutions to these problems and concludes that, while 360‐degree feedback is not a cure‐all for assessment problems, it does hold promise for future improvement in this field.