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Directors need on‐the‐job training in order to deliver real value to their corporations.

In the Internet age, what you may consider your corporate secrets are exposed for all to see. To protect your privacy, decide what your secrets really should be‐and vigorously defend them.

The shift in powers and responsibilities of public company boards is likely to change the relationship of management and directors at privately held and non‐profit organizations, as well. Organizations risk substantial disruptions to their business process if they fail to confront the challenges early.

A year ago, the IPO market was the new El Dorado. Today, things are quite different.

The era of the passive, rubber‐stamping, old‐boy‐network corporate board is over.

What do you know and when did you know it? That's a hard enough question to answer personally, but getting a grip on what an organization knows is tougher still. And it implies more than accumulating billions of bytes in the corporate databases. In business, the line between information and knowledge can be subtle.

Forty years ago the coverage of business news by the media was scant or non‐existent. At best, local newspapers carried the stock market report. Gradu‐ally this situation has changed. Today, business news affects many facets of our everyday lives—oil prices affect the cost of gasoline; interest rates play a part in determining whether or not we buy a house; the economic stability of an organization can determine whether we keep or lose our job.

Studies report that frontline employees frequently discriminate against overweight customers, a group of vulnerable consumers that is growing worldwide. However, because most discrimination by frontline employees is covert, the authors ask whether overweight customers perceive discrimination and what influences this perception. Drawing on field theory, this paper aims to investigate how two environment factors (frontline employee overweight and frontline employees’ neutral treatment of other customers) and two person factors (customer pre-encounter affect and self-esteem) influence customer-perceived weight discrimination.

In a pilot study and three experimental studies, the authors examine the impact of covert discrimination of overweight customers by frontline employees on customers’ perception of discrimination and the influencing effects of environment and person factors. Hypotheses are tested using regression analysis.

The authors find that overweight customers perceive covert weight discrimination by frontline employees. Frontline employee overweight mitigates the effect of covert discrimination, and (state and trait) self-esteem amplifies this effect. Frontline employees’ neutral treatment of other customers is insignificant. Customer (state and trait) negative affect directly increases customer-perceived discrimination independent of covert discrimination.

While extant research focuses on marketplace discrimination triggers and consequences, the perspective of the discriminated customer and what influences his or her perception of covert discrimination has attracted much less attention. Moreover, research rarely addresses overweight as a discrimination trigger. As environment and person influences frequently shape service encounters, the authors contribute novel and relevant insights to the literature. This is of high value, especially in light of the harmful consequences marketplace discrimination entails for customers and service firms.

The purpose of this study is to explore the availability of information on law enforcement websites in the state of Wisconsin.

The study conducted a content analysis of all 179 county and municipal local law enforcement agency websites within Wisconsin. The authors then implemented a comparative analysis that explored whether the quantity and quality of information available on law enforcement websites are similar to those of local governments and school districts. The authors then estimated models to test whether there is a relationship between the population size served and gender distribution of law enforcement departments to the availability of information on law enforcement websites.

Law enforcement websites contain a noticeable lack of information. The finding is even more apparent when comparing law enforcement websites to the websites of local governments and school districts. Finally, the authors show a positive link between information sharing on law enforcement websites and the proportion of the civilian staff at an agency that are women.

Past studies that reviewed the make-up of law enforcement websites analyzed large law enforcement departments rather than local law enforcement departments, which notably represent the majority of most law enforcement departments. The authors also explicitly demonstrate that the commitment to information sharing is lagging within law enforcement websites compared to local-level governments. Future scholarship and law enforcement departments may benefit from exploring the employment of female civilians.