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I still have an affiliation to BSI, but my current prime role is with a new organisation called Resource which is half‐way between the British Government and BSI, with an express role to improve the influence of the UK through co‐operative projects with overseas countries. So, the sort of information consultancy I was doing in Thailand and Saudi Arabia, and various other countries, I am still doing but with a wider brief to help not only BSI but other quality organisations and I hope possibly organisations like the ones you work for. One of the reasons why I am saying this is to encourage you to see me at a later stage if you have any interest in overseas developments of projects on the information side, to see whether we can assist or even contribute funds towards the development of such things. Having only been with Resource since 25 January 1988, I think it would be undiplomatic of me to speak on their behalf, so for the purpose of this exercise I am speaking only as John Widdowson, individual and traveller, with, hopefully, some outside view.

I am going to talk about ‘the politics of information’, which is not the same thing as ‘information of politics’, but they are often related. This paper is seen from the perspective of a campaigning organisation — Aims of Industry — which is concerned with industry and business and its political issues.

This article is based on a chapter in a recently published book, “The Manager's Guide to Industrial Relations”, by L. F. Neal and Andrew Robertson (George Allen & Unwin, 25s.).

1977 — ‘A bad year for managers’ 1977 will be a bad year for managers, not only on the jobs and pay fronts, but also through the burdens and complexities of potentially disruptive new legislation, notably the Employment Protection Act (with its doctrine of ‘comparable wages’ clashing with the Pay Code)

The purpose of this paper is to look again at the ideas set out in the author's 1994 anthology, The Poetry of Business Life.

This paper is based on a large sample of poems on business themes by a variety of “professional” and “practising managerial” poets. It supplies a spontaneous, empirical first taxonomy (organised as “Cantos” in the eventual 1994 anthology) of the areas of “economic life” where the domains of “poetry” and “business” seem most to intersect. Such spontaneous classification yields important but mainly unsurprising “topic cells” (Cantos) – “Money”, “Work”, “Markets”, “Corporate life”, “Politics and power”, “Technology” etc. – each requiring further research. The residue of less predictable themes, however, includes “Travel and movement” as an important but (by analysts) relatively neglected, obsessive source of metaphor and poetic focus.

Across these “vertical” structures of topic and theme the paper points towards the more generic “lateral” implications for all of them of the differences between the “language of poetry” (evocation, relational) and the conventional “language of business” (information, measurement, separation). This is the author's main area of future interest.

The paper confirms the need to pursue critical analysis of “business poetry” by the exacting criteria of poetry generally rather than merely as an esoteric, separate sub‐category.

Will the budget suceed? The leaders of British industry give their appraisal

The purpose of the paper is to analyse what roles different relational norms play in long‐term business relationships.

The paper uses exploratory factor analysis on a data set of n=297 relationships and identifies two norm dimensions: value‐creating norms and value‐claiming norms.

This paper demonstrates that extant empirical research on relational norms and related behaviours is fragmentary and that there is considerable overlap between certain norms. Hence, the dimensionality of the norm concept remains unclear.

This study contributes to a clearer picture of the norm construct that has been used in a fragmented and selective way in empirical studies in the past.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between marketing strategy types – aggressive marketing, price leadership and product specialization strategies – and the extent of relationalism in marketing channels.

Data were collected using a self‐administered survey from managers responsible for marketing and channels management in US pharmaceutical firms. The responses to the questions capturing focal constructs were measured using a five‐point Likert type scale. Data were analyzed using Principal Component Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling procedures.

Aggressive marketing strategy and price leadership strategy are positively associated with the level of relationalism in marketing channels. In contrast, product specialization (focus) strategy is negatively associated with the level of relationalism in marketing channels.

The relationship between marketing strategy and the emergent relationalism among marketing channel intermediaries is critical for the firm's ability to meet objectives. This relationship has not been investigated so far and, from a managerial perspective, managing marketing channels is critical for successful implementation of marketing strategies.

Building on the Brands as Intentional Agents Framework (BIAF), the aim of this study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of social media marketing (SMM) as a tool to communicate luxury fashion brands' good intentions toward the general public.

A sample of 488 US female consumers was used to test a conceptual model delineating the sequential linkages from luxury fashion brands' intentions to brand emotions (i.e. envy vs admiration) and to consumer–brand relationships (i.e. emotional brand attachment and brand forgiveness). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to test the measurement and structural models.

The results indicated that luxury fashion brands' “populist” intentions had a positive impact on consumer admiration. Both consumer envy and admiration had positive effects on emotional brand attachment and brand forgiveness. However, admiration had a stronger effect than envy on these relational consumer responses.

This study identified that luxury fashion brands, frequently stereotyped as exclusive, can become brands admired by mass-market consumers by expressing warmth on social media. Drawing on social psychological perspectives and the BIAF, this study adds to the literature on luxury brands' social media communication by demonstrating the effectiveness of brand warmth to induce consumers' strong relational outcomes.