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African Americans comprised over 60 percent of the 15,000 Army men and women who would serve on the Ledo Road in the China–Burma–India Theatre of Operations during World War II. Many of these Black soldiers and nurses attended racially segregated Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Their contributions would directly affect integration efforts confronted by the United States in the decades following the war (e.g., President Truman's 1948 order to end racial segregation in the U.S. military). The Ledo Road experience not only helped change U.S. attitudes toward African Americans, but it transformed Black people. The extraordinary success of Blacks as front line workers in the unprecedented engineering and construction feat represented by the completion of the Ledo/Stilwell Road rejected the myth of Black inferiority.

Working as a consultant in the field of team development, I frequently find myself at odds with people who have different perceptions about the nature of the work. This confusion was actually expressed in print when in 1980, following the publication of my article on team problem diagnosis, another consultant wrote of his “simpler” method. This turned out to be the “LIFO” system. Again, similar misunderstanding arose in 1982, within a large client organisation in the public sector. The client had undergone major reorganisation, and it had been decided to create an internal consultancy role, a central function of which was to be team development. I was engaged to train those appointed to the role, with emphasis on the skills required by internal consultants. It came as some surprise therefore to be told during a seminar with some of the organisation's directors, that “team building” had recently been conducted in the area concerned. I had not yet trained the internal consultants. It emerged of course that their “team building” and my “team development” were entirely different processes. Impatient to “get things moving”, the organisation had initiated a programme of “team‐building” activity based on packaged exercises, mainly concerned with the analysis of management style.

The purpose of this paper is to link consumer use of technology to two very popular themes in the hospitality industry: boutique hotels and environmental responsibility.

The case study focuses on how boutique hotels legitimize their green practices through the use of technology – web sites, social media – to communicate their environmental recognitions to discerning eco‐conscious consumers seeking small lodgings. The authors analyze the type of environmental legitimacy practices used by the boutique hotel segment of the tourism industry, using a variety of international, regional, or trade recognized environmental evaluation assessments to legitimize their boutique hotel green practices. A diverse sample of boutique hotel accommodations in two attractive, but similar international destinations – Istanbul, Turkey and San Francisco, California – are used, through content analysis of hotel web sites.

San Francisco Bay Area hoteliers, in the majority of instances, used their web sites to illustrate one international standard, LEED certification, for building structure. However, these hoteliers generally reported use of varying regional standards for legitimizing their green practices. Istanbul hoteliers reported on maintaining international standards for legitimizing their green practices, but did not seek specific standards for building structures.

Future research surveys of specific consumer perceptions of their search and experience would prove valuable in terms of destination selection and experience of environmentally‐conscious boutique hotels. Social media and related web sites utilize consumer self‐reporting, which would add additional insight for future research in this area.

The authors' analysis studies the web promotion of two similar geographic tourism destination boutique hotels' use of international versus regional legitimacy of their environmental practices.

Organizational learning is seen as a source of competitive advantage in modern business, but in many organizations it is difficult to nurture and encourage. This paper discusses barriers to organizational learning, with a focus on professionals and professionalism. It derives from a research project which investigated organizational learning across the chartered surveying profession in the UK. Barriers identified include: an emphasis on individual learning; “learning‐equals‐training”; “learning‐equals‐lack‐of‐knowledge”; a not precisely defined but all‐pervading notion of “professionalism”; competition; the complex – or even contradictory – nature of the professional bodies; “unwritten rules” within the profession; the traditional hierarchical structure within the profession and in surveying firms; learning as a cost factor rather than an investment; and individuals’ prior experiences of learning. The paper argues that these barriers have their reasons for existing, however, and cannot simply be ignored or condemned: rather, they need to be made explicit and “worked through” by each organization to find its own way forward.

This study aims to examine important situational factors impacting expatriate compensation and common practices utilized in compensating expatriates.

A synthesis of literature was reviewed, leading to the identification of numerous situational or contextual factors impacting expatriate compensation. A review of extant literature also identified several customary approaches to expatriate compensation.

A variety of factors can directly affect expatriate compensation, with three primary approaches an organization should consider. These factors include host‐country cost of living, housing, dependent education, tax implications and health care – factors most often incorporated as a component of one of the primary approaches to compensation discussions: destination‐based approach, the balance‐sheet approach, and the international headquarters approach.

This article was intended to enhance understanding of expatriate compensation by collectively examining not only the “how” (primary approaches) but also the “why” (salient contextual or situation factors) firms should consider when determining how to assemble an appropriate package.

Presenting the factors and practices together makes an important contribution to the literature on expatriate compensation by addressing not only the “how” (customary approaches) of expatriate compensation, but also the “why” (salient contextual factors).

In 1923 Harry Crook of Bristol pioneered the manufacture of a new type of twisted wire brush, and, copying an American idea, marketed his product using a door‐to‐door selling technique. Today the firm he founded, Kleeneze, still 100 per cent British, has a turnover of £11 million, employs a staff of 600, and, is expanding fast. Today, Kleeneze's profitability lies foremost in the manufacture and marketing of products for industry, particularly brushstrip. Moreover with sales in 14 countries, a factory in Virginia, USA, a company in France and another one planned in Germany, the export potential is very promising.