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Describes how Milliken’s European Division became a customer‐focused, total quality driven management business. Highlights changes in management and organizational culture since 1981. The company now sees quality management as the responsibility of all staff. It has developed a flatter organization, with correspondingly larger spans of control and responsibility and authority exercised at much less senior levels. There are stronger relationships with both customers and suppliers, with a much smaller supplier base. Just‐in‐time manufacturing has been adopted to respond quickly to short‐term changes in demand while keeping work‐in‐progress stocks at the lowest possible level. The company encourages a culture of continuous improvement and, above all, of understanding and then meeting the needs of the customer.

The purpose of this paper is to present a general framework for the comprehension and advancement of sociocultural homeostasis (not to be confused with a steady state, but a dynamic constantly evolving process) to increase worker engagement, productivity and innovation within the enterprises.

The latest research findings in neuroscience, social neuroscience and social network analyses are used to determine what types of organizational dynamics best support voluntary worker engagement.

The paper offers convincing evidence why certain organizations prosper while others falter depending on their knowledge and advancement of sociocultural homeostasis principles.

It is a unique work suggesting how to apply the latest research findings in the rapidly advancing fields of neuroscience and social neuroscience to business management to increase productivity and innovation.

Uses a case study to illustrate DHL International’s corporate culture, which may be used as a benchmark for other companies in the service industry sector. Suggests that the business success factors of this organization lie in its adoption of the culture and structural characteristics of a clan organization. Clan organizations can create for themselves a more manageable social space that will provide them with protection and stability. The clan metaphor, and its organizing principles, may provide guidelines to be used by companies to manage strategically within a turbulent environment. Argues that when the general conditions within an environment are moving towards turbulent conditions, the business organizations within that environment should prepare for their own structural consolidation to ward off uncertainties. Such a structural consolidation can be modelled after the formation of social enclaves, or clans.

Multiculturalism is now one of the greatest challenges in the Western society. It supposes a deeper awareness of the various cultures involved in a given society. Of course, the well‐known cultural and ethnic groups must basically be involved in such a social change. But, since the arising and growth of business ethics as a field of research, the business world as a social institution has revealed itself as a complex network of subcultures. So, the “organizational culture” has become an “a priori concept” in business ethics. Although many researches deal with corporate culture, very few authors emphasize its structural elements. A systemic view of the organizational culture expresses how we cannot develop a corporate ethics without at least a “fore‐understanding” or, at best, a critical judgment on the organizational culture of a given corporation. I will describe the four subsystems of the organizational culture and their ethical implications.

The greatest challenge for management of human resources in the 1990s is to place their local actions in a framework of global thought and strategy. Focusing on Britain, France, the US, Japan and Germany, outlines the cultural differences in management practices around the world. Suggests a framework for organizing thinking about personnel practice with an international dimension; i.e. the seven “Cs” of international HRM work – change, cosmopolitans, culture, communication, consultants, competence and co‐ordination.

The purpose of this research is to explore core contributions from two different approaches to complexity management in organisations aiming to improve their sustainability,: the Viable Systems Model (VSM), and the Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). It is proposed to perform this by summarising the main insights each approach offers to understanding organisational transformations aiming to improve sustainability; and by presenting examples of applied research on each case and reflecting on the learning emerging from them.

An action science approach was followed: the conceptual framework used in each case was first presented, which then illustrates its application through a case study; at the first one the VSM framework supports an organisational transformation towards sustainability in a community; the second one is a quantitative case study of intended greening of two firms in the supermarket industry, taken from a CAS perspective. The learning from each case study on how they support/explain organisational learning in transformations towards more sustainable organisations was illustrated.

It wase found that the VSM and the CAS approaches offer internally consistent and complementary insights to address issues of self‐organisation and adaptive management for sustainability improvement: while CAS explains empowerment of bottom‐up learning processes in organisations, VSM enables a learning context where self‐organised networks can co‐evolve for improved sustainability.

The main aspects of both theories and examples of their explanatory power to support learning in practical applications in organisations were introduced. The initial findings indicate that it will be worth studying in greater depth the contributions to organisational learning from both conceptual models and more widely comparing their applications and insights.

The paper offers some guidance to both researchers and practitioners interested in using complex systems theories in action research‐oriented projects, regarding the usability and applicability of both approaches.

It is considered that, by better understanding organisational ability to adapt and self‐regulate on crucial issues for sustainability, it may help to develop one path through the ongoing socio‐ecological crisis. While much has been written about sustainability initiatives and governance from conventional perspectives, much less is known about how a complex systems framework may help to address one's pressing sustainability needs. These issues from two innovative complexity approaches as well as the value of using them in action research were illustrated.

Looks at performance appraisal (PA), which has become an important tool in the overseeing of employees in contemporary society. Notes, however, that little work, has focused on its mediation or actual practice, beyond simple descriptions informing its implementation. First examines the changing nature of employee management under PA, before investigating the contemporary usage of PA regarding its emphasis on the issue of managing and controlling the “images” of performance. Illustrates this with research, gathered from a case study in the Midlands. More specifically, focuses on the requirement on individuals to present the right image/self‐presentation as a means of subordination. Highlights, with the use of a hospital case study, some of these issues in relation to the changes taking place in the public service sector, which faces fundamental transformations to its concept of service. Concludes that, whatever the original intentions of PA were, they have seriously failed, and are superseded by the management of the subjectification of performance.

Like most traditional forms of tourism also alpine tourism has lost its strategic success positions due to the ongoing globalisation of the tourism sector. The traditional structures in tourism marketing — based on political and institutional boundaries — have to make place to a more market oriented structure. The association of swiss tourism managers decided to follow a destination management approach that will lead to corresponding tourism structures. A proposition for such structeres has been presented last year.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a new requisitely holistic definition of business ethics (BE) as a crucial component of business cybernetics and practice. The present contribution considers a basic problem: how humans use BE to influence their business processes. Therefore, business is/should be investigated from the viewpoint of ethics. Requisite holism of understanding and consideration of BE in business reality is unavoidable; it can (and must) result from findings and considerations of the interdependence between business practice, ethics, and BE.

In this paper, qualitative analysis is applied on the basis of the cybernetics (e.g. especially business cybernetics), dialectical systems theory, and ethics theory.

Ethics is a crucial emotional part of human attributes. They can be viewed as the subjective part of the starting points of any human acting/behavior process, including business. Thus, ethics (may) have/has a crucial role in business cybernetics and practice as BE. To clarify and beneficially use BE, one must understand relations between business cybernetics and BE, between business practice and BE, and understand the diversity of content of BE in literature, etc. On this base offered here is an understanding of BE, a definition of the content of BE as a specific type/part of ethics, and a view at source of BE content.

Content of BE. Research is limited to hypothesis and qualitative analysis in desk research. Practical experience is considered implicitly.

This is a step toward development of business cybernetics with a requisitely holistic approach founded on requisite wholeness of insight. A more specifically created and target‐oriented approach to cybernetic understanding and research of BE of business systems is encouraged.

This paper presents a very new approach, rarely found in main‐stream literature; a new perception and definition of content of BE.

The fields of market orientation and services marketing are still rather new domains of scientific research. It appears that they have quite a few challenging topics in common. This paper combines some of those topics. It focuses on the culture of market‐oriented services organisations and the leadership styles that may belong to such a culture. An open culture which is reflected in clarity in marketing goals and a strong drive to be the best (deliver superior value or quality) are the essential features of such a culture. This calls for achievement‐oriented leaders who care about people.