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Summary results of a survey of unemployed men conducted in Lancaster and Morecambe in 1988 are presented. Particular attention is focused on the long‐term unemployed, and on detailed aspects of skills, qualifications and work experience of the stock of unemployed workers.

The paper aims to clarify the internal structure of the discipline of business and management (BMA) and its relations with adjacent disciplines.

We analyse the thematic profile of the most relevant journals in BMA (Scopus database). We then perform a network analysis, specifically Pathfinder and Nearest Neighbour analyses.

Our research provides empirical evidence of BMA's cohesiveness, thematic variety and interdisciplinarity. It remains open to a wide range of disciplines, particularly information systems, decision science and finance. BMA constitutes a dome composed of different subdisciplines. Some of these (for example, accounting, management information systems and industrial relations) display little relation to the others, although they do establish links with adjacent fields. In addition, strategic management emerges as a central point, endowing the discipline with consistency by acting as a link to certain subdisciplines that would otherwise be unconnected. Despite its more moderate presence in the discipline, organisational behaviour is the most nuclear category, acting as an anchor and helping to organise and structure BMA.

This analysis provides a static image of BMA. It would be interesting to further the research through a dynamic perspective that would outline the evolution of the interrelations amongst disciplines over time and ascertain where they are heading.

These results shed light on the centrifugal and centripetal forces of BMA and their future development.

This paper analyses the internal structure of BMA through its journals.

This study aims to investigate the way in which small retailer performance is influenced by strategy at different levels. It also aims to propose that business level strategy is more important to success than functional level strategy in small retail firms, as this is what enables them to distinguish their business from competitors and effectively set about competing in their markets.

Data were collected from a mail survey of 305 independent retailers in the UK. Multivariate statistical methods were used to develop appropriate variables and explore the relationships between level of strategy and performance.

The results indicate that business level strategy variables have a significant influence on performance whereas functional levels do not when their combined effects are analysed using hierarchical regression modelling.

The caveats normally associated with survey methods apply, as do those related to the use of cross‐sectional, self‐report, and managerial perceptions data. Implications for retail strategy theory and small retailers' performance are addressed.

The importance of business level strategy generally and its specific elements are considered with a view to providing guidance to management decision makers and policy advisors.

Reliable measures for retail strategy variables are developed in the paper. The research distinguishes the performance effects of retail business strategy from retail functional strategy and supports the view that business strategy decisions are superior in their market significance over operational retail mix decisions.

To those concerned with challenges and challengers to conventional wisdom, the entirely credible perception of ours as a planet in the midst of a deep environmental crisis offers fruitful grounds for analysis. Crises stimulate those who have, in the existence of the crisis, firm proof that the wisdom which girds the status quo is deficient and/or those who apply it are. This is particularly true when the crisis is perceived to be grave and dread‐laden. Skin cancer due to the depletion of the ozone layer is on the increase. Large, at times devastating, climate changes are loose upon the planet. Whether given quasi‐ scientific names like the “greenhouse effect” or lumped together in a melange of “acid rain”, “toxic waste” and “industrial cancers”, the result is the same. Rational citizens of the everyday‐person‐on‐the‐street sort feel threatened. The threat is given shape and substance by the mass media. The environmental crisis is a credible crisis. One need not list radical political activism as one's vocation to list the environmental crisis as one of one's fears as we enter the 1990's.

A large group of SMART Group members visited the Henley premises of Electrovert on 9 May. After the welcome and introduction where Mike Judd emphasised Electrovert's commitment to SMT, a number of papers were presented by the Electrovert team during the morning session.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

The lack of adequate information for logistics decisions and evaluating is a major problem for management. This article describes how linear programming is used to provide methodology to evaluate decisions and system performance without the availability of cost and other data. A simple application to logistics systems is discussed and its application to an actual problem is described.

De/uncolonizing educational visions in the context of insistent and persistent ecological violence is an urgent task, one requiring profound shifts in thinking, being and knowing. Meraki is a Greek word denoting something done or undertaken with all of one's soul. Metanoia is also a Greek word signifying a deep shift in one's way of life resulting from a profound change of heart and worldview. Metis is a figure in Greek mythology known for wisdom and deep thought, but the word has also been used to mean a deeper spiritual awareness or consciousness. This chapter, written by a Greek educator on Turtle Island, explores the imaginaries of ancient Greek ways of knowing with her responsibilities to support decolonizing processes in the place in which she now lives. The author identifies the process of regeneration, of replacing or restoring damaged or missing dimensions of life as a call to which our educational systems must respond. Regeneration is synonymous with rebuilding, restoration, rehabilitation, revival, rebirth, redemption, renewal, recovery, and reconstruction. Her recognition that metanoia (a profound transformative shift) resulting in regeneration done with meraki (soul) and grounded in metis (wisdom and spiritual knowing) forms the basis of her revisioning of schooling and community. In reclaiming hidden structures of Greek wisdom, the author dives below the often incomplete frames of “western” ways of knowing and discourses to redeem deeper ontological frequencies hidden beneath the surface, joining these in constellation with other de/uncolonizing discourses and movements to redeem a “wholeness of being” that must be regenerated for planetary survival. This chapter traces a vision for leadership that reclaims the depth of Spirit and soul that are the basis upon which we can heal the traumas of the legacies of fragmentation, division and violence and remake/regenerate our educational systems.

Dealing with the issue of “Can practical wisdom be taught in business schools?,” in this chapter, I argue for an inquiry-based learning approach as a way of improving today’s management education. Following along these lines, I initially focus on the current criticism of today’s management education in business schools. Then, I provide an introduction into the recent interest in the topic of practical wisdom by management scholars that emerged as part of an effort to overcome these failures of business schools. These attempts, however, remain on a rather vague or theoretical level and are lacking helpful guidance on how universities might implement this concept into their educational offerings. In order to remedy these shortcomings, I introduce a competency-based three-pillar model of practical wisdom and combine it with an inquiry-based learning approach. A comprehensive scheme highlights how the particular competencies of practical wisdom can be fostered over the successive stages of the inquiry process. Most importantly, by describing a MA-thesis program as a successful example of these ideas in application, I provide concrete suggestions of how to facilitate the growth of practically wise competencies by means of an inquiry-based learning approach.