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To gain insight in how policy makers work and learn, in‐depth interviews were held with seven Dutch policy makers working on global sustainability issues. The focus of the interview was on the information needs, information gathering practices, and working styles of the policy makers. Our results indicate that policy makers have a strong need for information on linkages between different policy problems, and on different cultural perspectives on those problems. Information gathering is marked by an emphasis on information filtering towards the policy issue at hand. Finally, policy makers appear to be predisposed to an application‐oriented working style. The combination of an application‐oriented working style with a policy‐driven search for information seems inadequate for satisfying policy makers’ information needs. Current learning practices among policy makers appear to be inadequate for coping with complexity.

What deliverables did Stafford Beer envision when he developed his “science of effective organisation”? This paper answers this question as: the organisations that use the distinctions of Beer's viable system model. Such organisations are part of daily life, but develop to become knowledge by continuously striving to identify experiences that falsify their existence. They will be irreducible in the sense that any acceptable model of the organisation will be the organisation itself. The notion of knowledge involved is made explicit in the paper as a tribute to Stafford Beer's pioneering work. It allowed Stafford Beer to introduce and develop insights that began to be developed by others only much later.

This study was predicated on gaze behaviour in front-of-shelf orientation. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of the presence (absence) of competing brands on consumer attention in front-of-shelf orientation. The effects on visual attention investigated on the shelf were eye scan path of the total available area, information acquisition in extremities and mental effort.

Two experiments were performed using eye-tracking technology. The first study was conducted in a closed and static environment. The second study was performed in an open and dynamic environment. In these studies, the authors used, as an independent variable, the arrangement of brands on shelves (presence vs absence of competing) and evaluated the variations in the visual attention through three dependent variables: eye scan path of the total available area, information acquisition in extremities and mental effort.

Three hypotheses were tested. The first hypothesis confirmed that scenarios of competitive brands are rather composed of natural complex scenes, so there is a greater number of eye fixations needed to identify and locate objects. In addition, the second hypothesis demonstrated that, in scenarios of competitive brands, there is an acceleration of information acquisitions causing an increase in peripheral vision at the ends of the shelf. Finally, the third hypothesis demonstrated that the presence of a greater attention effort in the scenario of competing brands was verified, since the mental effort variables (revisiting the shelf, noting and re-examining) were greater than in the scenario of non-competing brands.

Limitations of this study may be associated with the absence of top-down factors and a lack of results associated with evaluation and verification phases.

Gaze behaviour is susceptible to the information derived from the absence and presence of competing brands.

This chapter reviews marketing scholarship on environmental sustainability. The literature covers several themes of both consumer behavior and firm-level topics. Consumer issues include their assessment of efficacy and the extent to which they are aware and sensitive to environmental issues. Numerous interventions and marketing appeals for modifying attitudes and behaviors have been tested and are reported. Consumers and business managers have both been queried regarding attitudes of recycling and waste. Firm-level phenomena are reflected, including how brand managers can signal their green efforts to their customers, whether doing so is beneficial, all in conjunction with macro pressures or constraints from industry or governmental agencies. This chapter closes with a reflection on the research.

The academic literature debates the desirability of sponsoring alcohol products at sporting events, a discussion that increases as major sporting events approach. This study aims to examine the influence that sponsorship of an alcoholic product such as beer has on the sports spectator, and the level of efficacy with respect to congruent, alcohol, and incongruent sponsorship.

The experiment was performed on 180 subjects considering three variables 3 × 3 × 2 (congruency type vs alcohol; sport discipline; placement). The experiment consisted of exposure to sponsored sports posters. Visual attention was recorded through eye tracking and then a self-reported questionnaire.

Through an experiment using eye tracking the results showed that the recall variable is higher among alcohol sponsorships and incongruent sponsorship, but it cannot be concluded either that the intention to buy or the attitude toward the brand differ among the sponsorships analyzed.

Alcohol brand is perceived as an incongruous brand in the context of sports sponsorship. Congruent sponsors attract more attention and recall, but no differences in terms of intention to buy. If purchase intent and consumption does not increase, perhaps sports sponsorship by alcohol brands should be reconsidered.

This research makes at least three relevant contributions to the scientific literature. (1) It examines the response to sponsorship in the media of the sports poster. (2) It analyses the consumer's response using neurophysiological means and provides new indicators in this area and (3) It compares performance indicators such as purchase intent, recall and brand attitude for alcoholic and non-alcoholic brand sponsors. These contributions could introduce new information about sponsorship performance.

In the year 1900 Koch expressed the view that human and bovine tuberculosis were distinct diseases, that the bacillus of bovine tuberculosis could not produce this disease in the human subject, and that the bacillus of human tuberculosis could not set it up in the bovine species. As is now well known. these conclusions have not received the slightest confirmation from other workers in the same field, and it may be said that the consensus of scientific opinion is now to the effect that the bacilli of human and bovine tuberculosis are identical—at any rate, so far as the effects attributed to them are concerned. The Royal Commission appointed in 1901, and consisting of the late Sir MICHAEL FOSTER, Drs. SIMS WOODHEAD, SIDNEY MARTIN, MACFADYEAN, and BOYCE, have issued a further interim report on their investigations. The first interim report was published in 1904, the conclusions stated in it being to the effect that the human and animal diseases were identical, and that no characteristics by which the one could be distinguished from the other had been discovered. The report now issued shows that these conclusions are confirmed by the results of a very large number of fresh experiments. The main conclusions set forth in the present report are as understated :—

Market orientation (MO) is at the center of the marketing discipline and has been the focus of one of the longest and richest research efforts in the field. This paper aims to study the development of the MO research area and changes in its nature, and the implications these have for MO research in particular as well as for the marketing discipline as a whole.

The study is guided by sociology of science research and studies of the history of the marketing discipline. It is based on a review of all MO articles and references in the period 1957‐2005.

The findings reveal three periods in the development of MO research: 1950s‐late 1970s, late 1970s‐early 1990s, and early 1990s until today. In terms of diffusion over time, MO research has diffused from marketing mostly to management, from generalist to specialist journals, from higher to lower quality journals, and from the USA only to Europe. Over time more scholars have become involved in MO research and the number of co‐authored MO articles has increased. The paper also finds that the MO research knowledge base and impact continue to be limited to marketing and management.

While the study involves a large effort to collect longitudinal data on MO publication activity, its main limitation is its descriptive nature.

Unlike previous research in marketing that has typically studied articles, authors and reference data to gain insight into the intellectual developments of specific marketing journals, here the authors use these sources for studying the structure and evolution of a specific and important research area such as MO. Also, the study is based on rich and longitudinal data, enabling a variety of longitudinal analyses. The link between the MO area and the marketing discipline is of value, showing how the development of MO mirrors key developments in the marketing discipline at large and is influenced by many of the same forces that shape the discipline.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.