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Much competence analysis lacks a framework in which to examine different skills and abilities. Suggests that the eight functions defined by Jung in terms of psychological types can be thought of as competences. The Jungian model then provides clear guidelines on the probability of different competences being present in one individual, and on the path involved in developing other competences. According to Jung all‐round competence is highly unlikely until the latter half of individuals′ lives. Suggests reasons why the model is not more widely used.

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.

In our experience there very often seems to be a discrepancy between the avowed aims of many management training programmes and the reality of the organisation in which participants are based. In some cases the organisation even appears to militate against objectives being achieved. The main causes of this are the different definitions of the aims of programmes that are held by all interested parties. These often contradict each other. This article will examine these later in more detail together with our approach both in theory and in practice.

We wish to produce a new way in which managers can look at how they manage themselves and their team. We have called the approach Mapping Managerial Styles because it is possible for each person to assess their own approach to work and look at how it compares with other people's. This is particularly important for every manager.

Complexity theory is a new science that builds on chaos. Its implications for organizations are many – specifically in understanding change. Leaders need to keep their organizations in the complexity zone where learning takes place, rather than stability or chaos. The basic “rules” that govern all behaviours in an organization need to be identified. Complexity theory explains how competition happens and also suggests that top‐down culture change will not work.

It was John Dewey who clearly argued that we should integrate learning with work and work with learning. His view was that experience could be a great teacher, providing we had opportunities to learn from action. He emphasised that there was ‘An intimate and necessary relation between the processes of actual experience and education’. However, he also emphasised ‘it is not enough to insist upon the necessity of experience, nor even of activity in experience. Everything depends upon the quality of experience which is had.’

Laurence J. Peter, in his best selling book, The Peter Principle, argued that individuals are promoted to their level of incompetence. He saw this progression as being typified by successive promotion from success at lower levels until the individual gets to a point where he is described as inefficient. The Peter Principle has been accepted because it described clearly and vividly the experience of individuals and of organisations, but we believe that whilst it is descriptively correct, it is only partially true in its conclusions.

Think of the first job that you had. Was it the basis upon which you have built your career? If not, how did you come to be doing your present job?

This article attempts to give the western consultant travelling to South‐east Asia an idea of what to expect, of what will and what will not work in terms of consultancy practice.