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The Beringer Wine Estates Company has been expanding its market share in the premium segment of the wine industry in the 1990's. After operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of the giant Nestlé food company for almost a quarter of a century, the firm was sold in 1996 to new owners, in a leveraged buyout. For the next year and a half, management and the new owners restructured the firm and expanded through internal growth and strategic acquisitions. With a heavy debt load from the LBO, it seemed prudent for management to consider a significant rebalancing of its capital structure. By paying off a portion of its debt and enhancing the equity account, the firm would achieve greater financial flexibility which could enhance its growth rate and business options. Finally, a publicly held common stock would provide management with another “currency” to be used for enhancing its growth rate and overall corporate valuation. With the equity markets in turmoil, significant strategic decisions had to be made quickly. Should the IPO be completed, with the district possibility of a less than successful after market price performance and these implications for pursuing external growth initiatives? A variety of alternative courses of action and their implications for the financial health of the Beringer Company and the financial wealth of Beringer stockholders are integral components of this case.

The authors share the observations of a combined 70 years of consultation with organizations, and input from tens of thousands of worldwide employees, to explore conventional barriers encountered in the work environment and how to “break‐out‐of‐the‐box” to find more creative solutions to organizational problems.

Narrative based on over 70 years of consultation with organizations on a wide variety of related managerial subjects.

Certain behaviors must precede any attempts to create a fulfilling, stimulating, and freedom‐to‐think, creative work environment. Formulation and fulfillment of a psychological contract, especially on the part of the organization's leaders – but also including employees – seems to be an effective process for the development of an open, healthy climate which is encouraging and conducive to the development of creativity. In the larger view of the organization, such freedom which comes from clear understanding and expression of expectations within the company significantly increases its transparency. With increased clarity of understanding of the work environment and supportive leadership, employees will go beyond the job minimums and offer creative, “out‐of‐the‐box” contributions.

A creative new look at an old but very critical subject.

The advances and continuous development of technology have been identified as significant influences on the accounting profession (AICPA, 1998). In the last twenty years, both academia and the accounting profession have been giving much attention to the demand and opportunity for audits to be performed automatically, continuously and in nearly real time. This paper presents a comprehensive review of continuous auditing research by providing an overview of the emergence and growth of the continuous auditing literature and classifying the extant continuous auditing research on the basis of four research characteristics indicated by a newly developed research taxonomy.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

This paper broadens and extends the idea of organizational death by arguing that certain organizational site moves, those in which employees hold a strong place attachment to the to be left, are a form of organizational death. It argues for the utility of viewing organizational change as involving loss and including space in studies of everyday organizational experiences. Using ethnographic research (participant‐observation and in‐depth interviews with the employees) of one such organization (the “Coffee House”) and a negotiated‐order perspective, discusses employee beliefs as to how the site move should have been managed as a means to document their understanding of the move as a loss experience and as a form of organizational death.

Previous literature suggests that exposure to trauma has both positive and negative impacts on leadership and leadership development, although there is a lack of empirical research. This exploratory study compared military leaders’ use of transformational leadership styles (TLS) before and after trauma exposure from the followers’ perspective. This study used a retrospective pretest design to survey veteran and active duty military personnel. Significant differences were found between pre- and post-trauma exposure TLS ratings, with a mean decline in the TLS after trauma exposure. The analysis of the open-ended questions indicated a reduction in the use of the TLS after trauma, but identified positive changes in some cases. There was no evidence that changes in the TLS were concentrated in any of the five styles.

Ethical problems are a particular class of management problem. Resolving the dilemmas faced by internal audit management involves an understanding of the origins of ethical thought and the uses and limitations of Codes of Ethics. Reviews the available literature as well as practical case studies from the author′s experience. The case studies illustrate common problems. Makes recommendations for managing ethical problems for individuals, organizations and the auditing profession.

The advances and continuous development of technology have been identified as significant influences on the accounting profession (AICPA, 1998). In the last twenty years, both academia and the accounting profession have been giving much attention to the demand and opportunity for audits to be performed automatically, continuously and in nearly real time. This paper presents a comprehensive review of continuous auditing research by providing an overview of the emergence and growth of the continuous auditing literature and classifying the extant continuous auditing research on the basis of four research characteristics indicated by a newly developed research taxonomy.

The purpose of this paper is to present the framework of a fourth paradigm since the existing three paradigms in quality management are not sufficient anymore to understand what happened in the past and surely fail to understand what is happening at the moment and needed in future.

A literature review has been undertaken on different visions on quality management that are used. The underlying principles have led to three quality paradigms. Literature on quadrant models is studied to place the three existing paradigms and identify the possible characteristics of the fourth.

One can discern four quality paradigms in quality management: the Empirical Paradigm, the Reference Paradigm, the Reflective Paradigm and the Emergence Paradigm. The use of these paradigms differs according to the context. Together they form a concept of Total Quality Management. At the moment the Emergence Paradigm has not had enough attention although it might be the best equipped to find new ways of working for the organisations in the current context.

In the literature review the authors selected seven journals in the Business Source Premier database: Total Quality Management (Total Quality Management & Business Excellence); the Academy of Management Review; Product and Operations Management; Organisational Dynamics; the Harvard Business Review; the Sloan Management Review and Organisational Behavior and Performance. In the advanced search mode the authors entered two subjects: “quality management” and “paradigm”. The selected results (in total 289 articles) were examined for its fitness for answering the questions above. That resulted in a selection of 26 articles that are being used in the literature review.

The Emergence Paradigm can be further investigated on its use for quality management in organisations in times of emergent change. Some first insights have been presented here.

The Emergence Paradigm can have impact beyond the field of quality management.

The paper provides new insights in the essence of quality management in times of change and clarity on the usability of the thoughts and tools of four different paradigms in the twenty-first century.