Search results

Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the need to develop their capacity to navigate in uncharted waters. Our current performance culture demands instant answers, yet fast knowledge paradoxically disables us in that it tends to limit the scope of the questions we pose. Developing the imagination entails asking questions without obvious answers, listening to the unbelievable, tuning into a universe of possibilities rather than certainties. Music is a powerful metaphor to help us develop our capacity for unprotected exploration.

The purpose of this study is to diagnose the trajectory of influential conceptual articles in developing a research stream. The authors uncover the knowledge diffusion through influential conceptual articles and identify characteristics that make conceptual articles influential in their field.

This study draws on scientometrics, specifically an integrated approach combining quantitative citation counts with qualitative citation practices analysis that offers a comprehensive understanding of the nature and context of citations. The authors use the case of customer engagement – a prominent contemporary marketing and service research stream – to explore the trajectory of influential articles in shaping a new research stream.

This research shows that influential articles contribute to the reciprocal knowledge diffusion within and outside their home discipline. They provide anchor points for conceptual framing, conceptual refining and conceptual reconciliation – three application patterns of citations that are pivotal to navigate theory discovery and theory justification in a research field.

The study analyzes the early impact period of two influential customer engagement articles to understand the developments leading to the establishment of a new research stream. Future research drawing on automated citation and bibliometric methods may consider extended time periods.

This study traces the trajectory of influential articles in marketing and service research. The authors identify characteristics of influential conceptual articles, and recommend practices to develop a conceptual paper with the potential for an influential trajectory. It shows that while marketing and service research has a tradition of “borrowing” theories from other fields, seminal articles “lend” theories to other fields.

THE name is arresting, like the personality for which it stands. Cunninghame Graham: Lavery's equestrian portrait of him conveys the essential man as revealed in his writings, though the other one (somewhat reminiscent of Raeburn's Sir John Sinclair), which presents him to us afoot, lacks nothing save a horse for company. He has a passion for horses and has written many an essay in which they are leading characters and one book devoted to them—The Horses of the Conquest. William Rothenstein has recorded him in lithograph and in oils and in Men and Memories includes a reproduction of a painting of him in fencer's garb. Belcher did a charcoal drawing of him—it appeared in Punch—with a lightly indicated background of Hyde Park Corner and a horse or two, in a dexterous mere line or two, clipping past. There is a word‐picture of him in the epilogue to Bernard Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion and another in George Moore's Conversations in Ebury Street. Writer, Scots laird, Spanish hidalgo, South American ranch‐owner, he has ridden and bivouaced in Texas and Patagonia and may be found this month in Morocco, next month in London, or in Venezuela, or enjoying a braw day (or a snell day for that matter) in Perthshire.

The search for an easily installed, practicable and inexpensive information retrieval system continues unabated. This is reflected in the Aslib Library almost daily by requests for advice on the feasibility of installing this or that system, or for information on what systems are available in Great Britain. Study of the following bibliography, which covers only a narrow selection of information retrieval systems, will reveal that much original thought has been producing concrete results in this country. In fact, one of the earliest references is to a paper given at the twenty‐second Aslib Conference in 1947 by W. E. Batten, in which he describes his development of an ‘aspect’ card system—more often referred to today as ‘Peek‐a‐boo’ or ‘feature’ cards. Mr C. W. Cleverdon's Cranfield project is also adding considerable knowledge on the use of various indexing methods, including Uniterm.

I suppose that most noticeable of all the changes in our profession since I came into it has been the multiplicity of the methods by which one can become a librarian. A. E. Standley says in a recent article in the L.A.R., in 1970: “The term librarian includes the Library Association chartered librarian, the graduate with a degree in librarianship, the scholar librarian, the information and intelligence officer, the translator, the abstracter, the non‐library‐qualified subject expert”.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 and its amendment – the Trade and Competitive Act of 1988 – are unique not only in the history of the accounting and auditing profession, but also in international law. The Acts raised awareness of the need for efficient and adequate internal control systems to prevent illegal acts such as the bribery of foreign officials, political parties and governments to secure or maintain contracts overseas. Its uniqueness is also due to the fact that the USA is the first country to pioneer such a legislation that impacted foreign trade, international law and codes of ethics. The research traces the history of the FCPA before and after its enactment, the role played by the various branches of the United States Government – Congress, Department of Justice, Securities Exchange commission (SEC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the contributions made by professional associations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICFA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Bar Association (ABA); and, finally, the role played by various international organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). A cultural, ethical and legalistic background will give a better understanding of the FCPA as wll as the rationale for its controversy.

Addresses some of the key debates within the HRD literature and considers the extent to which HRD can be described as a field of study. The paper addresses the issues raised in the contributions that make up this special issue and identifies a broad range of methodologies and use of research methods. It argues that all of the contributions fit into at least one theoretical perspective: capabilities, psychological contacts and the learning organization/organizational learning. The paper concludes with a consideration of the prescriptions which the perspectives advocate for HRD in organizations.

At every period of time marked by years, the seasons by turns and twists in history, among country folk especially, the years of great storms and hard winters; in law enforcement, the passing of some far‐reaching, profound statutory measure, there is this almost universal tendency to look back—over your shoulder‐assessing changes, progressive or otherwise, discerning trends and assaying prospects. We are about to emerge from the seventies—battered but unbowed!—into the new decade of the eighties, perhaps with a feeling that things can only get better.

The most significant event for the School has been the announcement of the creation of the National Centre for Management Research and Development. The Centre is due to open in 1986 and will provide research facilities for up to 20 major projects designed to improve the competitiveness of Canadian business practices.

THE end of October saw the return of most of our overseas visitors, continental and otherwise, to their homes, leaving with us pleasant memories of a mutually successful visit. The Englishman's proverbial difficulties with foreign tongues, even of neighbouring France, did not complicate matters unduly or reduce too much those interchanges which conference and school afforded. We can repeat our frequently‐expressed hope that there will be an ever increasing series of visits, both of the foreigner to England and of ourselves as foreigners to other countries. We would welcome longer stays in both cases. Nothing but good can come from them.