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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.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb027864. When citing the article, please cite: Mick Marchington, Roger Armstrong, (1985), “Involving Employees Through the Recession”, Management Research News, Vol. 8 Iss: 3, pp. 21 - 25.

This paper is a consequence of several years of research and management learning activity with small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), which focused on the development of the organisations and the concomitant development of managers within those organisations. The empirical study sample revealed a preference by owner managers and directors for action learning as a medium for the development the organisation and its people. In situations in which action learning was operational, the owner managers and directors in the sample were positive about the effect on organisational effectiveness. The authors conclude with the proposition that the development of a learning organization is a journey, which might never be completed, however, the decision to embark on the journey and the process leading to embarkation provide the organisation and its people with an increasingly effective compass through which the company is able to navigate itself through the hostile uncertainty of the business environment.

The biggest influence on employee relations since 1980 has been the increasingly competitive environment, according to a 1984 survey revisiting 18 different workplaces in a wide variety of industries (originally contacted in 1980). Organisations have, however, responded in differing ways, the majority showing job losses but some gaining employees, and three remaining static. Job losses have been structured in a variety of ways, including voluntary redundancy, early retirement, and the “losing” of peripheral jobs. Unions have not been weakened by employers, on the whole, by means of the recession; consultative arrangements have been revitalised in some cases and collapsed in others, while on the employee involvement front, a range of techniques have come into play.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

This paper reports findings from the first annual cycle of a three‐year research project on the provision and use of electronic information systems (EIS) within higher education in the UK. The project, JISC User Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services (JUSTEIS), was funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and undertaken at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (UWA). Students, academics and library staff in 25 universities were surveyed using critical incident and critical success factors methodologies to ascertain the range and nature of EIS use. Provision of these systems by higher education institutions was also investigated via an analysis of their library websites. The findings reported in this paper focus on student use and the purposes for which EIS are employed, and reveal the limited array of EIS used and the ad hoc nature of search strategies adopted across undergraduate and postgraduate bodies within a range of disciplines. There appears to be little or no variation in the pattern of EIS use by the various student groups studied – the effect of the Internet on information seeking by students is hugely significant and the more formal resources, such as JISC‐negotiated resources are little used. There is little evidence of coherent search strategies used by students. Recommendations for both the JISC and higher education are offered.

It now seems to be fairly widely accepted that joint consultation has experienced a resurgence of interest and practice since the mid 1970s. Whilst the seeds of this revival were probably sown by anxieties prior to the publication of the Bullock Report, the institution does not appear to have withered away following the demise of the ideas on worker directors.

In some form or another, the concept of employee involvement in management decision‐making has held an attraction for practitioners and academics alike for a very long time. The objectives which are set for it certainly vary from a desire for increased efficiency or prosperity on the one hand, through to more democratic relations within industry on the other. The favoured forms of involvement have also differed widely from better communication to worker directors, and to more recent “flavours of the month” such as quality circles. In principle, employee involvement as a broad concept has found many adherents.

From recent evidence in both the industrial and the political arena, it would seem that diluted forms of industrial democracy/employee participation are undergoing some kind of a revival. This is probably a reflection of a change of government on the one hand and a reaction to the proposals of Bullock and the White Paper on the other. One of the forms of participation attracting most interest would appear to be joint consultation and, in a recent report in the Employment Gazette, Hawes and Brookes have argued that “in particular it seems likely that over the next few years emphasis will be placed on the voluntary development of employee participation by managements and trade unions, and the growth of new and existing forms of negotiating and consultative machinery”. It is within a context such as this that we can outline the remainder of this article.

This paper precedes the final stages of a five‐year research project the aim of which was to seek explanations as to reasons for “organizational growth” and “business success” in the small and medium size enterprise (SME) sector. The groundwork for the empirical study comprised a literature review of existing perspectives on SME growth and development. The authors originally identified two major perspectives. The first of these focused upon a group of writers whose explanation was informed by “growth model” literature. This perspective identifies clear stages of growth and development over time, each of which generates a trigger for organizational growth. The second perspective on business growth and development was through explanations focusing upon individual agency and entrepreneurship. However, during the work on the literature review, the attention of the authors became focused on research that dealt with the influence of “organizational culture” on the performance of companies within the corporate sector. Moreover, what was apparent from the literature review, was a clear gap, the lack of reference as to the effects of organizational culture on the development of SMEs. Initial analysis of the empirical data indicates several differing views as to the actual meaning of the term of “organizational culture” from amongst the research sample. In the majority of cases respondents who identified unique “cultures” in their organizations believed that those “cultures” had a positive effect on the performance of their companies. This effect was even more clearly articulated by those respondents who perceived their companies to be “growth orientated”. The focus of this paper is a consequence of the journey from the literature review through to the initial findings of the empirical work and subsequent evaluation and reflection.