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Examines the lease vs. buy decision for investments in technology. Addresses pivotal investment decision issues such as varying the length of the lease, the useful life of the equipment, and alignment with the company's overall financial strategy. The scenario is for a real financial services firm that has been disguised for confidentiality reasons. Presents an investment decision: should a company buy or lease technology with a relatively short useful life? The new controller at AMG, a Fortune 500 financial services firm, has been tasked with determining how to finance the acquisition of 7,542 new PCs to be rolled out over the next 12 months. This is a $6.7 million investment decision and the rollout schedule adds significant complexity to the solution. The controller must choose between buying or leasing the computers over 24- or 36-month time frames. Provides a framework for analyzing similar investment decisions. The key learning point is that leasing information technology can be cheaper than buying. This is contradictory to a car lease, which may be familiar from everyday experience. A new car has a potentially long useful life and can retain significant value after several years, hence, intuition is that buying should always be cheaper than leasing. Shows that this is not the case for information technology. Teaches the correct application of the mid-quarter convention within MACRS depreciation for technology, and the implications of operating vs. capital leases and off-balance-sheet financing. In the process, introduces the four tests for a capital lease. Finally, shows how creative analysis techniques can be used to simplify complex decisions. These techniques aid in arriving at a conclusion faster and with less effort.

To illustrate the fundamentals of lease vs. buy decisions in technology and how they differ from the typical capital equipment lease vs. buy decision. Topics covered include MACRS depreciation and off-balance-sheet financing for a complex leasing scenario staggered in time across multiple business units.

The case centers on Shilling & Smith's acquisition of Xteria Inc. and the resulting need to quickly scale the company's IT infrastructure to accommodate the acquisition. The case is based on a real leasing problem faced by a major retail firm in the Chicago area when it purchased a small credit card processing firm and scaled the operations to handle the retail firm's credit card transactions. The CIO of Shilling & Smith needs to determine which lease option is the best means of providing the technical infrastructure needed to support the firm after the acquisition of Xteria. Several issues will drive this decision, including the value and useful life of the equipment, as well as the strategic context of the firm. This case examines how to evaluate different lease options when acquiring data center information technology infrastructure. Specifically, the case addresses software vs. hardware leasing, different lease terms, and choosing between different lease structures depending on the strategy and needs of a company. This case enables students to understand the different types of technology leases and in which situations these leases would be employed.

The Shilling & Smith case examines how to evaluate different lease options when acquiring data center information technology infrastructure. Specifically, students learn software vs. hardware leasing, different lease terms, and how to choose between different lease structures depending on the strategy and needs of the company. A secondary objective of the case is to teach students the important components and relative costs of information technology infrastructure.

ESPE, the market leader, is a medium-sized German manufacturer of precision dental impression materials competing in a shrinking market. To grow the business, ESPE invests substantial resources in innovative impression materials and associated distribution mechanisms. Squeezed by the shrinking market, the competition is increasingly using the proprietary channels (dispensing mechanisms) and brand equity (trademark) of ESPE to maintain their market share. There is a potential infringement. Explores how ESPE is organized to execute on the options imbedded in its IP rights.

To provide students with an understanding of how to use brands and trademarks in conjunction with trade secrets, patents, and other forms of IP in mature markets to build and maintain innovation-based competitive advantage.

Dow Jones Announces News/Retrieval Service; Now Sees Itself as “Retailer” of Information. When a data base producer decides it is time to enter the on‐line era, it most frequently choses to do so by forming a “partnership” with one or more of the existing on‐line vendors‐companies such as SDC, Lockheed, or BRS‐which have existing computer facilities as well as marketing and educational programs.

Trust is a key concept in business, particularly in electronic commerce (e‐commerce). In order to understand online trust, one must first study trust research conducted in the offline world. The findings of such studies, dating from the 1950’s to the present, provide a foundation for online trust theory in e‐commerce. This paper provides an overview of the existing trust literature from the fields of philosophy, psychology, sociology, management, and marketing. Based on these bodies of work, online trust is briefly explored. The range of topics for future research in online trust in e‐commerce is presented.

In the wake of numerous late twentieth century cult disasters, and most recently, the September 11 tragedy, this paper considers the question, why do people obey outrageous commands from charismatic authorities? According to Gary Becker, “the economic ap‐proach provides a valuable unified framework for understanding all human behavior” (Becker 1976:14). We test this generalization by attempting to explain, in terms of rational choice theory, the behavior of two members of infamous cults, the Manson Family and the Ragneesh Foundation International. Each of these subjects slavishly obeyed orders from a charismatic personality, one to the extent of committing murder. Were they mentally ill or rationally maximizing their utility? We consider these theoretical options. In August of 1969 Charles Manson ordered several of his followers to commit gruesome murders for the purpose of initiating the apocalypse. They obeyed. In late 1978, Jim Jones commanded over 900 members of the Peoples Temple to commit suicide. They obeyed. From 1981 to 1985, executing orders to build utopia perceived to come from their guru, members of the Ragneesh Foundation International terrorized the inhabitants of Antelope, Oregon. Similarly, followers of Osama Bin Laden are suspected of carrying out the disastrous suicide murders of September 11. Over past decades, the incidence of violence involving submission to a charismatic leader appears to be escalating. Increasingly the public must contend with the “awesome power” of charisma, “enshrouded in a mystique of irrationality” (Bradley 1987: 3–4). The extent to which followers committing criminal acts of obedience may be held accountable has become a pressing legal issue. How can this kind of volatile religious commitment be explained? In recent years, experts on cults have experimented with rational choice theory. According to economist, Gary Becker, “the economic approach provides a valuable unified framework for understanding all human behavior” (Becker 1976: 14). We test this extravagant claim with two cases of seemingly irrational commitment to a charismatic cult leader—one a follower of Bhagwan Rajneesh, the other a Manson Family killer. These subjects are not representative cult members but rather were chosen because they demonstrated an exceptional loyalty to their leaders that has been widely construed as the result of brainwashing or insanity. Rather than survey data, we rely on autobiographical testimonies since they offer a more detailed and comprehensive view of the thought processes that motivate behavior, the subject matter of this paper.

This feminist standpoint study aims to make an empirical contribution to the entrepreneurial leadership and HRD fields. Women entrepreneur leaders' experiences of gender will be explored through a framework of doing gender well and doing gender differently to unsettle the gender binary.

Against a backcloth of patriarchy, a theoretical gender lens is developed and a feminist standpoint research (FSR) approach taken in this study. There are five case studies of women entrepreneur leaders operating small businesses across North East England in sectors of IT, law, construction, beauty, and childcare. In each case study a two‐stage semi‐structured interview process was implemented and the women's voices analysed through a framework of doing gender well and differently.

This paper highlights the complexities of gender experiences offering four themes of women entrepreneurs' experiences of gender within entrepreneurial leadership: struggling with entrepreneurial leadership; awareness of difference; accepting and embracing difference; and responding to difference, which are offered to challenge the gender binary and capture the complexities of how gender is experienced.

The field must begin to shift its focus from the dominant masculine discourse to foster understandings of gender experiences by using gender as an analytical category to enable the field to truly progress.

Women are still an under‐represented group within entrepreneurship and within the higher echelons of organisations. This requires greater attention.

This feminist study calls for both scholars and practitioners to analyse critically their underlying assumptions and bring a gender consciousness to their HRD research and practice to understand gender complexities within entrepreneurial leadership and organisational experiences more widely.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the papers written for this special issue, to suggest some themes and problems emerging from recent retail history, and to bring together work from a variety of subfields.

The essay surveys recent themes in retail history, using the contents of the special issue as a point of departure. It relies on secondary sources.

The articles in this issue highlight the importance of power relations and more formal political economy and government policy to retail firms. They also emphasize the importance of nearby institutions and populations to retailers. Taken as a whole, the pieces speak to recent interest among business historians in the social contexts and contingencies that shape firms and also in the history of failure, draw their attention to the importance of “the local” in business generally, and point to the possibilities of more work on very small firms, early American and non‐US (or globally framed US) retail and questions of women and gender. This work is part of a resurgence of interest by historians of all stripes in retail and its history; although reading across sub‐disciplinary lines can be challenging, the essay concludes by encouraging scholars of retail to do so.

This essay should encourage work in understudied fields and particularly encourage broad reading among retail historians.

The essay introduces readers to literature they may not have encountered and articulates themes and questions emerging from new scholarship on retail.

Reports a study of the salesforce compensation practices in manufacturing companies which is the first of its kind undertaken in Australia. Australian companies rely heavily on salary as the main form of salesforce compensation, unlike in the USA where the majority of salespeople are rewarded using commission‐based means. To a lesser extent, this is also true for Britain. The companies in this study, like many European firms, make relatively little use of performance‐related compensation methods such as commission. These findings are surprising, given that most companies reported that the main objective of their compensation plans was to reward above average performance. Such discrepancies between objectives and methods appear to be widespread and can, in part, be related to the social and legal environment in which Australian companies operate.

After war, societies can undergo change that extends justice to formerly excluded groups. Using theories of moral exclusion and moral inclusion as a lens, this chapter examines societal change in two consecutive periods after the American Civil War (1861–1865): Reconstruction and Jim Crow. Focusing on the well being of black Americans in the American South, this chapter examines Reconstruction's inclusionary gains and setbacks. It then describes challenges faced by black Americans during Jim Crow, a period of white supremacy and violence, and factors associated with Jim Crow's decline. Applying social psychological theory to these historical periods offers insight into the dynamics of inclusionary and exclusionary change.