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This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Mighty corporations have had their reputations tarnished, or destroyed entirely, by a series of crises. But executives can prepare for the unexpected and, when a crisis hits, they can take steps to try to convince customers and the public in general that they are worthy of their trust.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.

Socioeconomic stress has been a major influence on organizational development during the past decade, and will continue for the foreseeable future. This treatise aims to focus on The Key and its importance for effective organizational development via leadership responses to communication challenges during the present era. It is a conceptual paper based on an actual case.

The Key is a concept that refers to the thoughts and feelings (based on attitudes) that a leader reflects in communications and interactions with his/her universe, a universe that exists both internally within an organization as well as externally to it. The case focuses on communication challenges encountered by Judith Campbell, executive vice president of Creative Innovations, Ltd, and her interaction with Jonathan Bryant, president of Bryant and Associates, Ltd, an organizational development firm. Communication challenges that had arisen primarily due to socioeconomic stress, were seven in number: tendency to rely on only logical thinking; negative responses to external influences; lack of expectations for positive results; tendency toward reliance on sensory input; actions that ignore an inclusive perspective; failure to value and trust in change; and lack of commitment to interactive relations.

Following Bryant's counsel, Campbell chose to address these communication challenges with a training seminar that focused on a paradigm of seven leadership responses related to The Key. These were: Paradoxical thinking; Controlled reflecting; Intentional focusing; Instinctive responding; Inclusive behaving; Purposeful trusting; and Relational being. The training program, as described herein, proved to be very enlightening to the participants and quite effective for the continued organizational development of the firm.

The paper reveals the results of a training program based on seven communication challenges the results of which can be used to aid in continued organizational development of a firm.

This paper aims to present The Key as a very valuable interactive foundation for effective conflict management in international trade negotiations. The Key, as used in this analysis, is reflected in the nature of the thoughts and feelings (commensurate with attitudes) generated by a marketing manager, and influenced by that individual's sense of cultural responsibility. The authors have researched, and have used this concept of The Key and its effectiveness in conflict management in both academic and international business arenas, and in low context, as well as high‐context cultures.

An analysis of conflict management is presented within a case situation that involves business in the high‐context culture of China. A high‐context culture places a great deal of emphasis on a person's values and position or place in society, and interactions with others, rather than on the words and formal legalistic constructs used for negotiations in low‐context cultures. The case focuses on the relationship between the Vice President for International Marketing of Innovative Technologies, Inc. (ITI) headquartered in Chicago, IL, with offices also located in Frankfurt, Germany, and the Managing Director of the Shanghai Technology Manufacturing Center (STC) in China. The steps and skills used in providing a structure for the responsive process of managing a conflict were: the preliminary steps (involving power‐base development, relational acceptance and meaningful communication skills); the resolution steps (involving assumption analysis, objective identification and alternative selection skills); and the maintenance steps (involving action agreement, feedback review and continuing oversight skills). Each of these steps and skills were used to resolve, in a positive manner, the conflict between the ITI and STC.

Use of The Key, as reflected in a manager's positive thoughts and feelings, is of major importance for effective application of the steps and skills in the paradigm for effective conflict management introduced in this treatise.

The case focuses on conflict challenges that are encountered and successfully resolved, thereby facilitating the marketing of a new cell (mobile) telephone introduced into the high‐context culture of China by Innovative Technologies, Inc.

The purpose of this paper is to address the importance of effective crisis management, and the commensurate lessons to be learned from the Toyota Corporation's denial of malfunctions on a number of different Toyota brands of vehicles during the period 2007‐2010. The case analysis identifies key opportunities the Toyota Corporation had to minimize the crisis by acknowledging the issues and being transparent in its decision making. The article addresses the difficulty now faced by Toyota, previously recognized as the world's leading manufacturer of automotive vehicles, to re‐establish the consumers' trust.

A crisis, typically considered to be a negative issue, can be a positive event in the life of a corporate firm, such as Toyota, if the corporate leadership involved seizes the opportunity to make appropriate changes in its operations. The crisis management paradigm that is the focus for this case identifies four stages of a crisis – the preliminary (pre‐) crisis, acute crisis, chronic crisis, and crisis resolution. The present crisis deals with several different malfunctions that were identified, apparently by customers, in various Toyota brands, but publically ignored by Toyota's management. Therefore, the pre‐crisis stage was not appropriately dealt with by Toyota, and the firm was thrust into an acute crisis that evolved into a chronic crisis. A brief overview of the historical development of Toyota is presented, and a case analysis of the crisis situation in which the firm is now involved is presented in some detail.

It was concluded that Toyota is now in a very difficult position in the chronic crisis stage due to the failure of its corporate leaders' willingness to acknowledge the malfunctions of its vehicles and take corrective actions early in the crisis.

This is an excellent example of crisis mismanagement by a previously recognized world leader. This treatise includes a pervasive focus on the strategic lessons that should be learned from Toyota's experience.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the issue of crisis management within the Toyota Corporation's series of worldwide recalls for multiple malfunctions on a number of different Toyota brands of vehicles. The analysis relates to the difficulty now faced by Toyota, previously recognized as the world's leading manufacturer of automotive vehicles. The crisis became so great that Toyota corporate leaders even traveled from Japan to testify before a US Congressional Committee hearing.

A crisis, typically considered to be a negative issue, can be a positive event in the life of a business firm, such as Toyota, if the management involved seizes the opportunity to make appropriate changes in its operations to facilitate continuing positive growth and development. However, this opportunity was not initially addressed by Toyota in a meaningful way, and the crisis continued to evolve through subsequent stages, bringing a vast array of negative international criticism. The crisis management paradigm that is the focus for this case identifies four stages of a crisis – the preliminary (pre‐) crisis, acute crisis, chronic crisis, and crisis resolution. The present crisis deals with several different malfunctions that were identified, apparently by customers, in various Toyota brands, but publically ignored by Toyota's management. Therefore, the pre‐crisis stage was not appropriately dealt with by Toyota, and the firm was thrust into an acute crisis that has now evolved into a chronic crisis. A brief overview of the historical development of Toyota is presented, and an analysis of the present crisis situation in which the firm found itself is presented in some detail.

It was concluded that Toyota is now in a very difficult position in the chronic crisis stage due to the failure of its management to facilitate a timely response to the malfunctions of its vehicles.

The paper presents an excellent example of crisis mismanagement by a previously recognized world leader.

The purpose of this paper is to present a consumer‐oriented model of the market offering (marketing mix) whereby business practitioners, as well as academic scholars and students, can better understand the parallel‐based logic of how the four elements of a market offering are closely related and interdependent at the initial stage of market entry.

A consumer research study is conducted to identify the key factors that influence consumer buying decisions of particular products in Europe and North America. The five key factors identified are: importance of the product, time and effort to be spent in buying, technical complexity of the product, need for services in the buying process, and rate of product change. In addition, a thorough analysis of the marketing mixes used for numerous major categories of products is conducted. Based upon this research study and product category analysis, a consumer‐oriented model is developed. This model can then be used in establishing the initial market offering and subsequent competitive differentiation.

A basic foundation exists regarding the parallel relationship between and among the four elements of a firm's market offering – product, terms of sale, distribution, and communication – and why a change in any one of the elements generates a logical change in the other three.

The paper has used this model both in business consulting practices, and as an academic‐based learning tool.

The paper focuses on this interdependent relationship and the normal “fit” between and among the four elements of a successful initial market offering (marketing mix).

In the last half-century, individual sensory neurons have been bestowed with characteristics of the whole human being, such as behavior and its oft-presumed precursor, consciousness. This anthropomorphization is pervasive in the literature. It is also absurd, given what we know about neurons, and it needs to be abolished. This study aims to first understand how it happened, and hence why it persists.

The peer-reviewed sensory-neurophysiology literature extends to hundreds (perhaps thousands) of papers. Here, more than 90 mainstream papers were scrutinized.

Anthropomorphization arose because single neurons were cast as “observers” who “identify”, “categorize”, “recognize”, “distinguish” or “discriminate” the stimuli, using math-based algorithms that reduce (“decode”) the stimulus-evoked spike trains to the particular stimuli inferred to elicit them. Without “decoding”, there is supposedly no perception. However, “decoding” is both unnecessary and unconfirmed. The neuronal “observer” in fact consists of the laboratory staff and the greater society that supports them. In anthropomorphization, the neuron becomes the collective.

Anthropomorphization underlies the widespread application to neurons Information Theory and Signal Detection Theory, making both approaches incorrect.

A great deal of time, money and effort has been wasted on anthropomorphic Reductionist approaches to understanding perception and consciousness. Those resources should be diverted into more-fruitful approaches.

A long-overdue scrutiny of sensory-neuroscience literature reveals that anthropomorphization, a form of Reductionism that involves the presumption of single-neuron consciousness, has run amok in neuroscience. Consciousness is more likely to be an emergent property of the brain.

The SensaDyne Tensiometer uses a patented technology that is a refinement of the maximum bubble pressure method. This method was first suggested by Simon in 1851 and later developed by Jaeger in 1917. The first viable commercial instrument was introduced in 1982, and a subsequent design interfaced to the personal computer several years later, allowing us now to use software tools which make three‐dimensional studies relatively straightforward.

In the history of business management thought, six idea families have predominated during the last eighty or so years — bureaucracy (Max Weber), scientific management (Frederick Winslow Taylor), classical management (Henri Fayol), human relations (Elton Mayo), neo‐human relations (Abraham Maslow). To these one can add the more recent contributions of different writers under the heading of guru theory. The first five idea families are well known, but the sixth requires explanation. Gury theory achieved prominence during the 1980s. While not yet featuring extensively in management textbooks it has received widespread attention in the financial and business press (Lorenz, 1986; Dixon, 1986; Clutterbuck and Crainer, 1988; Pierce and Newstrom, 1988; Heller, 1990). Guru theory consists of the diverse and unrelated writings of well‐known company chief executives such as Lee lacocca (Chrysler), Harold Geneen (ITT), John Harvey‐Jones (ICI) and John Sculley (Apple Computer); of management consultants like Tom Peters and Philip Crosby; and of business school academics like Michael Porter, Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Henry Mintzberg. Since their contributions are so heterogeneous, and as the writings draw so much of their authority from the individual authors themselves, the adopted label is felt to be appropriate.