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Executive development and education have proceeded on the basis of two developments as a result of shifts in government policy over the past two decades. The first is marketisation, the belief that marketplace ideology is best, and the belief that the private sector functions better and more rationally than the public sector. The second is performance, the belief that performance can be controlled. It is argued that these trends are myths that have developed into the performance cult. This paper argues that even knowing you cannot be in control doesn't stop you trying to be in control, but understanding what is happening enables us to stay active in negotiating our daily lives moment by moment.

This paper aims to examine the purposive strategy behind the growth of cult wines in Napa California since the 1980s. By leveraging the growing wine reputation of the region, a small number of new owners used extensive financial resources from other ventures to make a finely crafted, high-priced wine, in small quantities and sold through restricted distribution channels. Their aim was to compete with Bordeaux first-growths and create wine that would evoke the luxury connotations of craft, heritage, reputation and exclusivity. Because they were new, they relied upon experts to rate their wine, thus creating instant legitimacy with high scores and appealing to a small group of wealthy wine enthusiasts, many of whom were insecure in their knowledge of high-quality wines.

Semi-structured in-depth interviews with a sample of 13 cult winery owners, wine makers and a CEO were utilized in addition to descriptive statistics and secondary historical information drawn from public records.

Certain Napa producers have created iconic wines through purposeful behavior and extensive resources that are rare and difficult to imitate. Their success is also a function of positive accolades by influential wine critics whose scoring sanctioned their status as a luxury good. High prices and limited availability further manufactured the scarcity element that is crucial to maintaining demand for high-status goods.

This study examines the interface between supply of a product, external validation that legitimized it and a small but significant market of wealthy individuals who created the demand for it. This mosaic behind market creation reveals how successful producers have been in realizing the multidimensionality of luxury goods.

In 1962, historian Raymond E. Callahan argued that American educators had allowed themselves to become overly enchanted by Taylorite notions of scientific management and had adopted the techniques of the business‐industrial world, to the detriment of the nation's students. Callahan's Education and the Cult of Efficiency not only offered a new and bold interpretation of the history of education in the twentieth century, but it also coined a phrase that continues to represent the constant struggle faced by educators as they seek to balance high‐quality instructional practices with external calls for accountability that often come from corporate and public leaders. This special issue of the Journal of Educational Administration (JEA) presents a set of articles which explore the theme of “Education, Ethics, and the Cult of Efficiency.” The articles that make up this issue began as papers delivered at the 8th Annual Values and Educational Leadership Conference held at Pennsylvania State University in October 2003. The essence of our message in this: The traditional parameters of managerialism and efficiency focused responses to administrative situations must now be augmented with more creative, sophisticated and morally defensible approaches to leadership.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Most of 823,000 ethnic Chinese people are living in Southern Vietnam among distinct dialectical groups. Each maintains its own pantheon of gods; the majority worships standardized Thien Hau. The Hakka in Buu Long are the only group that worships the craft-master gods. This difference creates a challenging gap between the subgroups and reveals the unorthodox nature of the Hakka’s traditions. The purpose of this paper is investigate the continuous efforts to achieve “evolving standardization” and solidarity through the charismatic efforts of the local Hakka elites in Buu Long by their liturgical transformation.

The study further discusses the multilateral interaction and hidden discourses by applying Watson’s (1985) theory of standardization and orthodoxy as well as Weller’s (1987) concept of context-based interpretation.

Truthfully, when facing pressures, the Hakka in Southern Vietnam decided to transform their non-standard worship of the craft masters into a more integrative model, the Thien Hau cult, by superimposing the new cult on the original platform without significant changes in either belief or liturgical practice. The performance shows to be the so-called “the caterpillar’s spirit under a butterfly’s might” case.

The transformation reveals that the Hakka are currently in their endless struggles for identity and integration, even getting engaged in a pseudo-standardization.

This Hakka’s bottom-up evolutionary standardization deserves to be responded academically and practically.

The paper begins with a setting of academic discussions by western writers in this area and then moves on to what makes the practical transformation, how does it happen, and what discourses are hidden underneath.

The aim of this paper is to identify the existence of tribal behaviour in football fans and the impact of this tribalism on the consumption of brands associated with the club. The intention is not to recognize tribal relationships between fans and their club but to identify to what extent the fan commitment level can impact the preference for sponsor brands.

Two focus groups were made with two distinct types of club supporters, namely the members of one supportive organized group and another with highly‐devoted fans.

Research questions posed in this study were mostly confirmed: football‐devoted supporters have a kind of cult with their club and it is possible to distinguish several distinct fan typologies varying with the level of fan commitment. The associative behaviour of football fans is influenced by affiliation through the need for social recognition, socialization and symbolism. The study also reveals that devoted fans assume an effective knowledge of club association with some brands but they do not manifest an effective preference towards them.

The main limitation refers to the restricted research scope, i.e. one country, one club and one supporting associative group.

Managerial implications are related to the club needing to maintain an open channel with supporters. Sponsor brands should also develop a long‐term strategy and support another sport besides football.

This paper provides exploratory research in an area of great popularity, relating tribal behaviours with brand strategies which involve millions of euros all over the world.

This article seeks to revitalise and add to the debate on the rising and declining fortunes of the field of information systems, to contrast and compare this to computer science, and to argue for a review within the field of the scientific basis of the field in general.

The article draws upon the existing debate within the information systems (IS) field and highlights pertinent IS debate and dogma from the historical past – including the notion of “cargo cult science” as debated by the Nobel laureate, Richard Feynmann, as a vehicle for the viewpoint discussion.

The field of IS is still susceptible to having weak roots in terms of scientific and theoretical formality for its fundamental basis, and those in the field should be warned against complacency in developing the field in an incremental manner.

This article adds to the debate on IS in general.

Neuro‐linguistic programming (NLP) is a popular form of inter‐personal skill and communication training. Originating in the 1970s, the technique made specific claims about the ways in which individuals processed the world about them, and quickly established itself, not only as an aid to communication, but as a form of psychotherapy in its own right. Today, NLP is big business with large numbers of training courses, personal development programmes, therapeutic and educational interventions purporting to be based on the principles of NLP. This paper explores what NLP is, the evidence for it, and issues related to its use. It concludes that after three decades, there is still no credible theoretical basis for NLP, researchers having failed to establish any evidence for its efficacy that is not anecdotal.