Characteristics and practices of “Christian-based” companies

There is a sizeable group of self-described Christian companies which have declared their belief in the successful merging of biblical principles with business activities. As these companies have become more visible, an increasing number of anecdotal newspaper and magazine articles about these companies have appeared. Surprisingly, no rigorous research has been conducted prior to our recent study. This article provides national estimates of the size and predominant characteristics of self-identified Christian companies. In addition, the study investigated the types of relationships these companies maintained with their employees, customers, communities, and suppliers.Nabil Ibrahim is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Augusta College, Augusta, Georgia. He has published articles, case studies, and professional papers in the areas of business policy and strategy.Dr. Leslie W. Rue is Professor of Management in the College of Business Administration at Georgia State University. He is the author of over forty articles, cases, and papers that have appeared in academic and practitioner journals. He has coauthored eight textbooks in the field of management.Dr. Patricia P. McDougall is an Assistant Professor of Management at Georgia State University. Her research focuses primarily on new venture strategies and international entrepreneurship and has been published in several academic journals. Dr. G. Robert Grenne is an Associate Professor of Management at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia where he teaches strategic management and entrepreneurship. He is a Contributing Editor to Spiritual Fitness in Business and has published articles in various academic and practitioner journals.     

The Union Makes Us Strong? A Study of the Dynamics of Workplace Union Leadership at Two UK Manufacturing Plants

This paper draws on qualitative case study evidence to investigate the way in which union leaders involved in two workplace organizations deal with the process of managing their role within the employment relationship. In particular, the influence of their leadership style on the commitment and participation of rank-and-file members is considered. The paper highlights the dialectical relationship between local leaders and members in terms of trade union democracy and local leadership style.     

再见,祝你好运,下周见

这是公司发展史上策划最周详的过渡之一.两年前,微软公司董事长比尔·盖茨宣布,他将放手在这家他与别人共同创建的公司的日常管理责任,把更多的时间投入慈善事业.从那以后,盖茨和微软公司首席执行官史蒂芬·巴尔默提拔了那些将会接替盖茨,为微软公司开发技术、战略和远景的人.     

Multinationals do it better: Evidence on the efficiency of corporations' capital budgeting

With U.S. multinational enterprises playing increasingly important roles in the global economy, it is important to understand the efficiency of their capital budgeting decisions. We examine an unbalanced panel of 332 U.S. firms from 1992–2000. Using the deviation of a firm's estimated marginal Tobin's q from a benchmark as an indicator of effective resource allocation, we find that widespread multinationals make more efficient capital budgeting decisions. We also test whether this reflects the MNEs' investment locations, but do not obtain support for the hypotheses that they might be monitored by more agents or more successfully resist pressures from interest groups and governments.     

Mark R. Wilson. The Business of Civil War: Military Mobilization and the State, 1861-1865

In the otherwise voluminous literature of the Civil War, bookson the logistics of military supply are comparatively rare.Historians have largely overlooked the administrative arrangementsnecessary to outfit, feed, house, transport, supply, and communicatewith the enormous Civil War armies, emphasizing instead theUnion's superior resources, such as railroad mileage, or linkingthe logistics of supply to patronage, profiteering, and politicalcorruption. Mark R. Wilson's excellent The Business of CivilWar: Military Mobilization and     

健脑俱乐部悄然兴起

现年63岁的作家琳达·巴克林（Linda Hale Bucklin）看见自己所在的社区新开了一家“健脑俱乐部”，当场办了张卡。现在，她每周去那里三次，通过电脑学习一个“视觉处理”课程，她觉得这个课程帮助她更快地找到汽车钥匙，并提高了自己的网球技巧。     

The satisfaction-performance controversy: New developments and their implications

Current speculation continues to imply that satisfaction and performance are causally related. While the performance-causes-satisfaction proposition is a more recent development, the contention that satisfaction causes performance remains more widely held. Recent research findings, however, offer only moderate support of the former view and reject the latter. The evidence indicates that the relationship is more complex: rewards constitute a more direct cause of satisfaction than does performance, and rewards based on current performance cause subsequent performance. Thus, the manager who wants to improve his subordinates' performance must, first, provide valued rewards of sufficient magnitude and then establish the necessary contingencies between effort and performance and between performance and rewards. Last, he needs to consider a range of nonmotivational factors.     

The dynamics of positive action in UK trade unions: the case of women and black members

This paper considers positive action strategies amongst UK trade unions, aimed at increasing membership and levels of participation and representation among women and black workers. It provides an overview of women’s, black members’ and race structures within large Trades Union Congress unions and a detailed case study of one large UK trade union. We find that there are salient differences in the way that unions approach issues of gender equality, compared with the approach adopted towards race equality. The paper explores possible explanations, justifications and implications of these differences.