Behind closed doors: Sex bias at professional and managerial levels

U.S. companies have made important strides in combating sex discrimination in the workplace over the last two decades, but more subtle forms of sex bias still exist, often in decisions and behaviors that occur behind closed doors. This paper focuses on sex bias at professional and managerial levels. It explores sources of sex bias in the informal culture, selection and recruitment, task assignment, performance appraisal, promotion, and salary allocation, and then suggests action steps to help reduce sex bias in each of these areas.     

Case statement: blueprint for fund raising success

The case statement is the primary document upon which an organization bases its appeal for financial and philosophical support. This author points out how a well-constructed case statement can impact on fund raising success.     

Abstracts

Quality & Quantity -     

The economics of decision making in the new manufacturing firm

Decision making in a modern manufacturing firm producing a variety of products while meeting order deadlines appears at first to have little basis in the economic Theory of the Firm. It is shown that optimal budget allocations, the fractions of revenue expended on inputs, are likely to remain constant for a succession of orders for each of a family of products, thus simplifying the decision process. Well-known heuristic decision rules may not only have a sound basis in economic theory but are evidently the best way to incorporate economic logic into a stream of fast-moving decisions. The discussion is extended to an explanation of the economic value of decision making to the firm, and why this value is usually assumed to be zero in theory.