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Describes the history of the development of management studies at Oxford University, including executive education, company progress and university degree courses, and outlines plans for the future.

The purpose of this paper is to consider a challenge to an occupational jurisdiction in the British police. Historically, street cops have defended the importance of operational credibility as a way of sustaining the value of experience, and inhibiting attempts to introduce external leaders. This has generated a particular form of policing and leadership that is deemed by the British Government as inadequate to face the problems of the next decade.

The project used the High Potential Development Scheme of the British police to assess the value of operational credibility and the possibilities of radical cultural change. Data are drawn from participants on the program, from those who failed to get onto the program, and from officers who have risen through the ranks without access to a fast-track scheme.

Most organizational changes fail in their own terms, often because of cultural resistance. However, if we change our metaphors of culture from natural to human constructions it may be possible to focus on the key point of the culture: the lodestone that glues it together. Operational credibility may be such a cultural lodestone and undermining it offers the opportunity for rapid and radical change.

The scheme itself has had limited numbers and the research was limited to a small proportion of the different categories outlined above.

If we change our metaphors for culture and cultural change – from natural to constructed metaphors – (icebergs and webs to buildings), it may be possible to consider a much more radical approach to organizational change.

Most assessments of cultural change focus on those charged with enacting the change and explain failure through recourse to natural metaphors of change. This paper challenges the convention that cultural change can only ever be achieved, if at all, through years of effort.

The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.

The purpose of this paper is to review Buddhism as a potential reform instrument in the workplace and discuss some obstacles in making that happen.

By the use of literature review and interviews, Buddhism's establishment in the USA is reviewed, a brief overview of Buddhism in general is provided, Buddhism is considered within the light of the spirit at work discourse, and the current discourse on implementing Buddhist practices in the workplace is reviewed.

It is found that Buddhist practices are becoming more widely accepted but the fact that they are called “Buddhist” practices may be a barrier in massive acceptance.

The information was gathered from literature and disputed by pro‐Buddhist individuals (monks and lay persons), which may leave room for some bias in view sharing.

Buddhist practices, when perceived as ethical values, make perfect sense, and could help instigate a positive turnaround in general feelings about work and experiences at work.

Buddhism has not been discussed broadly within the scope of management practices. While Buddhism is generally endorsed in this paper, the discourses here discussed present a realistic view on points of caution when considering promoting Buddhist values in work environments.

The paper sets out to examine the validity of Kaufmann and Stern's operationalisation of Macneil's norm theory which they used when creating a set of scales to evaluate the degree of relationality in business‐to‐business (B2B) exchanges. The scales that Kaufmann and Stern developed to measure norms in B2B relationships have been used either directly or with limited adaptation in a large number of papers.

Macneil's work was evaluated and a new set of scales developed and an experiment was carried out to determine whether or not these scales discriminated between relational and discrete exchanges more effectively than Kaufmann and Stern's scales.

The experiment demonstrated that the new scales discriminated more effectively between relational and discrete exchanges than Kaufmann and Stern's scales.

The experiment would ideally have been run using experienced managers rather than students as respondents. However, the advantage of using students was that it was possible to create two groups whose members had attended an identical course on B2B relationship marketing.

The paper demonstrates the importance, when conducting research that uses prior studies, of critically assessing prior theorising and research. The paper questions the validity of Kaufmann and Stern's scales. These scales have, since 1988, been the foundation of a substantial body of research into B2B relationships.

The last five years have seen an enormous resurgence of academic and managerial interest in the concept of organisational culture — the taken‐for‐granted assumptions, beliefs, meanings and values enacted and shared by organisational members. While for some academics, interest has centred on the epistemological questions raised in the very conceptualisation of organisational culture, for many managers the interest has been more down to earth. A group or organisation's culture is interesting because it is felt to “make a difference” — in other words, that culture can influence behaviour and, consequently, a company's performance, that a “strong” culture is both symptomatic and generative of “excellence”. Hence several practical questions have been posed. Can the organisational cultures generated in the large companies of economically successful nation states (e.g. Japan and West Germany) be transferred to companies in less economically successful countries? Can organisational culture be managed “in search of excellence”? If it can be managed — and there is much academic controversy on this point — how is this to be done?

In many ways the British retail sector is currently going through a more colourful and dynamic phase than we have seen for some time. Innovators abound, especially in areas such as leisure, sports goods, toys; fashion innovation is a whole story in itself. Diversification continues apace: supermarkets move into pharmacy and practically everybody moves into DIY. In food, the convenience store proliferates. Even in the department store sector, not known for its speed of response to changing conditions, some groups are searching around for ways of fighting back. The authors of this feature suggest that, in this time of rapid change, retailers must be flexible as well as observant. Consumers increasingly demand choice and specialisation where once a mass merchandising strategy was adequate; consumers want self‐expression and self‐fulfilment. How to reconcile these factors with the retailer's need to control margins and build buying volumes?

Discusses the changes in European banking since the introduction of the euro, providing statistics on mergers and acquisitions (mostly domestic) and their effects on assets both inside and outside the eurozone. Considers the factors which make cross‐border mergers less attractive, the effect of consolidation on costs, and the impact of the euro on foreign exchange earnings, debt markets and cash management systems. Concludes that although banks are becoming more competitive with each other and with other financial services companies, national barriers to further integration of the financial services market remain.

The Internet may well come to provide many members of the public with their best chance of access to public information. This article serves to update readers on two different approaches to assist public libraries to connect to the Internet; the Library Association Millennium Bid and Project EARL (Electronic Access to Resources in Libraries). In the first section of the article, the LA/EARL/UKOLN Public Libraries Networking Adviser reviews the exploratory Library Association Millennium Bid, the response by the Millennium Commission and the subsequent development of the new joint Library Association and Library and Information Commission bid. In the second section, she reviews the accelerating momentum of Project EARL, a consortium of 40% of UK public library authorities, and the establishment of Development/Special Interest Groups. The Millennium Bid and Project EARL seek to provide public access to the resources of the Internet, and to create new resources and services, through the UK public libraries community. Both projects have the potential to impact on public libraries into the next century and to deliver public information into the heart of every UK community.

Identifies key activities that network users can perform in order to use the network effectively. Offers recommended reading, from beginner to expert user status. Explains some commonly used terms (e.g. Turbo Gopher with Veronica!). Lists useful Internet resources.