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Laury Desmond describes her personal journey from despairing teenager to self‐harming college student to psychiatric patient. Now she is battling back from the edge to forge a life and career for herself as a writer and activist, determined to change things for others following the same path.

In previous studies it remains unclear whether the internet is an effective mechanism for developing a symmetrical and interactive communications process that is initiated by the investor rather than the company. The purpose of this paper is to study the effectiveness of the internet to act as a mechanism to achieve a more interactive communication between companies and investors.

A “mystery investor” approach is used to test whether companies reply to e‐mails from investors. Content analysis was used to study the responsiveness, timeliness and relevance of the answers.

The quality of symmetrical communication (in terms of responsiveness and relevance) appears relatively low. Companies with high‐quality investor relations (IR) web sites do not handle e‐mails more effectively. Therefore, high‐quality asymmetrical communication between company and their investors not automatically associated with a high‐quality symmetrical type of communication.

Companies that provide e‐mail facilities for investors create the impression that they welcome communications with investors. However, if companies fail to handle incoming e‐mails from investors quickly and correctly, they create feelings of dissatisfaction. As a result e‐mail facilities on web sites are counter‐productive and hamper the creation of good relationships with investors. These results emphasize the need for better internal routing, better instructions and specific training programmes for IR staff.

The paper provides original evidence on the potential of the internet to enhance symmetrical communication between companies and their investors. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the way the internet can be used by IR departments to enhance the communications with investors.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.