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Much of the scenario-based planning work that is observed fails to account for the web of belief systems that powerfully shape the ways that future conditions and trends are created and acted upon. This paper aims to address this issue.

The authors show how understanding narratives – people’s beliefs, attitudes and perceptions and the stories, images, anecdotes and aphorisms used to articulate them – provides planners and leaders an exceptional ability to anticipate with confidence the actions that can drive the real world toward one scenario or another.

The process of scenario planning, when it is infused with identification and analysis of relevant narratives, can produce potent insights.

From a scenario planning perspective, narratives are not trends as we typically define them, but rather they provide the emotional context by which individuals and groups evaluate and internalize trends and other forces at play in the environment.

As scenarios are used in practice over time, their methodology is evolving. Bringing the analysis of narratives – the deep-seated beliefs and belief systems of organizational, national, and other cultures – into the art and science of scenario planning is a step in that evolution.

We explore how the long-run success of cultural products is affected by the identities of the product's originators and early adopters. Using U.S. jazz recordings from 1920 to 1929, we found that songs were more likely to be later covered from 1944 to 2004 if they followed a pattern of having black originators and white early adopters. Moreover, we provide evidence that this pattern is independent of a song's commercial success, resources available to a song's originators, and group-level indicators such as size and experience. We conclude that late adopters (musicians after World War II (WWII)) were attracted to songs that followed a narrative of both “lowbrow” origins and early adoption by those considered “highbrow” with respect to jazz. The findings also support a new means for considering the role of identities as the building blocks of genres, in particular, and categories more generally.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

To further a dialog about the future of opportunities in America, this exercise imagines what life would be like in four alternative possibilities, or scenarios, emerging from now to the year 2035.

The logical basis for these four possible futures is that technological, political, economic and social factors – and the decisions of voters and their leaders–will result in either many or few opportunities which will be available to many or few players.

The central question is what scenario do we really want to live in and what decisions need to be taken to increase its likelihood of occurring? Conversely, which future is the most undesirable and what can we do to prevent it?

The scenarios illuminate the choices that need to be explored now to better anticipate and react to the challenges of the future.

By selecting just two ranges of conditions–opportunity and participation–the author is able to imagine futures that have elements of utopia and dystopia.

Purpose – This study is intended to extend scholarship on the management of organizations by examining the long-term performance of orphaned products.

Design/methodology/approach – This study uses the historical context of the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression to examine the long-run appeal (performance) of orphaned products – products from start-ups that fail soon after production. I use this setting to determine how factors within the purview of management, as well as the role of changing tastes, affect the appeal of music from short-lived start-ups founded in 1929 and 1933.

Findings/originality/value – I find that while the evolution of tastes has a substantial effect beyond the control of a firm's managers, a start-up's decision-makers were able to positively influence the long-run appeal of music when they (a) recorded tunes with new artists and (b) were able to create an early big hit with the tune. These results demonstrate how and why, even with cultural producers in one of the greatest economic disasters in U.S. history, managerial decisions were meaningful for product performance. Finally, I show that the effect of being a start-up on the long-run appeal of a tune is time-varying such that being a start-up in 1929 or 1933 does not harm a tune's appeal until after World War II. These final analyses point to further ways in which strategy, history, and sociology might combine to further scholarship on the management of organizations.

Neoliberal political leaders such as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990) and President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) heralded entrepreneurs as capitalist heroes, yet for the most part, the policies they enacted did not help real entrepreneurs. Their image of a self-made entrepreneur who thrives in the absence of government action was fundamentally flawed. Their ideology impaired their ability to promote entrepreneurship because they viewed support for entrepreneurs primarily in negative terms as the removal of government tax and regulatory burdens rather than in positive terms as the cultivation of a dynamic market infrastructure. This article presents this argument in four steps, focusing on the US case: (1) how neoliberal reforms embodied internal contradictions; (2) how reforms to market governance undermined entrepreneurship; (3) how other neoliberal policies also failed to support entrepreneurs; and (4) how policies that violated neoliberal principles, such as industry and technology policies, were actually more supportive of entrepreneurs.

This chapter investigates ways in which civility and mindful speech within the library workplace can improve the quality of employees’ interactions with each other. While most examinations of communication within libraries focus on the exchange between patrons and providers, this case study focuses on the vehicle of communication among co-workers and examines how civil discourse coupled with mindful speech reinforced by mindful actions can foster an atmosphere of cooperation, leading ultimately to empathy. We highlight common points within national and local civility initiatives which allow institutions to preserve their own unique culture while adhering to accepted benchmarks of civil dialogue. Although we present a mix of suggested strategies for cultivating mindful words and actions, based on empirical research limited to our own institution, we recommend civility and mindful speech leading to mindful action as gateways toward the adaptation of healthy shared values. Emphasizing civility, one of the cornerstones of civilization and peaceful coexistence, has widespread practical and social implications for countering the detrimental effects of poor communication. This effective, affordable, and attainable practice can repair the underdeveloped, fractured, and even dysfunctional relationships which lead to low workplace morale.