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The achievement motivation construct has long presented a significant challenge to the study of presidential leadership. The purpose of this paper is to overcome the limitations of prior research by proposing that whether achievement motivation is related to effectiveness in the US presidency may not be a matter of if but how achievement motivation is manifested.

Drawing on the channeling hypothesis, it was proposed that presidents’ trait behaviors should be accounted for as they directly impact the way that presidents express achievement motivation. To test this thesis, this study relied on data generated from diverse sources that provide both direct and indirect information about US presidents’ personalities and effectiveness, including content analyses of inaugural addresses and presidential biographies and surveys completed by presidential biographers and scholars.

Results show that among achievement motivated presidents, display of motive-congruent, conscientious behaviors contributes to their effectiveness, whereas display of motive-incongruent, agreeable behaviors tends to detract from it.

The small sample size of US presidents and the limited amount of archival data available for some of these subjects prevented more fine-grained analyses. Thus, further research among senior leaders is needed to not only confirm the explanatory mechanism offered herein, but also explore the possibility that there are optimal levels beyond which the personality traits under study may cease to be a help or hindrance to achievement motivated chief executives.

This study represents the first effort to formally integrate motives and traits in the study of chief executives. The findings of this research also substantiate the need for researchers to consider the complex nature of motives in predicting important outcomes across different contexts.

The experimental parliamentary subsidy on knights' fees and freehold incomes from lands and rents of 1431 was the only English direct lay tax of the Middle Ages which broke down. As such, this subsidy has a clear historiographical significance, yet previous scholars have tended to overlook it on the grounds that parliament's annulment act of 1432 mandated the destruction of all fiscal administrative evidence. Many county assessments from 1431–1432 do, however, survive and are examined for the first time in this article as part of a detailed assessment of the fiscal and administrative context of the knights' fees and incomes tax. This impost constituted a royal response to excess expenditures associated with Henry VI's “Coronation Expedition” of 1429–1431, the scale of which marked a decisive break from the fiscal-military strategy of the 1420s. Widespread confusion regarding whether taxpayers ought to pay the feudal or the non-feudal component of the 1431 subsidy characterized its botched administration. Industrial scale under-assessment, moreover, emerged as a serious problem. Officials' attempts to provide a measure of fiscal compensation by unlawfully double-assessing many taxpayers served to increase administrative confusion and resulted in parliament's annulment act of 1432. This had serious consequences for the crown's finances, since the regime was saddled with budgetary and debt problems which would ultimately undermine the solvency of the Lancastrian state.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, labour movements across the world fragmented along racial lines. Across the English-speaking world, and especially in the colonies and metropole of the British Empire, a tradition which scholars term ‘white labourism’ became important and then, in the first half of the 20th century, dominant as a political and ideological trend within the labour movements of white British countries. This article concerns the prehistory of white labourism as a dominant strain in three of these British-ruled white settler states, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, by looking at the activities there of the American-based working-class movement, the Knights of Labor. As the Knights expanded into these countries in the 1880s and 1890s, they brought with them an emphasis on the exclusion of Chinese immigration and other racial exclusionary practices later associated with white labourism; on the other, their racial egalitarianism with respect to African-American workers in the United States, tens of thousands of whom became members of the movement, placed them as an alternative to later white labourist currents. This chapter addresses these contradictory contributions of the Knights as a global movement to the way that later workers understood the connections between race and class, empire and whiteness.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

During the last two decades, studies on the theoretical models in the area of international business (IB), such as gradual internationalization and the born-global firms, have gained the attention of researchers. The purpose of this paper is to critically review the studies on the process of internationalization (Gradual Internationalization vs Born-Global/International new venture models) to identify the research gaps in this area and to prepare a future research agenda.

Systematic literature review method was employed for this review. The authors highlight the findings from prior studies, compare and contrast salient characteristics and features, based on the articles published in journals with an impact factor score of at least 1.0, and provide directions for research.

The authors find that there are several areas that were under-explored in prior research. There is a great potential for theoretical extension and theory development in this field as it covers the tenets of four subjects: IB, marketing, strategic management and entrepreneurship.

There is no comprehensive/integrated review exploring the methods/variables and constructs used in prior studies integrating gradual internationalization/born-global models based on all the articles published in well-regarded academic journals. This review seeks to provide deeper insights, which help us to contribute toward the development of this research field.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

It is widely recognized by scholars that superhero stories tend to glorify vigilante justice; after all, these stories often maintain that extralegal acts of violence are necessary for combatting existential threats to personal and public safety. This scholarly common sense fosters a widespread dismissal of superhero stories as uncomplicated apologia for an authoritarian politics of law and order that is animated by hatred of unpopular people and ideas. However, some prominent contemporary Batman stories, including those told in the graphic novels of Grant Morrison and in the blockbuster movies of Christopher Nolan, are ambivalent: in their portraits of Batman and Joker as dark twins and secret colleagues, these stories both legitimize and challenge the countersubversive politics of American law and order.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.