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This paper aims to provide a rigorous practitioner review of the concept of CSR. The paper presents a comprehensive and sometimes challenging overview of the subject. It is about the practice and ethics of a topic of current interest.

Taking a representative selection of recently published papers, the article explores the concept. Questions are raised about whether CSR is just corporate window dressing – or greenwash. Can it be a tool for business development? Is CSR for organizations big and small? Does it apply to government and NGOs or is it only for commercial businesses? Has the current economic climate forced companies to abandon CSR in the face of the harsh realities of the recession?

The findings start with the variation in the subject and how the words corporate social responsibility are ill defined. A structure for examining CSR in practice is suggested by using two examples. Benefits of CSR in profit based organizations are identified and compared with an example in a not for profit organization. An argument is put forward that SMEs may not relate comfortably to a corporate concept. The strategic role of CSR is outlined, as is the limited role of government. Directors' responsibility and CSR lead on to the competitive advantage opportunities of CSR. The article ends with a key indicator of whether businesses see CSR as a distraction or a strategic issue by looking at evidence of whether CSR activity has declined in the current recession.

This is essential reading for strategic leaders reviewing their CSR activity, whether it is from a position of early implementation or after some development. The comparisons and examples are thought provoking. By raising the variations in practise senior managers will be able to clarify their own position, formulate a way forward and communicate their objectives.

This paper is aimed at directors and strategic leaders with an interest in linking CSR, ethics and competitive advantage. The article will also help senior managers to reflect upon their own management style. HR practitioners will find this review indispensible if they wish to lead or contribute to the development of CSR in their own organizations.

It is important to have clearly in mind what is meant by fats, when discussing the part they play in our diet. To many people the word fat calls to mind butter, lard, margarine and the obviously fatty parts of meats and bacon. It is fat that can be seen. It is appropriate, therefore, to apply to it the convenient term “visible fat”, in contradistinction to other fats contained in food, not so generally recognised as fats, which are designated “invisible”. The latter are by no means unimportant. As we shall see, they provide something of the order of one‐half of our total daily intake. A few examples will illustrate the contributions foods usually regarded as not fatty can make to the total. Lean meat contains 6–8 per cent of fat; cheese, from 4–30 per cent, depending on the quality of the milk from which it was made; dried eggs, 42 per cent; rabbit, 5 per cent; herrings, 10 per cent; flour, 1–2 per cent; bread, 1 per cent; oatmeal, 8 per cent. Analysis of diets eaten in this country before the war shows that more than half the total fat consumed was in the form of foods providing “invisible” fat. That, of course, was in the days when a sausage contained 30 per cent of fat and a good cake as much as 15 per cent. Before passing to consider the significance of fats in our daily diet we should briefly review the more important facts concerning their behaviour in the body and what is known of their function.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview for senior managers of the strategic importance of ethical values in organisations working in the profit‐making and not‐for‐profit sectors.

The paper examines the principles involved and contrasts them with examples of unethical behaviour in the news at present. The paper presents the practical application of ethical business values through case studies from different organisations where ethical values are part of a positive strategy to achieve competitive advantage. There is an analysis of the case against and for ethical values, a discussion of how business ethics can be part of an organisation's strategy, the evidence that non‐executive directors and others may find of ethical behaviour in business decisions, a discussion of ethics in an international context and a short checklist of questions to provide readers with a guide to the “ethical health” of the organisation.

The arguments in favour of defining ethical values within business are persuasive.

There are examples from experience together with clear guidance about how to manage ethical values in business. Readers could start with the ethical health checklist of questions, decide how their ethical values statement, if any, compares with the examples in the papers, conduct an audit of an existing ethical strategy to identify if their values statement is being translated into behaviours throughout the organization, and test the impact of the ethical values strategy on the competitive position of the business.

The paper is educational and therefore provides value to senior managers and directors in a concise but comprehensive overview of the topic that is of current concern in the business world. It points to practical actions they can take in this respect. It could be a thought starter to managers discussing the topic at an away day for example, or for strategic leaders to discuss how to use ethical values to develop a competitive position.

This second article (Part One in Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 40 No. 5) aims to provide an overview for senior managers of how to develop an ethical culture in business. It describes a management system to support a strategy, and a governance trail of activities that may be used by Non Executive Directors and Trustees as they discharge their fiduciary responsibilities.

The object is achieved through arguing for a systematic approach to developing ethical behaviour based on core values that support the business strategy. The article then goes on to present examples from organisations from different sectors and sizes where ethical values are part of a positive strategy to determine the culture of the business.

There is clear guidance about how to manage ethical values in business. Readers could start with the “ethical health check list” of questions. The questions could be a thought starter to managers discussing the topic at an away day for example. Managers could conduct an audit of an existing ethical strategy to identify if their values statement is being translated into behaviours throughout the organisation. They could contrast their activities with the examples in the article.

This article is educational and therefore provides value to senior managers and directors in a concise but comprehensive overview of the topic that is of current concern in the business world.

This case study aims to describe a consultancy project where managers in a distribution centre of a major logistics company were developed to give them confidence to implement a new harassment and bullying policy.

Included within the design was an action research project using a five‐stage scale defining the development of harassment and bullying. The new policy, the background to it and the development scale were introduced using group training methods.

The study finds that during the follow‐up discussions and reports after the action research, managers reported that they could distinguish “good humoured banter” from harassment. They also distinguished more serious examples of harassment and bullying. In a four‐week period there were 21 incidents in the two lowest stages of harassment development and seven were in the higher stages. These even are of the level that may create a reportable incident. Follow‐up three months after the programme is also described.

This paper will be of value to directors, strategic managers and human resource professionals who want to discover a way to enable managers to handle harassment and bullying issues with more confidence.

Before the appearance of our next issue, the Annual Meeting of the Library Association will have taken place. In many ways, as indicated last month, it will be an interesting meeting, largely because it is in the nature of an experiment. International conditions, the state of national and municipal finance, the absence of library workers with the colours, and the omission of social events, all tend to influence its character. It is possible, however, that these very circumstances may increase the interest in the actual conference business, especially as the programme bears largely upon the War. The programme itself is formidable, and it will be interesting to see how the section on the literature of the war, for example, will be treated. Probably the Publications' Committee have in mind the book symposia which are a feature of the meetings of various library associations in the United States. These consist of a few minutes' characterisation, by an opener, of a certain book or type of literature, and a discussion after it. The experiment was attempted in London last year at one of the monthly meetings, but owing to a misapprehension the speaker gave an excellent lecture on Francis Thompson of more than an hour's duration, when he had been expected to give a brief description of Francis Meynell's biography of that poet. If any gatherings for a similar purpose are arranged, we hope the speakers will be primed sufficiently to avoid that error. As for social events, their omission is less likely to be felt in London than anywhere else in the Kingdom. London is a perennial source of social amusement in itself, and the evenings can readily be filled there—“chacun à son goût”—really better than by attending pre‐arranged gatherings.

The President has informed the Council of the Library Association that Mr. G. F. Barwick has accepted the office of joint honorary secretary of the Association with Mr. Pacy We welcome the news, because it is evident that if the Library Association is to assume its just position as the organization of librarianship, all the staffs of all the national libraries in the Empire must be prominently identified with it. Hitherto we have had Keepers of the Printed Books as presidents, and in that high office they have exercised wholesome influence, but everyone knows that the most significant position in such a society as ours is the secretaryship, and it is well that a man who is near the head of the profession should be willing to serve in that office. Mr. Barwick has won our respect and esteem by his unassuming and genial qualities, his readiness to help, and his unvarying friendliness. We wish him a pleasant time of office, and we feel sure that Mr. Pacy will find in him the sort of colleague he would desire to have. On the public side we believe the influence of Mr. Barwick's name and position will lend additional weight to the office; a matter of no mean consequence in our time.

1916, the most difficult year in the history of the library movement, has passed not without some satisfaction to library workers. The war dominated everything, and in its atmosphere most intellectual movements have paused somewhat so far as practical activities were concerned. At the end of the financial year in March, the voice of the Philistine was prominent and strident, and many reductions were made in the rate grants to public libraries. Few, however, did more than cripple their activities, and on the whole a fair measure of public sanity prevailed. In the circumstances the wider progress of the library movement has been small, but there has been progress. Unostentatiously, but systematically, the Carnegie Trustees have urged rural library schemes upon several county councils, and have made grants to urban libraries for new buildings, the erection of which, however, they have required to be postponed until the peace. The tercentenary of Shakespeare found librarians and library authorities awake and interested, and much good work was done. Towards the end of the year commercial libraries were discussed with remarkable unanimity in most of the great cities, and actually materialised in the fine experiment at Glasgow described in our last issue. In so far as librarians are concerned, the year has been eventful for the calling away of nearly all remaining men of military age. In connection with this the military authorities in many districts have shown a complete indifference to the intellectual requirements of the people. It is difficult to say how many library workers are now with the Colours, but six hundred would be a very conservative estimate. Some, alas, of the most promising men in the profession have fallen. An endeavour is being made by the Library Assistants' Association to preserve a record of all who have gone forth for the Empire. Naturally, library appointments have been few, and most of those that have been made have been of a temporary nature. On the literary side, too, librarianship has been practically sterile in this country. The book by Messrs. Gower, Jast and Topley, on photographic record work is a remarkable exception, but is not entirely a book of library methodology. America has not produced very much, but we noted a useful book by Mr. Arthur L. Bailey on library bookbinding, which appeared in the middle of the year. Throughout the year the Library Association has pursued a policy of masterly inactivity, and has missed most of the opportunities for constructive schemes which war time has offered. Its general meetings were abandoned in London, its Council has met irregularly, and it has eluded practically every problem which it ought to have faced. We have been consistently critical of this state of affairs, but we still believe in the Library Association, and our criticism, however trenchant, has not been to destroy but to revivify and accelerate. We do not think that librarians can do without the Association, and in all our attacks upon its stagnation we have kept this view clearly before us. The President of the Association, while condoning the suspension of the general meetings, has generously filled the gap made by their omission with the interesting reunions at the Royal Society of Medicine. Hope of better things has been raised by the belated establishment of the Technical Libraries Committee, to which we look for a forward and aggressive policy. The Library Assistants' Association has wisely refused to follow the example of its seniors. The few monthly meetings it has held have been intensely practical and focussed upon the problems of the hour. We hope they will continue in spite of the increased railway fares which in the new year have added difficulty to travelling. The establishment of the North Central Library Association provided an immensely important part of England with a means of creating and circulating library opinion. This brief chronique of the doings of the year leaves us hopeful if not contented. Financial and staff problems are likely to increase while the war endures, but having surmounted these and our other difficulties thus far, we look forward with confidence to similar success.

It is unlikely that many public meetings of library workers will be held during the coming winter. In London, at any rate, the preoccupations of the time have increased in intensity rather than otherwise; the darkness of the streets is more or less opaque; the train difficulties are very real; and those who might receive librarians at their libraries are loth to keep their buildings open to later hours than are absolutely necessary. The Library Association shows no disposition to hold meetings and the President, whose hospitality made some pleasant gatherings possible last year, finds it impossible to extend that hospitality this winter. The suggestion that an occasional afternoon meeting might be held does not seem to have been made, but we hope it will be considered. At such a time as this we cannot afford to lose any opportunity for an exchange of ideas upon our work.