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The actual success or failure of a product is measurable partially in terms of the commercial success of the organization producing it. Addresses how to estimate that success at the concept stage of the design process, prior to detailed design, when there is not yet a physical artefact, and no definite knowledge of how the market will respond to it, but simply some representation of it, for example, design drawings and 3‐D models. Describes a method for approaching this problem by establishing attributes (in “user terms”) which a product must have to enable it to achieve success. Presents an example of a toothbrush, determines the measurable attributes required from this product and describes methods for their evaluation.

Unclaimed property is an important part of state government operations, yet very little research has been conducted on the function of returning unclaimed property to owners or the related public administration operation of unclaimed property. The purpose of this paper is to offer an exploratory study of unclaimed property in the USA and the factors that influence management.

The authors use Agency Theory to examine the role of unclaimed property in state government budgeting and operations. The data consisted of a 2011 survey of state unclaimed property agencies, which was utilized for a regression model.

Results showed: type of uniform code used to govern unclaimed property; and presence and size of marketing staff in the agency had a significant relationship with extent of property returned to owners.

This is the first comprehensive study on how state governments manage unclaimed property. This study can provide practitioners, policymakers, and researchers with a better insight into unclaimed property management.

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.

The discussion about public sector performance is still present today, despite the profound research that has already tried to address this subject. Furthermore, theory links negative effects on organizational performance with increased levels of organizational complexity. However, literature thus far did not succeed to put forward a successful theory that explains why and how public organizations became increasingly complex. To answer this question, we argue that increased organizational complexity can be explained by viewing public organizations as the hybrid result of different institutional logics, which are shaped by various management views. However, former research mainly concentrated on the separate study of management views such as traditional public management (TPM), NPM, and post-NPM. Although appealing, research that approaches hybridity from this perspective is fairly limited.

We conducted a literature review in which we studied 80 articles about traditional public management, NPM, and post-NPM.

We found that these management views essentially differ on the base of three fault lines, depending on the level of the organizational culture. These fault lines, according to the management view, together result in nine dimensions. By combing dimensions of the different management views, we argue that a public organization becomes hybrid. Furthermore, in line with findings of contingency theory, we explain the level of hybridity might depend on the level of tight coupling for a given organization. Finally, we developed propositions that explain hybridity as the result of isomorphic forces, organizational change, and organizational resistance to change and that link hybridization with processes of selective coupling.

The value of this chapter lies in its real-life applicability.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

The most highly qualified occupational group, comprising individuals who work primarily in activities involving high levels of technical and organisational skills, is focused on. It is a group which, overall, has shown remarkable growth in recent years. Certain specialisms, such as IT skills, experienced relatively buoyant labour markets which even transcended the effects of the last major recession. In the main, such skills were associated with unusual demand conditions, caused, for example, by the diffusion of microelectronics and by the changes in company organisation and management. Since the recession, specific skill shortages have been transformed into more general shortfalls. Demand for individuals with high levels of formal education and training is expected to continue growing. Supply is not expected to keep pace, a situation which will be aggravated by the downturn in the youth cohort. There are other significant events on the horizon which make the market outcome more uncertain, such as the movement to the Single European Market in 1992, although none of these factors seems likely to reverse the conclusion of persistent shortages.

Considers the optimal training decisions of firms and individuals, and provides a number of reasons why there may be underinvestment in the market for training. Reflects on the individual′s decision to invest in training in the context of dynamic labour supply theories. This is combined with a model of the firm′s decision‐making process to provide a “market for training” in which wage‐training‐employment contracts are determined.

Based on revenge theory and the three objectives of social interaction theory of aggression, the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to answer why and when a subordinate’s own behaviour instigates abuse at the workplace. In particular, the authors argue that subordinate gossip behaviour instils in supervisors a thought of revenge towards that subordinate, which, in turn, leads to abusive supervision. Specifically, this hypothesised relationship is augmented when the supervisor feels close to the gossiper (i.e. psychological proximity).

The authors conducted two independent studies to test the moderated mediation model, which collectively investigate why and when subordinate gossip behaviour provokes abusive supervision in the workplace. A lagged study (i.e. Study 1: 422 supervisors and subordinates) in a large retail company and an experience sampling study (i.e. Study 2: 96 supervisors and subordinates with 480 daily surveys) in multiple organisations provide support for the moderated mediation model.

The two-study (i.e. a lagged study and an experience sampling study) findings support the integrated model, which has mainly focussed on instrumental consideration of abusive supervision that influences the supervisor–subordinate relationship.

The two-study investigation has important and meaningful implications for abusive supervision research because it determines that subordinate gossip behaviour is more threating to a supervisor when the subordinate and the supervisor are psychological close to each other than when they are not. That is because when they are close, the supervisor is not expecting gossip behaviour from the subordinate, thus giving rise to an abusive workplace.

Develops an original 12‐step management of technology protocol and applies it to 51 applications which range from Du Pont’s failure in Nylon to the Single Online Trade Exchange for Auto Parts procurement by GM, Ford, Daimler‐Chrysler and Renault‐Nissan. Provides many case studies with regards to the adoption of technology and describes seven chief technology officer characteristics. Discusses common errors when companies invest in technology and considers the probabilities of success. Provides 175 questions and answers to reinforce the concepts introduced. States that this substantial journal is aimed primarily at the present and potential chief technology officer to assist their survival and success in national and international markets.

Over the past decade, the U.S. workforce has become increasingly diverse. In response, scholars and practitioners have sought to uncover ways to leverage this increasing diversity to enhance business performance. To date, research evidence has failed to provide consistent support for the value of diversity to organizational effectiveness. Accordingly, scholars have shifted their attention to diversity management as a means to fully realize the potential benefits of diversity in organizations. The principal aim of this chapter is to review the current wisdom on the study of diversity climate in organizations. Defined as the extent that employees view an organization as utilizing fair personnel practices and socially integrating all personnel into the work environment, diversity climate has been proposed as a catalyst for unlocking the full value of diversity in organizations. During our review, we discuss the existent individual- and aggregate-level research, describe the theoretical foundations of such work, summarize the key research findings and themes gleaned from work in each domain, and note the limitations of diversity climate research. Finally, we highlight the domains of uncertainty regarding diversity climate research, and offer recommendations for future work that can enhance knowledge of diversity climate effects on organizational outcomes.