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The paper presents design details and applications of the recently developed 3‐D laser radar from Z+F. It presents models which have been constructed using the data from “inspection of tunnel tubes”, modelling of a “car body welding cell” and a “car body gripper” in the automotive industry as well as a “chemical process plant”. The laser radar was developed for use in industrial environments. Its twin design aims are measurement performance and robustness. The laser radar can be used with a range of mechanical beam deflection units to meet the needs of specific applications.

In a recent issue of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Blake strongly criticised an article on organisational change by Blumberg and Wiener for the authors' failure thoroughly to review the literature and for missing important material relevant to their study. In response, Blumberg simply stated that they were not aware of the material, because it had appeared in a relatively obscure journal. Indeed, a later writer (Zurcher) criticised one of Blake's papers on the same grounds, and then suggested that an event such as this might easily happen to any of us. Despite their apparent conflict, each of these individuals did agree, of course, that a thorough review of the literature on any given topic is necessary to good research and reporting. Our purpose here is not to pour salt on wounds, but rather to illustrate our raison d'être for presenting the material below.

The literature on post-completion reviews (PCRs) either does not deal with the tying of PCRs to extrinsic rewards or provides scant theoretical reasoning or empirical analysis to back up its recommendations.

Based on research from psychology and empirical studies, the present chapter proposes that several effects of a PCR, which must be deemed rather dysfunctional, will increase when extrinsic rewards are linked to such a review. At the same time some possibly functional effects, however, are likely to remain constant. The propositions, therefore, call the usefulness of tying PCRs to rewards into question and call for further investigation.

An extensive literature search was conducted to better understand and to dispel the current stereotypes in the workplace regarding Generation X and Baby Boomers. For the purpose of the article Generation X consisted of those born between 1961 and 1981, while Baby Boomers consisted of those born between 1943 and 1960. The purpose of this article was to use an exhaustive review of eclectic/multidisciplinary literature to address six commonly held myths presented by Paul and Townsend (1993). Furthermore, it was intended to examine empirical research gathered by a literature review of the stereotypes in the workplace, to better understand the profiles and factors that motivate the Baby Boomers and Generation X, in conjunction with the following independent variables: age, productivity, motivation, training, and mentoring and job satisfaction. Selected hypotheses were tested suggesting Generation Xers are more productive, more motivated, easily trainable and exhibit higher job satisfaction levels as compared to Baby Boomers. Results were convergent and divergent in several cases worth noting. It is important for organizations to recognize the limitations that stereotypes create in the workplace. As was demonstrated by the varied research, Baby Boomers and Generation Xers are not dissimilar as employees; they possess more similarities than differences. Organizations need to engineer/design an environment of respect for both groups to create synergies between them to build and maintain a productive workforce.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out among market sellers in Equatorial Guinea’s capital Malabo at the height of its oil-boom in 2010–2012, this paper explores how prices were negotiated and set. It describes how the marketplace constitutes an important institution in Guinean society, not only as a site for provisioning, but also as a space for fostering relationships, engaging in politics and seeking social justice. The case of Equatorial Guinea helps us to re-think the notion of the just price as it is established through contingent and negotiated relations between traders, their customers and powerful political actors, rather than being the outcome of supply and demand or the result of struggles over the production and reproduction of labour. The emphasis on the political dimension of the just price speaks to key debates in the moral economy literature.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an epistemological vantage point for theory development in the case of strategic leadership, an emerging focus of scholarly attention in strategic management.

The authors invoke Rescher's epistemological platform for making the case, Rescher being one of the most influential philosophers in the USA.

The analysis suggests that since strategic leadership differs from supervisory leadership, both on organizational reach and incorporation of external elements, defining the strategic leadership problem exclusively as a difference in context – what Weick referred to as a strategy of knowledge growth by extension – is likely to prove unproductive. Rescher's platform can be put to use for specifying the two critical though inter‐related epistemological challenges in the beginning of the theory development project: the choice of concepts, and the type of relations among the concepts. These epistemological challenges may be reframed as opportunities to capture the phenomenal variety embedded in these concepts, and to deploy a diversity of approaches to examine their correspondence.

Contending and complementary views on strategic leadership, and hence concepts representing alternate views should be allowed. Bridges should be built between islands of scholarship, but these bridges are likely to be found in special issues of journals (devoted deliberately to nurture multiple perspectives), edited books and invited conferences.

Engagement with “strategic” leaders is an epistemological necessity for both theoretical and pragmatic reasons.

This paper demonstrates how epistemology can strengthen theory building in the case of strategic leadership. Given the signal importance of this phenomenon, good theories and, therefore, epistemological challenges should occupy a central stage of discussions in this early stage.

This chapter examines the economics of alternative healing in Brazil.

Two narratives are selected from extensive observations and interviews over a period of years. The presentation chronicles the accounts of people experiencing physical symptoms who sought further advice from friends and relatives after visits to conventional medical providers failed to cure them.

In response to a recommendation from one of those consulted, one person went to a spirit “received” by a Kardecist/Spiritist healer-medium while the other obtained treatment from an otherworldly being at an Umbanda center. The respective “therapeutic” procedures are described and analyzed in terms of the beliefs and the worldviews of each of the traditions. If satisfied with the outcome, the patient fulfills an implicit bargain with the otherworldly being(s) and its religious group by adopting their beliefs and practices. This conversion is “payment” for the healing services rendered.

Since some treatments are successful and others are not, the implications of this exchange is that many Brazilians may change their religions several times during their lifespan. As a result of this behavior individuals circulate among the several religious groups that are always in competition with each other.

The analysis provides a distinctive insight into, and original way to understand, alternative health care in Brazil.

This chapter examines Karl Polanyi's critique of formalism in economics and his case for a more institutional economics based upon a reconstitution of the facts of economic life on as wide an historical basis as possible. The argument below reviews Polanyi's argument with regard to the relation between economic anthropology and comparative economics, the contrast between the formalist and substantive approaches to economic analysis, the notion of an economistic fallacy, the most important limitations of the conventional formalist economics approach, and the nature and import of the new departure that Polanyi envisioned.

Discusses research related to the establish‐ment of technology parks in general, and in particular the technology park of King Mongkut’s University of Technology in Thailand. Uniquely in Thailand, this involved the university library, which gave rise to a number of key questions addressed in the project: Is there any role for the library in such a collaboration? What are the information needs and the information‐seeking behaviour of tenant staff members? What kind of information services could be offered to them? The main objective of the research was to develop a suitable model for a Thai university library in information provision to tenant firms in the first Thai technology park. This model, based on Australian data, was fine‐tuned to meet local Thai social and economic conditions.

The primary intent of this research was to determine whether the perceived importance of various rewards is influenced by the career stage of sales managers. This study found that sales managers in different career stages have distinct intrinsic and extrinsic reward preferences that may ultimately affect motivation and productivity. Although several statistically significant differences in intrinsic and extrinsic reward preferences were discerned, some reward perceptions were found to be uniform regardless of sales manager career stage. Sales management implications, limitations, and directions for future research are offered.