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The main thrust of this contribution is to highlight technological forecasting techniques which have the greatest relevance to developing countries. The paper draws upon certain research findings concerning the casual connections between research, technological forecasting and the man‐development. Technological forecasting and the management of change are sophisticated and significant tools of managing in advanced nations. Technological change, in fact, is one of the most important dynamic factors responsible for economic growth and improvement of life style. Yet, “blue sky” and basic research and futures forecasting activities in the lesser developed countries and in the Third World generally are unimpressive, if not non‐existent. As a consequence, there is a bias toward solving problems and meeting the needs of advanced countries. Furthermore, research findings demonstrate that the technological gap between advanced and lesser developed countries continues to widen and the standards of living between the two sets of nations become more disparate. “Blue sky” and basic research and futures forecasting (the critical first steps in the research — innovation‐high‐living‐standard nexus) although risky, are low‐cost and therefore, can be taken by the LDC's.

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.

Introduction Most management by objectives (MBO) programmes feature a one‐on‐one dialogue between a subordinate and superior about individual goals and goal attainment. However, the emphasis on this two‐person relationship, the clarification of individual goals in hopes of enhanced motivation and performance and the review of individual performance against objectives may represent some lost opportunities for increasing organisational performance. In fact, it may at times be counter‐productive. Our purpose is to identify some elements missing from many MBO programmes, to review the history of group or team approaches to goal setting, to speculate on why one‐on‐one approaches dominate the literature on MBO, and to suggest conditions for making team approaches to MBO most useful.

The aim of this paper is to show that metaphors play an important role in the making of economics.

The paper’s discussion is situated within the framework of methodology of economics. It refers to recent studies on the role of metaphors in economics, as well as to the rhetoric – realism controversy (e.g. D. McCloskey versus U. Mäki).

The principal results of the paper are: the demonstration of the importance of metaphors in economics; and the claim that metaphors are not only used for rhetorical purposes but also serve as research tools indispensable in explaining economic phenomena. They are also essential in economic modeling.

The claim that economic models function as networks of metaphors needs further in-depth study, in particular drawing on insights from cognitive linguistics, where we find many interesting research projects currently underway, would be desirable.

The article contributes to the rhetoric – realism debate in economics. It adds some arguments to the literature claiming that rhetoric can be compatible with realism.

Computer corpus linguistics (CCL) is a scientific innovation that has facilitated the creation and analysis of large corpora in a systematic way by means of computer technology since the 1950s. This article provides an account of the CCL pioneers in general but particularly of those in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. It is found that Germany and Sweden, due to more advantageous financing and weaker communities of generativists, had a faster adoption of CCL than the other two countries. A particular late adopter among the four was Switzerland, which did not take up CCL until foreign professors had been recruited.

This paper aims to study the FinTech enterprises and the management theories related to this subject in a scientific way.

This study is a bibliometric study on FinTech enterprises. Its origin is a survey of 1,749 papers in 6 traditional peer-reviewed academic databases (e.g. Science Direct and Scopus) and in the “gray” literature, published by other agents and not subject to double-blind peer review. In this analysis we use three approaches: academic paper or not; journal main interest, and main purpose of the paper.

The first approach shows 45% of papers without blind review. The second approach shows no concentration on any journal. It represents no concentration on any kind of specific journal. And the third approach shows four kinds of contents in all researched papers: FinTech categorizations; FinTech related to theory of disruptive innovation; FinTech and theories of administration or economy; and finally, FinTech and regulatory and legislative aspects.

The findings identified the emergence of new research strands, precedence of studies of “gray” literature to explain the phenomenon, distribution of studies in different fields of knowledge (e.g. information technology, business and law) and lack of consensus in theories to explain the matter.

In reviewing the application of public service principles in the press, telecommunication and radio historically, the paper aims to identify struggles to develop alternatives that address limitations in state and commercially provided public services across a wide range of communication and cultural practices.

Taking a political economy of communication approach, a different view of public service is adopted as one that understands service as facilitating the making of communication and culture. The paper uses published and archival sources to identify such examples in Canadian history.

The paper suggests that the concept of public service has been restricted to thinking in a sender‐receiver model based on consumption and applied accordingly to different media which has limited potentials for democratic communication.

The paper provides a historical and reflexive view on public service in Canada across media and suggests that public service principles need to be grounded in democracy of, in and through communication as a potential guide to current policy decision‐making.

Fresh and short food supply chains in grocery quick commerce (q-grocery FSFSCs), while valued for swift delivery, face challenges in sustainability, resource efficiency and scalability. This study aims to redesign the last mile of q-grocery FSFSCs by identifying and validating a framework of applicable circular economy (CE) practices. Furthermore, the study assesses the impact of these practices across various sustainability dimensions to understand their level of contribution to sustainable livelihoods and supply chain resilience.

The study employs a multi-phase approach. First, an integrative literature review identifies CE practices and strategies. Second, a survey gathers data on the relationship between these practices and strategies and their impact on sustainability. Third, the framework is validated using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method in WarpPLS 8.0. Finally, k-means cluster analysis in Tableau 2019.4 groups CE practices based on their impact across five sustainability dimensions: environmental, economic, social, resource efficiency and scalability.

The study validates a framework and identifies high-impact CE practices, such as waste reduction, sustainable packaging, sustainable sourcing, route optimization, sustainable processes and customer convenience. Medium-impact practices include energy efficiency, sustainable fleet, resale and redistribution and information flow. Low-impact practices cover composting, reverse logistics and appropriate storage.

The findings assist q-grocery companies to adopt CE practices and strategies that support sustainable livelihoods and strengthen supply chain resilience while offering policymakers guidance to promote circularity.

This study is unique in the exploration of the intersection of quick commerce, FSFSCs and CE principles, providing actionable insights for sustainability in the q-grocery industry.