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This article looks at the often complex and enduring relationships between wayfarers (itinerant homeless men) and religious and therapeutic communities, with an eye to examining some of the ways in which such ‘outsider’ organisations embody forms of support and care that in many important respects deviate from traditional night‐shelters and mainstream day‐centres. It aims to achieve this task in four steps. First, the defining characteristics (endurance, mobility, rurality, work) of wayfaring are described. Then I consider how vow‐based communities enable wayfarers, seeking a rest on their journey's way, to experience (albeit temporarily) feelings of acceptance and expressions of hospitality. Next, I illustrate some of these themes with a discussion that draws on ethnographic research undertaken at Pilsdon Manor, a Christian community in rural West Dorset that offers a refuge to people in crisis, and which has been materially and spiritually sustained by 50 years of close engagement with wayfarers. Fourth and last, the article points to topics that might be elaborated upon in future research on the culture of wayfaring and alternative homeless service providers.

Electric Utility Diversification and Efficient Capital Markets Over 60% of investor owned electric utilities have experimented with diversification into lines of business other than the traditional generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. They diversify for a variety of reasons, but a primary goal is to improve their overall financial performance. Existing studies have found that diversified utilities outperform non‐diversified utilities. Measures of performance have included EPS growth, price‐earnings multiples, market‐book ratios and internal rates of return. However, many of these studies do not compare performance on a risk‐adjusted basis nor indicate whether differences are statistically significant. In contrast, this study compares performance using the efficient market hypothesis. Regression results indicate that there is no significant difference in risk between portfolios comprised of diversified utilities and non‐diversified utilities. Furthermore, no significant difference in return was observed. The performance of the two portfolios does not appear to differ in risk or return. These results tend to support the efficient market hypothesis concerning stockholders' inability to gain an advantage from publicly available information. Differences in company performance that are anticipated and already reflected in stock price do not result in differences in returns to stockholders.

Describes the history and activities of the Crime Writers′ Association, highlighting various awards, and recent winners. Details the CWA Spare Copy Catalogue Scheme, whereby authors′ spare copies of their own books are made available for purchase by libraries when those books are out of print.

A Nation at Risk, the National Commission on Excellence in Education report, has captured the interest of the educational community as well as the nation as a whole. Educational journals, along with many popular periodicals, are full of reports and analyses of its recommendations. Many state education departments, agencies, and boards have also become involved in writing their own “States at Risk” reports. In light of all this activity, it seems appropriate to take a closer look at A Nation at Risk, especially those related reports issued as a result of the original document.

Purpose — This study assesses the effectiveness of initiatives by expatriate employees of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T, popularly referred to as the ‘Bell System’11The use of the term ‘Bell System’ as a synonym for AT&T reflected the firm's initial dependency on the exploitation of the telephone patents of Alexander Graham Bell. The Bell System consisted of AT&T, a holding company, and its affiliates including The Bell Telephone Laboratories (research), Western Electric (manufacturing) and 13 regional telephone operating subsidiaries.) in the revival of the Japan's telecommunications system and allied industries after World War II.

Methodology — Our primary methodology involves historical analysis of archival resources for AT&T and the Civil Communications Section (CCS) of the Supreme Command Allied Powers (SCAP), the American occupation government agency responsible for advising Japanese government and industry during the period 1945–1950.

Findings — Before the war, the Bell System maintained strong direct connections in Japan. AT&T's influence during the occupation, however, was indirect: knowledge dissemination through the activities of the CCS, which had several employees on loan from the Bell System.

Research limitations/implications — While our sample of organisations seems narrow and the duration of time relatively brief, the Bell System's people made a tremendous impact: transforming the Japanese telecommunications system. This suggests that guidance and tutelage by expatriate experts may enable host countries to master best practices rapidly without incurring high costs of evolutionary development.

Social implications — Local social mores and differences in workforce educational attainment may temporarily impede the acceptance of new foreign approaches to management and administration.

Value of the chapter — This chapter demonstrates how firm-specific and proprietary knowledge built up over decades at one firm could, through the agency of expatriates, revolutionise in just a few years the basic approaches followed in another country's telecommunications industry.

[There are thousands of lists of books on special subjects, and nothing more is attempted here than to indicate the most useful. For other lists and bibliographies, reference must be made to the works in Section I. The catalogues of special libraries and the numerous lists of books on special subjects contributed to professional magazines must also be sought for there.]

This paper reports the results of an empirical study of the determinants of capital structure of large Latin American companies. Variations with regard to the country, industry, and size of a company are examined for a sample of two hundred and thirty large companies located in twentytwo Latin American countries. This study is the first to examine the capital structures of this large set of Latin American companies. The results of this study indicate that while size does not seem to be significant, both country and industry are significant determinants of capital structure in Latin America not only in bivariate tests but also in multivariate statistical tests. Multinational and diversified companies, therefore, cannot assume uniformity of capital structure across countries and industries in Latin America and, they must take these differences into account in developing and setting capital structure, financing, evaluation, and management policies for their subsidiaries.

The purpose of this paper is to present coaching opportunities and applications in the workplace as well as to point out that organizations that want to leverage the benefits of coaching must be mature enough to have certain processes and practices in place. A further purpose of this paper is to gain some insight regarding several critical success factors are not well understood by organizations and to identify possible areas for improvement for them.

The authors first presents the environment in which coaching was developed, from which disciplines was it affected, and how it was shaped into its current form. Then the authors focus on coaching used as a business development tool and critical factors that play an important role in the effectiveness of coaching from the organizations’ side are presented. The paper ends with some qualitative conclusions.

The value that organizations realize form coaching is proportional to the quality of coaching delivered. Organizations that invest in quality coaches, have, themselves, a clear understanding of what coaching really is and actively support coaching initiatives at every aspect of coaching’s procedure, can reap the greatest benefits from it.

Several studies have been conducted to determine the organization-dependent factors that affect coaching and the quality of the result. However, do date it has not been highlighted that organizations that want to leverage the benefits of coaching must be mature enough to have certain processes and practices in place. Furthermore, possible areas for improvement for companies are identified regarding several critical success factors that are not well understood by them.