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This case investigation used firsthand statements, reports, testimony and regulatory records. While widely publicized in the popular press, this case is based on primary documents. On their website, many documents were obtained from Wells Fargo’s Corporate newsroom, such as the internal audit report shared with shareholders and press releases. Most other sources were from US regulatory websites (.gov) or congressional testimony. In a few places, quotes and comments came from reliable journalistic sites that cite their sources and follow a journalist’s code of ethics and conduct, ensuring that the reported remarks and data were verified.

Since 2016, Wells Fargo Bank has faced multiple customer mistreatment investigations and resultant fines. Public outcry and distrust resulted from Wells Fargo employees creating hidden accounts and enrolling people in bank services without their knowledge to meet desired levels of sustained shareholder growth. Over the past five years, Wells Fargo has been fined and returned to customers and stockholders over $3bn. Wells Fargo executives spent the first year of the scandal citing improper behavior by employees. Leadership did not take responsibility for setting the organizational goals, which led to employee misbehavior. Even after admitting some culpability in creating the extreme sales culture, executives and the Board of Directors tried to distance themselves from blame for the unethical behavior. They cited the organizations’ decentralized structure as a reason the board was not quicker in seeing and correcting the negative behaviors of these ‘bad apple’ employees. Wells Fargo faced multiple concurrent scandals, such as upselling services to retirees, inappropriately repossessing service members’ vehicles, adding insurance and extra fees to mortgages and other accounts and engaging in securities fraud. As time has passed, the early versions of a handful of “bad apples” seem to be only a part of the overall “poison tree.”The dilemma, in this case, is who is responsible for the misbehavior and the inappropriate sales of products and services (often without the customer’s knowledge)? Is strategic growth year-over-year with no allowances for environmental and economic factors a realistic and reasonable goal for corporations? This case is appropriate for undergraduates and graduate students in finance, human resources, management, accounting and investments.

An active case-based learning pedagogical approach is suggested. The materials include a short podcast, video and other materials to allow the faculty to assign pre-class work or to use in the classroom before a case discussion.

Diversity has increasingly become a “hot‐button” issue in corporate, political, and legal arenas. While many organizations have embraced diversity, others still consider it merely an issue of compliance with legal requirements. Effective diversity management has historically been used to provide a legally defensive position; that is, a firm with a diverse workforce could argue that they were not guilty of discrimination because of the prima facie case based on their workforce demographics representing the demographics of the local community. However, in more recent years, the view of diversity has dramatically changed to a more proactive concept.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between employee perceptions of diversity within the senior management, management and non‐management levels of their organizations and their perceptions of organizational performance.

Surveys were administered to 391 managers or professionals in 130 organizations located in the southeastern United States to determine their perceptions of diversity and performance within their organizations.

Regression analysis found strong support for the hypothesis that employee perceptions of diversity at the senior management level of an organization is positively related to perceptions of organizational performance. Likewise, there was support for the hypothesis that employee perceptions of diversity at the non‐manager level were positively related to perceptions of organizational performance.

The current study was based strictly on perceptual measures. Future research could also consider the use of more objective measures of diversity to gauge any potential differences between perception and reality. Considering that the sample was drawn strictly from the southeastern US, the conclusions may not be applicable to other cultures in other parts of the world.

Organizations need to be sure that they focus on initiatives that have a positive influence on employee perceptions of diversity within the ranks of senior management and non‐management.

This research sheds new light on the importance of employee perceptions of diversity within the various levels of employees in their organizations and organizational performance.

We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.

Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.

This review explores the parallels between the characteristics of learning organizations and the characteristics of ethical organizations.

A review of the literature was conducted to examine the characteristics of learning organizations and those that encourage and support ethical behavior.

There are significant parallels between the characteristics of learning organizations and those of ethical organizations. These include leadership, culture, communication, systems thinking, and problem-solving orientation, which are important in creating learning organizations and in encouraging ethical behavior. These parallels encourage social network stimulation, acceptance of new ideas, open discussion, the ability to disagree without rancor, a lessening of hierarchy, employees seeing themselves as part of a larger whole. All of these elements create an environment wherein organizational members are able to contend with and resolve ethical problems.

When endeavoring to foster an ethical organizational environment, managers can be aware of the benefits of creating a learning organization, as the two correspond closely. Additionally, managers in learning organizations can leverage this capacity to enhance ethical decision making and behavior.

Research on learning organizations has often centered on their value in encouraging innovation and on strategies for implementing the changes needed to establish them. This paper identifies and discusses the parallels between the characteristics of learning organizations and ethical organizations. This is an area that has not been directly explored in the extant literature.

Although it is widely acknowledged that health care delivery systems are complex adaptive systems, there are gaps in understanding the application of systems engineering approaches to systems analysis and redesign in the health care domain. Commonly employed methods, such as statistical analysis of risk factors and outcomes, are simply not adequate to robustly characterize all system requirements and facilitate reliable design of complex care delivery systems. This is especially apparent in institutional-level systems, such as patient safety programs that must mitigate the risk of infections and other complications that can occur in virtually any setting providing direct and indirect patient care. The case example presented here illustrates the application of various system engineering methods to identify requirements and intervention candidates for a critical patient safety problem known as failure to rescue. Detailed descriptions of the analysis methods and their application are presented along with specific analysis artifacts related to the failure to rescue case study. Given the prevalence of complex systems in health care, this practical and effective approach provides an important example of how systems engineering methods can effectively address the shortcomings in current health care analysis and design, where complex systems are increasingly prevalent.

The dismissal of the ordinary and the embrace of chaos are characteristics of the thriller which has, over the last decade, accounted for nearly 25 percent of the best‐seller market. In spite of its existential overtones, the thriller, with rare exceptions, is seldom viewed as quality fiction, yet is not generally classified as genre fiction with attendant categorization by libraries and bookstores. Readers of thrillers in pursuit of authors must either search through the general fiction or “mystery” shelves where thrillers are sometimes placed. However, the latter solution offends both mystery and thriller readers.

This annotated list represents a selection of outstanding poetry titles published in the USA in 2003 and the early part of 2004.

The authors selected the titles in this list from the 2,100 titles received for the 2004 Poetry Publications Showcase at Poets House in New York City, held in April 2004.

The authors selected titles for this list that would be both accessible and challenging to library users.

This list can be used as a guide to collection development for contemporary poetry.