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The purpose of this paper is to make a specific attempt of historicizing outstanding academic leadership in the field of management history.

By using the biographical method and applying it to the material contained in Hodgetts's video interview of Wren and Bedeian's autobiography, the authors examine how outstanding management laureates, Wren and Bedeian, look back on their own lives and the people who influenced them.

The intellectual and institutional origins of their life stories are traced and the factors in Wren's and Bedeian's lives that might explain their pathways to becoming the US outstanding management historians as the Academy of Management Fellows are assessed.

The paper highlights the most outstanding achievements of the past in a manner that might be valuable when addressing the present day concerns about outstanding teaching and research in the field of management history.

The unique contribution of this study is its focus on showing how the manner in which outstanding management historians narrate the past may explain their present‐day achievements, and thus help readers understand that very past.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has provoked considerable debate. Initial expressions of CSR can be traced back to the seventeenth century. However, the ideal of socially responsible business was most evident after the depression of the 1930s and the post-war period in the 1950s. CSR was, by then, mainly influenced by values of philanthropy and principles of the welfare state, and mostly centred on corporations’ charitable donations which provided social welfare for materially deprived families and individuals. In the 1980s, there was a marked shift to the neoliberal ideals of profit maximisation and free regulation in corporate activities and this fed through into CSR practices. We argue that these conflicting ideals of CSR create divergent discourses where corporations on the one hand proclaim a lack of self-interest and a duty of care towards host societies, and on the other hand legitimise corporation’s self-interested preoccupation with profit. Divergent care versus profit discourses influence how legislators, CSR experts, corporations and NGOs understand and practise CSR in host societies. In this chapter, we examine how welfare and neoliberal ideologies contribute to divergent discourses of duty of care and profit, and how these discourses influence corporations’ decision-making about their social responsibility. The chapter concludes by proposing alternative ways for rethinking political and economic relationships between communities and corporations, in order to move beyond the limits of the current discourses of duty of care and profit.

It is a well known fact that bacteria play a large part in the success or failure of the satisfactory production of dairy products, but the role of yeasts and moulds should not be overlooked. These living organisms, commonly known as fungi, are the next higher form of life in the vegetable world after the bacteria stage. Their form of growth resembles the growth of plants in that they reproduce by budding, and their spores, analogous to the seeds of plants, are the means whereby many species propagate further generations. The yeast cell is much larger than the ordinary bacterium, so that it is possible to study them with the aid of much lower magnifications. When grown on solid media the yeasts give colonies not unlike those of bacteria except that the edges of the colonies are less defined, the colonies themselves project well above the surface of the media, and their surfaces are usually of a rough appearance. A good example of mould growth is that of the ordinary “green mould.”—Yeasts usually prefer to grow on the surface of liquids, and moulds are found to grow most vigourously on solid or semi‐solid media, such as meat, cheese, butter, etc. The growth of bacteria in the media hinders the simultaneous growth of the fungi, so that it is only after the media has become too acid for the growth of bacteria that yeasts and moulds are able to grow. In support of this theory it has been found that fungi will grow on the surface of sterile milk, but ordinary fresh milk containing bacteria is not a suitable media as the fungi cannot compete with the bacteria. It is found, therefore, that only bacteria proliferate in fresh milk. However, when milk has become sour bacterial growth is arrested, and it is then that mould growth becomes perceptible. The fungi tolerate a relatively large amount of acid. Media used for their cultivation is generally standardised to a ph of about 4.5. The optimum temperature for their growth is in the region of 75°–90° F. Some species will grow at 32° F., others even below this temperature. Low temperatures are not lethal to the fungi, so that when infected products are removed from cold storage growth may occur. The temperatures required to kill them and their spores generally falls between 130°–180° F. Most yeasts are killed at temperatures above 120° F., while their spores may have to be exposed to higher temperatures.

Fragile states (FS) are often neglected and categorized as “aid orphans”. In extreme circumstances, they are loaded with aid beyond their absorptive capacity. However, whether they receive little or too much, there is a compelling imperative to coordinate aid aimed at capacity development effectively. In an ever shrinking pot of funds from donors mainly due to the current global economic downturn, it is extremely important to coordinate and harmonise aid delivery. FS cannot afford to waste any money trapped under rubble of multi‐donor aid bureaucracy. Due to the multidimensional nature of fragility, we draw on case studies and interdisciplinary insights from Authority‐Legitimacy‐Capacity (ALC), Country Development Framework (CDF) and other models and frameworks of donor coordination. A number of asymmetries (e.g. technical, cultural and, financial) between donors and recipients need to be addressed. Donors can harmonise their respective Africa strategies reports and give priority to infrastructure instead of focusing exclusively on the social agenda as in the past. FS should fight the local culture of corruption, avoid fungibility, protect vulnerable groups in society, focus on reintegration as well as demobilizing ex‐combatants with employment provisions. Donors should not give mixed signals to recipients and need to be flexible in their operational procedures. Finally, we discuss the implications of key emerging issues that threaten or facilitate sustainable reconstruction, development and poverty reduction in post‐conflict environments.