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This paper looks at the potential for developing customer relationship strategies using the Internet (electronic customer relationship management) (ECRM) with particular relevance for SMEs. Its basis is in qualitative research and it attempts to integrate the two Internet technologies of the Web and e‐mail into a push‐pull strategy. Aspects of “control” of the message in ECRM are examined and in particular whether democratic e‐communities have a part to play for companies looking to improve their ECRM. In arriving at some conclusions, regarding the implications for commercial organisations, draws on published work in the educational arena. The implications may be particularly important for the SME sector. The paper examines why e‐mail and in particular asynchronous text messaging and conferencing are likely to dominate over other technologies such as chat and video conferencing. Communication paradigms used in television and print publishing have been mapped across on to the Web. The resulting “push‐pull” strategy is determined as the most effective way of harnessing the power of e‐mail with Web‐publishing to develop some aspects of a sound ECRM policy. The strategy involves the development of the Web site as a way of capturing opt‐in subscribers (the pull) who receive proactive outbound communications, and managing that e‐mail address list proactively (the push).

This chapter examines similarities in government policies that have accelerated and privatized the extraction of offshore oil, coal, and oil sands on public lands in the United States and Canada, as well as the arguments used to justify those policies. Sociologist William Freudenburg argued that the diversion of public resources into private hands was made possible by a second diversion, the diversion of attention. Freudenburg, with Gramling, later applied this concept to U.S. offshore oil leases, noting that when it came to offshore oil, the myth of “energy independence” was often used to justify policies that were actually antithetical to the concept, promoting further dependence on fossil fuels. We extend the double diversion concept from offshore oil to U.S. coal and Alberta oil sands, noting the similarities in both the policy changes and the diversionary frameworks. The frameworks also divert attention from the increasing risks associated with energy extraction.

Corruption was ranked among the top five biggest obstacles affecting the operation of enterprises in Africa and was rated as a severe obstacle by close to 40 percent of firms in the sample. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corruption and firm level productivity.

This paper uses the Enterprise Survey Data Set of the World Bank and employs an instrumental variable (IV) approach to deal with the potential endogeneity of corruption in a productivity equation. The authors use industry-country averages of the bribe tax and time tax as well as a dummy of female ownership as IVs.

Using three different measures of corruption, the authors find evidence that corruption “sands the wheels of commerce” and hence dampens firm-level productivity even when the endogeneity of corruption is controlled for. The authors find no evidence to support the trade-off between bribe payments and the red tape suggesting that government officials deliberately use bureaucracy as a mechanism of trapping the most productive firms that can afford to pay higher bribes. Hence this study lends no support to the “greasing” hypothesis.

The results thus suggest that in the second best choice environment firms are still not better off paying bribes rather mitigating corruption could be ideal. Therefore alongside existing regulatory corruption mitigants in the respective African countries, the paper suggests that government through public information dissemination ought to enlighten firms that corruption is not productivity enhancing. Thus firms are better-off evading corruption tendencies than propagating them.

The contribution to empirical literature is that much of the empirical studies have overly concentrated on Europe and Asia and with very limited evidence available for African countries. Therefore in terms of extending the work of McAuthar and Teal (2002) and Fisman and Svensson (2007), the authors argue that by using a new data set stretching from 2006 to as recent as 2017 the paper is rightly placed to make an empirical contribution about the relationship between corruption and firm-level productivity.

Gives an in depth view of the strategies pursued by the world’s leading chief executive officers in an attempt to provide guidance to new chief executives of today. Considers the marketing strategies employed, together with the organizational structures used and looks at the universal concepts that can be applied to any product. Uses anecdotal evidence to formulate a number of theories which can be used to compare your company with the best in the world. Presents initial survival strategies and then looks at ways companies can broaden their boundaries through manipulation and choice. Covers a huge variety of case studies and examples together with a substantial question and answer section.

Landscapes bear potential as heritage resources, unifying natural and cultural history that can be experienced today in special preserved areas. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Geoarchaeological investigation 2006-2011 explored this potential at the Ritidian Unit of Guam National Wildlife Refuge.

As experienced today, the Ritidian landscape heritage embodies the complex outcomes of a 3,500-year record of ecology and evolution.

A long-term perspective of unified natural-cultural history will increase scientific accuracy and enhance visitor experience of landscapes of heritage resources.

Sustainable development of landscape heritage can occur most successfully in cases of thorough research in areas of protected and managed ecosystems with reasonable public access.

The detailed results in this case may serve as a model example for other studies and programmes developing landscapes as heritage resources.

This article is based on the first three of a series of seminars offered by the Association of Teachers of Management on the theme ‘New Developments in Management Development’. Held early in 1980, these were ‘Management Development in Context’ by Mel Berger and Bruce Nixon; ‘Re‐evaluation Counselling Theory and Practice in Management Development’ by Mike Simmons and Rosemary Brennan and, finally, ‘Bioenergetics’ by Ian Ratcliffe. The series was arranged by Bruce Nixon, a member of ATM's executive. Employed by Sun Alliance Insurance as a training manager, his particular interest is to develop ways of helping managers improve their performance that really work. Recently he introduced a successful management development programme in Sun Alliance which drew on research and developments in this area. Acknowledgement is made to Mel Berger, Mike Simmons, Rosemary Brennan and Ian Ratcliffe for their ideas and their permission to bring these ideas together in this article.

Epidemiologists are concerned the next deadly global cognition will be a new kind of deadly flu which humans have no resistance. Since the 1960s, their alarm has been focused on a bird (avian) virus (H5N1). This virus is generally harmless in its host species, but it is extremely deadly when contracted by humans. H5N1 mutates quickly and tends to pick up genes from flu viruses that affect other species. The flu is far more contagious and harder to contain than the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus. It is projected that 30‐40 per cent of the population would be infected in a H5N1 flu pandemic, and as many as one‐third would die. The 1918 Spanish flu caused 20 to 50 million deaths world wide. One scientist observed that the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic could have caused civilisation to disappear within a few weeks. Currently, more than 50 million chickens have been slaughtered in eight Asian countries in efforts to curb the spread of avian influenza. This article examines the roots and dangers of the potential avian influenza pandemic, examining the business and social ramifications that could ensue if the worst case scenario occurs.

Whilst academic research can capture an existing sense of place, the act of placemaking through strategies such as events depends upon the attitudes and actions of precinct managers and event organisations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the collaborative research process between researchers and a precinct manager that highlighted an event’s ability to contribute to placemaking within that precinct.

Using the results of this event experience study, informal interviews with the SPA research partners, secondary data and a longitudinal, reflective account of the research collaboration, the research process itself was investigated to see how it assisted in the (re)design of the event within the precinct manager’s placemaking strategy to encourage a family-friendly, beach-centred culture within the precinct.

It is proposed that the research results combined with a collaborative research process itself facilitated a shift from the business imperative on the event’s economic performance indicators to a broader discussion of the event’s role in shaping local’s (and visitor’s) perceptions of place, and allowed a broader discussion of the role of events in driving a “liveability” and/or placemaking agenda, complementing the economic impact agenda, for the precinct manager.

The paper suggests how and why it is important for academics to work collaboratively with precinct managers to translate the concept of placemaking into the actual design of events within a place. To do so requires the researchers to bridge the gap between theory and practice. For the concept to be translated into action, greater attention was drawn to the placemaking role of events, positioning it along economic impact measures as a valuable outcome of events.

Few co-authored studies, representing both researchers and practitioners exist within the events sector, and this study contributes towards understanding process of research impact, by considering the forces capable of delivering a placemaking agenda through a precinct’s event portfolio.