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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the practice of casting celebrity performers in London West End theatres. The paper uses the literature on celebrity to explore the impact that casting a celebrity has on the London theatre audience.

The pervasiveness of celebrity culture forms the background and starting point for this research. In the first phase, theatre managers, directors and producers were interviewed to explore their views on the practice of celebrity casting. In the second phase, an audience survey was conducted. The approach taken is exploratory and is intended to illuminate the conditions under which a successful celebrity-focused strategy can be constructed.

A distinction between fame and celebrity was drawn by both theatre professionals and audiences, with celebrity status being seen as something that is created by media exposure and being in the public eye. This is in contrast to fame, which is earned by being famous for something, or some achievement. Theatre audiences are more likely to be attracted by celebrities who have theatrical expertise and not by someone known simply through film, television or the all-pervasive gossip columns. Celebrities with a background in theatre and film were seen to strongly draw audiences to the theatre, as opposed to those with a background in reality TV shows, search-for-a-star shows or for being half of a famous couple.

The paper is focused on the theatre and makes an original contribution to the current discussion of the power wielded by celebrities. It is the first empirical research on this aspect of the theatre business. Its contribution lies in understanding audience members’ interpretation and understanding of celebrity to ascertain the extent to which they perceive celebrities as credible to perform theatre. This is based on a differentiation between their mediated fame and expertise. It is helpful and useful information for producers when deciding whether or not to cast a celebrity and to which audiences that the celebrity might appeal.

This paper is a contribution to the literature on the branding of cultural institutions. In particular it focuses on visitor motivation in the field of museums and galleries. Measurement of visitor motivations and associated brand strength of cultural institutions is a relatively new concern for marketers. The need to develop further understanding of how best to market museums in the twenty‐first century motivates this research. Repertory grid analysis was used as the survey method in order to get data that were “rich” in terms of concepts, but also malleable in terms of statistical analysis. The results of an exploratory study of museum brand associations are reported, along with a discussion of the method of repertory grid analysis that was used to obtain the data. A total of 11 museums in London were targeted, with a special focus on the Tate Gallery.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the coverage of identified topics that represent three key themes of change in management practice. These themes, focused on the new interconnected modern business operation, consist of: cross‐functional or process‐based working, supply networks, and systems thinking. The paper seeks to examine the coverage of these themes in operations journals as a proxy to determine how well the academic operations community is adapting to the interconnected business world.

Two separate lists compiled to rank the quality of operations journals (one based in the UK, the other in the USA) are used to structure a search for keywords representing the identified connectivity themes in the identified “top” leading operations journals to determine how well the different topics are covered. The term “operations” is intended to refer to the related specialities of both operations management and operations research.

Findings indicate overall very weak coverage of the three connectivity topics. Systems thinking was best represented. However, this representation was not in operations management journals but predominantly operations research sources. Both supply network and cross‐functional working were poorly represented as topics more generally. The implication of the findings is that the operations literature has yet to embrace key issues of connectivity and greater attention should therefore be paid to these areas to better inform business practice.

To the best of one's knowledge no such study of this type or breadth has been previously conducted.

The aim of this review and of the papers in this special issue is to critically examine different approaches to teaching operations management (OM) in order to provoke and stimulate educators within the discipline.

The papers within this special issue include empirical assessments of a problem‐based learning enterprise resource planning (ERP) simulation; a computer‐based learning tool for material requirements planning (MRP); a simulation of assembly operations; an operations strategy innovation game; an extension of the production dice game; an experiential teaching method in different class settings; and problem‐based assessment methods in OM. A variety of data are used to support these empirical studies, including survey, interview, and observational data.

The papers within the special issue support the argument that OM is well‐suited to more applied methods of teaching focusing on the application of subject knowledge to real‐life situations through a variety of techniques.

It is hoped that this review and the papers within this special issue act to stimulate educators to re‐evaluate their approaches to teaching OM and encourage them to consider adopting experiential teaching methods, business simulations, role‐plays, group exercises, live cases, and virtual learning environments, instead of, or in addition to, the more conventional lectures that typically dominate many OM modules around the world.

A special issue on teaching OM appears timely given the significant changes to both the university landscape and to the nature of the discipline that we have witnessed over the last quarter of a century.

This paper aims to examine the preferences of students towards different teaching methods and the perceived effectiveness of experiential teaching methods in different operations management (OM) modules.

Student perceptions of different teaching methods and various aspects of an experiential teaching method, in the form of a business simulation game, are examined using survey data from 274 respondents in four small post‐experience and two large pre‐experience OM modules.

The paper's analysis suggests that traditional and experiential teaching methods are both popular with OM students, whilst independent teaching methods are less well liked. Analysis also shows that students on both kinds of OM modules perceive most aspects of the experiential teaching method used in this study (The Operations Game) very positively.

This research study was confined to a particular type of experiential teaching method – a business simulation game. There is a need for further research to investigate the perceived effectiveness of other experiential teaching methods, such as role‐plays and live cases. Furthermore, the paper does not examine the use of experiential teaching methods that do not require the physical presence of students.

For OM educators, the paper clarifies how they might incorporate experiential teaching methods in different class settings. Whilst experiential teaching methods are typically used for small post‐experience modules, these data indicate that the method can also be used on larger pre‐experience modules with great success. The paper also notes a number of challenges involved in using experiential teaching methods on both kinds of module.

This is the first known study to directly examine the perceived effectiveness of an experiential teaching method in both small post‐experience and larger pre‐experience OM modules.

In 1969, Warren Nutter left the University of Virginia Department of Economics to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Nixon administration. During his time in the Defense Department, Nutter was deeply involved in laying the groundwork for a military coup against the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. Although Nutter left the Pentagon several months before the successful 1973 coup, his role in Chile was far more direct than the better-known cases of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Arnold Harberger. This chapter describes Nutter’s role in Chile policymaking in the Nixon administration. It shows how Nutter’s criticisms of Henry Kissinger are grounded in his economics, and compares and contrasts Nutter with other economists who have been connected to Pinochet’s dictatorship.

Library and Information Science Abstracts have successfully completed a pilot project, with SilverPlatter Information Limited, that has resulted in a one‐year file of Lisa for 1984 being recorded onto CD‐ROM (Compact Disk — Read Only Memory). Plans are now well under way for providing the complete Lisa database on CD‐ROM commercially by mid‐1986.

There does not exist any precise definition of ‘development’. In view of the indispensability of an interpretation of this concept a degree of speculation seems to exist in a development process. This is the reason this chapter has been included in this work. No scholar has precisely defined ‘development’ and ‘developing’ countries. It is believed that indigenous people know best what would be most suitable for them for development of their country. However, any discussion of these topics becomes incomplete, controversial, etc. in the absence of any precise definition. This chapter is no exception to this although an attempt has been made to outline development.