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Describes the background and events leading up to a typical management team‐building workshop.

In recent years, retailers have come to the fore in the development of distribution systems in the UK. With this move has come the greatly accelerated use of “distribution service companies” to provide tailored, dedicated, contractual solutions to the distribution needs of retailers. This article reviews the development of this trend, identifies the major causes of it, considers the advantages and drawbacks of contract solutions, examines a number of specific cases and speculates as to what further penetration dedicated contracts may achieve in both retailing and other distribution areas.

The paper seeks to offer a novel perspective on “deep benefit management” in inclusive business ventures at the Base‐of‐the‐Pyramid (BoP). Furthermore, it explores tensions between social impact creation and financial objectives in multinational corporations (MNCs).

The paper opts for an exploratory research design using empirical data, including an expert interview survey and expert discussions. Data is supplemented by documentary analysis, including corporate publications as well as case and impact studies. The paper applies a nested cross‐case comparison of three sustainability driven initiatives of PHILIPS Electronics.

The paper provides empirical insights on value creation for customers and partners. Findings indicate the need for “external benefit management”. In addition, MNCs can gain financial as well as non‐financial benefits by venturing at the BoP. “Internal benefit management” should consider employee engagement, reputation, and partnering capabilities. Nevertheless, results indicate conflicts between social and financial objectives to which employees respond with “social intrapreneurship”.

Due to the research methodology, results may not be generalized. Future research is encouraged to corroborate findings.

The paper develops deep benefit management as a powerful tool to plan, manage, and assess value creation in inclusive BoP ventures. Further, the paper proposes to establish protective space in MNCs to capitalize on social intrapreneurship.

This study provides an enhanced understanding of benefits of and barriers for inclusive business. Novel insights on social intrapreneurship are provided additionally.

The narrative of The Americans weaves together a spy thriller and a family drama, though it drives home the inseparability of the political and the personal through the lives of the central characters, Philip and Elizabeth, a couple whose marriage is a cover for their work as Soviet spies. This chapter provides a queer reading of their marriage, drawing from the real history of the Cold War politics of sexuality that associated American values with the hetero- and gender normative, white, and middle-class nuclear family. In contrast, the Soviet Union was understood to have disrupted this natural order by installing the state as an overbearing patriarch. Philip and Elizabeth’s fictional cover as a nuclear family requires them to perform American marriage, family, and selfhood. In doing so, they reflect the centrality of the family in America’s Cold War self-image in which the family serves as the anchor of the American order, enabling economic and political self-sufficiency. Their performance of the family challenges our ability to differentiate between real, authentic family that can serve as the legitimate source of social reproduction and between the counterfeit, fake family that disrupts the social order. The queer family, refusing to be placed beyond realm of the political by the moral language of family values, subverts our ability to distinguish between genres since the family drama is already a political thriller.

The television series The Americans succeeds as a family drama, crime drama, and political drama. Criminal law offers a useful perspective for interpreting the series. By examining the post-finale criminal liability of two key characters, daughter Paige Jennings and FBI agent Stan Beeman, this chapter provides some novel insights into the characters, their motivations, and the events in the last season of the series. The legal analysis also uncovers some ironies. Most notably, Paige’s legal vulnerability will put her in a moral dilemma because her best way of avoiding a lengthy prison term is to provide evidence against Stan, punishing him for letting her and her parents go.

In March 2000 a fire broke out at the Royal Philips Electronics plant, damaging its supply of semiconductor chips. Nokia Corporation and Ericsson LM relied on these chips to produce their cell phones; together they received 40 percent of the plant's chip production. Both companies were about to release new cell phone designs that required the chips. At Nokia, word of the setback spread quickly up the chain of command. Nokia's team, which had a crisis plan in place, sprang into action. With an aggressive, multipronged strategy, Nokia avoided any cell phone production loss. In contrast, the low-level technician who received the information at Ericsson did not notify his supervisors about the fire until early April and had to scramble to locate new sources for the chips. This search delayed production and proved a fatal blow to Ericsson's independent production of mobile phones. Nokia's handling of its supply chain disruption provides a dramatic example of how a company's strategic risk management can alleviate financial disaster and lay the groundwork for success in the future. Perturbations in supply chain management are inevitable, and grow harder and harder to assess as the marketplace becomes more globalized.

Students will learn the following concepts:

This paper seeks to investigate Philip Morris's responses to a decade‐long crisis through the analysis of its CEO's speeches. It also aims to reveal the rich potential of corporate speeches as examples of crisis management strategies.

In total, 67 speeches of Philip Morris's CEO are analyzed using centering resonance analysis. The data are also cluster‐ and factor‐analyzed. Combining quantitative and qualitative examination of the dataset provides a broader understanding of the organization's rhetoric strategies.

Philip Morris's CEO crafted specific frames and image repair strategies to fit different stages of the crisis. The frames and restorations strategies used are, respectively: profitable multinational bolstering, minimization, and attack the accuser (1994‐1996); litigation target, transcendence (1997‐1998); and corporate good citizen, bolstering and transcendence (1999‐2001).

The paper highlights the significance of corporate speeches as a fully controlled form of corporate discourse that reveals strategic frames and communication tactics. Future research should concentrate on comparing such messages with other important actors' discourse.

The paper draws attention to the role of lawyers and other actors in defining crisis management strategies as well as emphasizing that corporate values may not be accepted by the entire society, yet may meet the expectations of specific stakeholders.

This paper combines qualitative and quantitative analysis to investigate a rich source of corporate communication: top management speeches. The study underscores how rhetoric strategies can play for time during crisis, but are limited in changing inherently bad products into socially acceptable ones.

The library marketplace for reference services is a rapidly changing environment. Various types of technologies have been introduced during the past twenty years to facilitate the retrieval of periodical information. Beginning with online access to databases, and progressing from menu‐driven systems to access online databases, the library community is now ready to embrace the latest and most revolutionary technology for libraries—CD‐ROM.

This paper considers the East India Company’s emergence as a territorial power from the 1760s until the revocation of most of its commercial functions in 1834. While this period has been a key episode for historians of the British Empire and of South Asia, social scientists have struggled with the Company’s ambiguous nature. In this paper, I propose that a profitable way to grasp the Company’s transformation is to consider it as a global strategic action field. This perspective clarifies two key processes in the Company’s transition: the enlargement of its territorial possessions; and the increased exposure of its patrimonial network to intervention from British metropolitan politics. To further suggest the utility of this analytic perspective, I synthesize evidence from various sources, including data concerning the East India Court of Directors and the career histories of Company servants in two of its key administrative regions, Bengal and Madras, during this period of transition.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.