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Purpose – Cory Booker will likely step down as mayor of Newark in 2014 or 2018. When he does, the possibility of a strong Latino candidate emerging is quite likely. There are a number of black politicians who would like to succeed Booker as well. This chapter identifies eight potential successors to Booker and assesses their ability to create a multiracial electoral coalition using prior vote performance in citywide elections.Design/methodology/approach – This study regresses district (or precinct) level vote preferences for the aforementioned potential successors in previous elections on the racial and ethnic composition of the district, using voter district demographic data from 2000 and 201011The 2010 data is still incomplete at the time of publication. As such, this data will be used sparingly. compiled by the US Census Bureau and the Minnesota Population Center.Findings − There is a decade’s worth of evidence suggesting racially polarized voting among blacks and Latinos in Newark. The racialized black and Latino candidates examined in this chapter had much stronger support in districts with large coethnic populations. In contrast, the more deracialized candidates often had softer support in districts with high concentrations of coethnic voters, but often performed better in districts with higher concentrations of non-coethnics.Originality/value − While the author cautions against reading too much into the findings, the results do portend a future of racially polarized voting in Newark, especially as the city’s population diversifies and as different factions vie for power.

Despite so many Americans regarding religion as very important, the spirituality of Sunday seldom finds any conscious intentional expression in American business from Monday to Friday. Business leaders operate in a culture where notions of spirituality run counter to the models of organisational effectiveness that they learn and are expected to follow. The author shares experiences of introducing American business leaders to the ways in which spirituality can be added to their arsenal of leadership tools.

Among the factors contributing to competitiveness problems for many American firms is the presence of excessive and inaccurate self presentations and resulting defensive communication routines among managers in these firms. Suggestions are provided to identify and reduce conduct leading to these dysfunctional tendencies, but caution is urged in recognizing the difficulties and potential ethical dilemmas that may occur in trying to resolve these problems. Any discussion of future American competitiveness should involve global changes and economic patterns, national trade policies, and manufacturing and quality control. However, executives should also examine questionable managerial communication in firms.

If you are 30 or older, you are middle‐aged by someone's criteria. When the college students of the 1970s declared “Don't trust anyone over 30,” did you think they would be someday talking about you? And what about those who say “Life begins at 40”? Did you ever believe them?

Employers in the USA often use employment‐at‐will statements in the employment application process to minimize their vulnerability in post‐discharge litigation. Reports survey results of job seekers′ attitudes towards such statements. The findings suggest that applicants would prefer to join organizations that do not include employment‐at‐will statements in the application process and that job‐seekers′ perceptions of the greater risk involved, greater expectations of employees, and a lack of company concern regarding its employees would significantly influence their views of an employment‐at‐will organization.

Often associated with early stages of individual and organizational change is exploration of basic premisses or assumptions held by individuals. Management faculty could benefit from an increased awareness of epistemological and values assumptions that they and others are applying in their educational planning and classroom instructional choices. Multiparadigmatic qualitative research on the evolving field of management education itself might allow better understanding of these deeper, partially taken‐for‐ granted and important faculty assumptions. One potentially useful multiparadigmatic approach for qualitative research might include aspects of interpretive, critical and post‐structural/postmodern social inquiry. Results from such basic research, through publication in some forum or outlet in the management discipline, could be applied for reference and unfreezing purposes in faculty development/ change programmes at individual business colleges or management departments.

Ethical duties or obligations of HRM practitioners are questioned and explored. Differing conceptions of HRM ethical duties seem to have arisen from differing values assumptions and social constructions of the employment relationship. HRM education and development programs must do a better job of exposing students to these contrasting values assumptions as well as helping students develop the ethical change skills necessary to act more successfully upon their moral values and perceived ethical duties.

Using the Internet as a means of registering discontent with politicians, policies and groups is a growing phenomenon. There are various ways of manifesting protest on the Internet, including building protest sites, cyber‐squatting, defacing Web sites and organising denial of service attacks. Some of these methods are extremely effective, being cheap to use and requiring limited technical ability. Others err on the wrong side of the law and involve full‐scale hacking. Overall, hacktivism can be a productive part of the political process.