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An interview with one of the UK′s outstanding businesswomen. The fact that she was unable to go to university made her achieve her goals by different means from those attained by academic qualifications. The formation of her company is her prime achievement, and the level of professional management in her company is one of the reasons for its success. The company spent £1m in 1991 on training in such areas as assertiveness training for the salesforce and also a large amount of management development. People are regarded as the major asset of the company.

The legitimate daugher of the poet Byron, Ada Countess of Lovelace, was the world's first programmer. In 1842 she wrote her now classic comment: “The Analytical Engine has no pretentions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform”. Lady Lovelace proved that even in the last century women have the right kind of brain to deal with the intricacies of computer work.

Reports the conclusions of a study involving in‐depth interviews with 18 business leaders, focusing on the qualities and skills they felt to be essential for success in directing and guiding a large organization. These qualities include the ability to make sense of a complicated pattern of events and from this formulate clear goals for the organization; people and communication skills; integrity; drive and ambition. In selecting others, as potential future leaders and high‐flyers, this group of current leaders used the following criteria. There was high agreement that proven track record was vital, both as an indicator of future performance and to establish credibility. Another important characteristic is the ability to take an independent (even unpopular) line, and defend it. As could be predicted, interpersonal skills, team orientation, commitment and motivation were also seen as important.

The traditional approach to management development — based on identification of talent and a planned career structure — will have to adjust to shrinking job and promotion opportunities. But organisations still need to plan for management succession. Four approaches are suggested, including early retirement into consultancy roles which would unblock career paths and, most radically, experiments with new forms of work relationship.

I want to suggest that as important as the number of jobs in the future is the type of those jobs, and I want to look a little more broadly at what is still the physical place of work for most of us — the organization — be it factory, office, or shop, places which I think are changing with all manner of unsuspected consequences even while we talk. If you even half believe me it adds up to quite a change; to put it more evocatively we are living through a social revolution, but what keeps one awake at night is the fact that half the people have not noticed and the other half do not seem to give a damn. Sometimes I think that the British people actually prefer to stumble backwards into the future, because that way they delude themselves that things are not changing too much after all.

Examines the possibilities and requirements of home‐based work arrangements. Considers personal work style, home environment and job requisites as deciding factors about the suitability of working at home. Concludes that whether working at home suits an individual depends on their preferences and requirements, although this segment of the workforce is likely to persist in the future as the population ages and retirees continue their professional interests at home.

The deadhead subculture – centered around the band Grateful Dead – has been active for 50+ years. Despite its longevity, academic work is sparse compared to other music subcultures. Given its durability and resilience, this subculture offers an opportunity to explore subcultural development and maintenance. I employ a contemporary, symbolic interactionist approach to trace the development of deadhead subculture and subcultural identity. Although identity is a basic concept in subculture research, it is not well defined: I suggest that the co-creation and maintenance of subcultural identity can be seen as a dialectic between collective identity and symbolic interactionist conceptions of individual role-identity.

The growth and dynamics of International Management Centres between 1982‐1990 as a network of management development providers is described. The exchange characteristics of the IMC network analysed together with a description of its communicative and symbolic overlays.

The recent years have been marked by the increasing participation of women in the labour force internationally. Especially in the industrialised countries of Western Europe and North America, this labour force participation is now well over 40%. Globally, however, the estimate is around 33%. A large number of these women are still found in the agriculture sector and the informal sector of industry. For those working in the formal industrial sector, a significant portion work in the shopfloor of assembly line operations for products ranging from electronics to textiles. Women in management comprise less than 1% of all economically active women. For the purposes of this paper, a “manager” is defined as a person who has latitude in decision making as to the allocation and use of organisational resources, including physical, financial, and human resources.