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Many companies have adopted electronic data interchange (EDI), often with results inconsistent with the expectations of the company. In these instances, it is often the mismatch between expectations and the company’s activities undertaken to achieve the desired performance gain that fuels their dissatisfaction with EDI. This same mismatch often causes academic research into EDI and supply chain management to lose focus. This article presents a framework of EDI benefits in a supply chain management context that can be used to match a company’s EDI efforts with its desired outcomes from EDI use. The framework states that two critical factors to understanding EDI’s impact on supply chain management are the span of management control of the business process in question and whether EDI directly or indirectly influences that same business process. The proposed framework is then used to develop a research agenda for EDI and supply chain management. We suggest possible directions for research methods, measure development and hypothesis generation that can be used in future research studies.

To explore how universities can adopt sustainability practices that have proven to be successful in business.

Draws on several sources of theory (internationally published literatures in business, sustainability, and education) and practice (primarily US business and university practice) to develop a framework.

Two seemingly divergent trends have created a unique opportunity for universities to significantly improve their environmental performance: the increasing importance to businesses of managing the natural environment and the growing awareness that universities cannot continue to isolate themselves from the community in which they are embedded. The first of these trends has caused a previously untapped source of ideas to become energized into thinking about how to move toward a more sustainable world. The second trend has caused a previously “introspective‐to‐a‐fault” institution to look beyond itself for ways of thinking and acting.

The intersection of the two trends is a powerful place, where new and successful approaches to managing the natural environment, albeit from what might be thought of as a non‐traditional source, can be absorbed by an institution that has significant environmental impact and an even more significant responsibility to future generations.

Provides a focus on the huge opportunities for applying some of the environmental lessons learnt by business to higher education.

The very contextual nature of most mitigating evidence runs counter to America’s individualistic culture. Prior research has found that capital jurors are unreceptive to most mitigating circumstances, but no research has examined the capital sentencing decisions of trial judges. This study fills that gap through a content analysis of eight judicial sentencing opinions from Delaware. The findings indicate that judges typically dismiss contextualizing evidence in their sentencing opinions and instead focus predominately on the defendant’s culpability. This finding calls into question the ability of guided discretion statutes to ensure the consideration of mitigation and limit arbitrariness in the death penalty.

In the past little has been written on the subject of industrial sabotage. Even the broader consideration of “resistance” of which sabotage could be considered part has been little attempted outside the glamorous subject of strikes. Taylor and Walton adopt an approach derived from the social psychology of deviance, relying on verbal accounts, press reports or hearsay for their data. Their emphasis is on rendering the act meaningful. Brown adopts a perspective which extends their definition of sabotage from deliberate damage to the machine, product or work environment to include deliberate bad workmanship and the withholding of effort. Consequently, he views it as an additional mechanism for negotiating terms and condition of employment, and is concerned with its effectiveness as a strategy.

Sam Walton opened his first Wal‐Mart discount store in 1962. Today, Wal‐Mart is not only the world’s largest corporation but also the world’s most admired company, according to a 2003 Fortune magazine poll. Wal‐Mart is competitive and successful because it has been doing many things right. This article helps shed light on the rise of Wal‐Mart and the roots of its competitiveness. Business practitioners aspiring to succeed can learn a great deal from studying the Wal‐Mart way of doing business.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 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.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories: