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In this introduction, the authors outline some critical reflections on the sociology of knowledge within management and organization theory. Based on a review of various works that form a sociology of organizational knowledge, the authors identify three approaches that have become particularly prominent ways by which scholars explore how knowledge about organizations and management is produced: First, reflective and opinion essays that organization studies scholars offer on the basis of what can be learned from personal experience; second, descriptive craft-guides that are based on more-or-less comprehensive surveys on doing research; third, papers based on systematic research that are built upon rigorous collection and analysis of data about the production of knowledge. Whereas in the studies of organizing the authors prioritize the third approach, that is knowledge produced based on systematic empirical research, in examining our own work the authors tend to privilege the other two types, reflective articles and surveys. In what follows the authors highlight this gap, offer some explanations thereof, and call for a better appreciation of all three ways to offer rich understandings of organizations, work and management as well as a fruitful sociology of knowledge in our field.

AS part of a policy of simplifying the indexing task in information retrieval, a system is being developed for using a computer to create indexes from a variety of styles of indexing. One of the main guiding principles in the design is ease of operation by people, both for indexing and retrieval.

The time and effort involved in indexing documents can be reduced by requiring the indexer only to underline the words he regards as significant, instead of allocating class numbers or concepts. An experimental index to scientific reports made by word‐choosing in this way compares favourably with a concept‐based index. An index derived from words chosen by information scientists is better than those derived from words chosen by authors or keypunch operators. If abstracts are available of documents recorded as a result of a search, irrelevant material can quickly be sifted out by hand, with only a slight loss of relevant material. A KWIC‐type index recovers the most relevant documents almost as well as more elaborate indexes, and several independent simple indexes may give higher recall than a single more elaborate index.

The investigation dealt with the effect which different devices have on the performance of index languages. It appeared that the most important consideration was the specificity of the index terms; within the context of the conditions existing in this test, single‐word terms were more effective than concept terms or a controlled vocabulary.

South African motor manufacturers should find ways to improve their performance management systems to ensure survival in the face of strong competition in the market. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the industry’s approach to performance management and to make recommendations about a framework for performance management that can be implemented to obtain a competitive advantage. A well‐known instrument that proves to be highly effective in performance management is the balanced scorecard. This instrument manages performance on four distinct levels, namely from the financial perspective, the customer perspective, internal business processes and learning and growth. It is apparent from the results of this study that performance management is still very much a one‐way process, and that a lack of communication is the primary reason for unsatisfactory workforce performance. Furthermore, the majority of motor manufacturers consider the customer perspective as the most important of the four above‐mentioned perspectives. Motor manufacturers also disagree about the number of performance measures that need to be included in the performance management system, and the majority feel that both controllable and non‐controllable fixed costs must be included in the measurement of management performance. Shareholder value measures are also largely neglected in practice.

IThis review has been sponsored by the Office for Scientific and Technical Information and the end product of the complete research will be a thesaurus of management terms. Parallel research in the business management area and also supported by OSTI is being conducted by David Dews, Librarian of the Manchester Business School, and K. D. C. Vernon, Librarian of the London Graduate School of Business Studies. As Mr Vernon is at present engaged in the construction of a faceted classification scheme for management, this investigation has concentrated on the possibility of utilizing faceted techniques to construct such a thesaurus.

The death has been announced, on 7th January, of Dr Richard Offor, O.B.E. Dr Offor, who was eighty‐one, was Librarian of the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, from 1919 to 1947. There he was responsible for organizing and widening the collections, planning the new building, and for training staff. Shortly after his retirement he became, and remained for thirteen years, library adviser to the Inter‐University Council for Higher Education Overseas. In this work he was a deeply valued friend and counsellor to many engaged in the building up of new university and college libraries throughout the Commonwealth.

Entrepreneurial education is gaining traction in Ghana. The purpose of this chapter was to assess the influences of social enterprises in promoting entrepreneurial education, using Ghanaian social enterprises as a case study. The study adopted a qualitative research approach. A multiple case study analysis examined the influences of social enterprises in Ghana. Four in-depth qualitative case studies offer insight into social enterprise practices. Sustainability, innovation, control and employment issues stand out as key effects of Ghanaian social enterprise practices. The social practice theory framework is used to draw the linkages of the structure and agency relationships. Sustainability emerges as the most dominant impact of social enterprise practice followed by innovation, control and employment. These four descriptive terms summarise the universal effects of Ghanaian social enterprises' practices. The study identifies and assesses the role of social enterprises in social entrepreneurial education in addressing social ills and environmental challenges facing Ghana. The emphasis placed on each of the identified four constructs describes the plausible roles of Ghana's social enterprises in achieving productive entrepreneurship through entrepreneurship education. The result shows the pursuit of multiple practices is a common feature of social enterprises. The limitations of the study stem from methodological approach as it is qualitative approach bias and a single country case. Likewise, the subjectivities of the samples direct the results of the study. The study draws the attention of stakeholders and policymakers to the goodwill of social entrepreneurship education in Ghana. Many studies have been conducted on entrepreneurial education in the contextual setting of this study. This present study focused on the practices of social enterprises in Ghana that influences entrepreneurial education.

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The pleasant surroundings at Exeter University, which is set in a very beautiful park, were a factor in the success of this year's Conference. Sessions were held in the Washington Singer Laboratories, meals served in the spacious Devonshire House Refectory, whilst residential accommodation was at the new Duryard Halls of Residence, in three ‘houses’ but served by a Central Dining Hall. The main disadvantage was the distance between residence and sessions, which had to be overcome by coach transport, but which was in some measure offset by the warm sunny weather.