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This paper reports on the initial results of a study on the changing personnel systems of large Japanese manufacturing companies. The study used participant observation to take two distinct snapshots of the changing personnel system of a major Japanese company over a three‐year period, and also involved two sets of interviews with four other leading companies to gather comparative information on contemporary changes to their personnel systems. It appears that changes in these companies are moving beyond time‐honoured incremental adjustments, yet seem to fall short of indicating a transition to Western norms. Apparently, due to a continuing belief in the efficacy of some elements of the approach, Japanese managers are attempting to redefine it without losing its distinctly Japanese flavour. Whether this will be enough to prevent a transition of the Japanese personnel approach to Western norms remains to be seen.

LIBRARIANS do not desire tribute because, in the clenched antagonisms of to‐day, they carry on their normal work, so far as that is possible. Happy are those who have been allowed to continue their whole‐time devotion to library service, because there has seldom if ever been so much opportunity for good work. In some areas it must be limited, because the dark hours are hours of perpetual air raids or warnings of them, and our people in the more exposed towns cannot be expected to attend evening lectures, talks or recitals. A certain amount of afternoon work is possible, if there is adequate shelter in or adjacent to libraries. The confinement to their homes of our readers affords opportunities to persuade them to read, if persuasion is necessary. First we can instil into folk the desirability of always carrying a book, so that when they are caught by a warning they have something with which to wile away the time in the shelter. Then, there appears a chance of drawing attention to the books which we ought to have read but have not, and our readers may be urged to make black‐out hours profitable by special Studies. Few recent publications are better designed for this than the twenty‐one “Suggestions” which have just come from Leeds. Each consists of a four‐page leaflet, three pages bearing carefully selected and annotated titles, and they are on the subjects that matter—Modern Poetry, Voyages, Modern Thought, Without Passport (travel in Continental Europe), Humour, Amateur Drama, Popular Science, Kitchen Ranging, and so on—the range is great; and we believe these are worthy of national circulation. Reverting to lectures, Bristol has arranged its usual excellent programmes for adults and children respectively.

The literary world is an elitist enclave, where anti‐marketing rhetoric is regularly encountered. This paper aims to show that the book trade has always been hard‐nosed and commercially driven.

This paper is less a review of the literature, or a theoretical treatise, than a selective revelation of the commercial realities of the book business.

The paper shows that the cultural industries in general and the book business in particular were crucibles of marketing practice long before learned scholars started taking notice. It highlights the importance of luck, perseverance and, not least, marketing nous in the “manufacture” of international bestsellers.

By highlighting humankind's deep‐seated love of narrative – its clear preference for fiction over fact – this paper suggests that marketing scholars should reconsider their preferred mode of research representation. Hard facts are all very well, but they are less palatable than good stories, well told.

The paper makes no claim to originality. It recovers what we already know but appear to have forgotten in our non‐stop pursuit of scientific respectability.

This paper aims to investigate the extent to which the ideology of shareholder value is compatible with that of transformative corporate social responsibility (CSR). It traces the transformation of corporations from quasi-public institutions at inception to purely private enterprises beginning from the middle of the nineteenth century and attempts to locate the ideology of CSR within the wider viewpoint of shareholder value.

This paper adopts a doctrinal approach through a critical evaluation of the nature and implications of the shareholder value ideology. Using existing literature in the area, it traces the evolution of the shareholder value ideology and how it is antithetical to any meaningful CSR regime.

The paper finds that there is a fundamental tension between ideas about the desirability of effective CSR and the belief that it is to the benefit of society as a whole for corporations to be run solely in the interest of their shareholders and for managers to seek to maximize shareholder value. This ideological tension renders contemporary CSR ineffective.

The paper offers a fresh insight or analysis into the transformation of corporations from quasi-social institutions to purely private enterprises in the middle of the nineteenth century. It does this by engaging in a historical narrative of the evolution of the corporate form and how contemporary ideas of shareholder value have resulted in the emergence of a contemporary CSR devoid of the radical spirit of CSR in the 1950s and 1960s.