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Up until now, strategic planning has been done primarily at the business unit and corporate levels. The growing complexity and interdependence of the business environment argues for a new concept of strategy. Companies must begin to view strategy from a collectivistic perspective. Only by collective action will companies be able to meet the challenges ahead.

This article aims to synthesize the tension between agency notions inherent in strategy and deterministic notions inherent in ecology, and in doing so, develop a research agenda.

In this study, emerging themes around the strategy-ecology literature will be analyzed and synthesized from a socio-ecological perspective.

The following propositions can be synthesized. First, the socio-ecological level of analysis is useful, because from this level, strategy and ecology are mutually exclusive, enabling resource-based views of competitive advantage. Second, the order of strategy and ecology is found to be changeable, given they are mutually exclusive. Here, ecological mechanisms and relationships in the ecosystem can provide information on a strategic choice.

These propositions contribute toward a research agenda. Nevertheless, evolutionary mechanisms will need to be more specific in addressing what is being selected.

By introducing the socio-ecological perspective as the way of synthesizing organizational strategy and ecology, new research ideas can foster.

Early paradox research in organization theory contained a remarkable breadth of inspirations from outside disciplines. We wanted to know more about where early scholarship found inspiration to create what has since become paradox theory. To shed light on this, we engaged seminal paradox scholars in conversations: asking about their past experiences drawing from outside disciplines and their views on the future of paradox theory. These conversations surfaced several themes of past and future inspirations: (1) understanding complex phenomena; (2) drawing from related disciplines; (3) combining interdisciplinary insights; and (4) bridging discourses in organization theory. We end the piece with suggestions for future paradox research inspired by these conversations.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a structural model of the factors that explain the level of perceived relationship effectiveness between marketing managers and sales managers.

The model integrates trust‐based and power/influence/interdependence‐based models of relationship effectiveness. The data were collected from 113 sales managers in the UK and Australia. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity of the measures, while AMOS Version 4 was employed to estimate the model using structural equation modelling with observed variables.

The study found, on average, that the perceived level of relationship effectiveness between sales managers and marketing managers is surprisingly high. The findings clearly demonstrate the potency of interpersonal trust (both cognition‐based and affect‐based) in building effective cross‐functional relationships (CFRs) and also show how interdependence affects both dimensions of trust and the marketing manager's level of manifest influence. In addition, the findings indicate that, when marketing managers have greater manifest influence, the CFR is more effective. Importantly, evidence is provided regarding the consequences of marketing managers using the two influence tactics of legalistic pleas and threats, in terms of their effects on trust and manifest influence. Finally, insights are given about the sequencing of these two influence tactics and how the power of the marketing unit indirectly affects relationship effectiveness.

This is one of the very few studies to use a large empirical survey to examine the marketing and sales dyad.

The meaning of management is partly the management of meaning. Management is an activity in which people collaborate not just over what they do but also how they mean: how concepts like “effective” are defined and made actual through work, and how knowledge can properly be applied to management situations. Such knowledge is not merely intellectual; it takes in values and belief systems and the intentionalities of discourse. Management is also an area in which over‐arching paradigms of what is best to know and do demonstrate pluralistic and collaborative features. What is known, and what is best to know, therefore, are built up through negotiation and reformulation. This occurs in settings characterised by organisational cultures and authority structures like line management, and in these we find meanings being negotiated for many complex cognitive, ideological and interpersonal reasons (such as to avoid “loss of face”). In professional information training, it is important to develop knowledge of, and skills in, the management of meaning, using negotiative strategies and tactics.

The contingency approach and its relevance to theory building and research in marketing is described. The approach is delineated and its theoretical foundations traced. Several established contingency theories within the management discipline are outlined and the research they have stimulated on related topics in marketing are highlighted. An assessment of the current state of the contingency approach in marketing literature is then provided.

First, AIB conference themes have reflected the issues thought to be important during its 50 years of operations, and the Fellows have regularly staffed Plenary Sessions devoted to these yearly themes (e.g., Eden & Lenway, 2001 on globalization).

ONE or two questions raised by the writer of “Letters on our Affairs” this month are of some urgency. The first, the physical condition of books, is one that is long over‐due for full discussion with a view to complete revision of our method. The increased book fund of post‐war years, and the unexpected success of the twopenny library, have brought us to the point when we should concentrate upon beautiful and clean editions of good books, and encourage the public to use them. “Euripides” is quite right in his contention that there is too much dependence upon the outcasts of the circulating library for replenishing the stocks of public lending libraries. We say this gravely and advisedly. Many librarians depend almost entirely upon the off‐scourings of commercial libraries for their fiction. The result, of course, is contempt of that stock from all readers who are not without knowledge of books. It is the business of the public library now to scrap all books that are stained, unpleasant to the sight, in bad print, and otherwise unattractive. Of old, it was necessary for us to work hard, and by careful conservation of sometimes quite dirty books, in order to get enough books to serve our readers. To‐day this is no longer the case, except in quite backward areas. The average well‐supported public library—and there are many now in that category—should aim at a reduction of stock to proportions which are really useful, which are good and which are ultimately attractive if not beautiful. The time has arrived when a dirty book, or a poorly printed book, or a book which has no artistic appeal, should be regarded as a reproach to the library preserving it.

Our nation at last seems to be rousing herself to put forth her full strength, and the organisation of industry is receiving at the hands of the new National Government no less attention than the armies that are springing into being under the magnificent direction of the new Knight of the Garter, Lord Kitchener. Hearts are beating high with hope and determination to help in every way possible in this vast effort to uphold the right, and the call comes afresh to each one of us to do everything in our power at this time of National need. In the present number we gladly publish more names of comrades who have joined the forces, but could wish they were still more numerous. Are there not others who can and who will join the noble army of heroes prepared to face the enemy in the field for faith and Motherland?

There has been concern in the literature about the adequacy of the traditional model of marketing planning, which focuses on what decisions should be made and not on how to make them. The aim of this article is a new conceptualisation that proposes key management processes about how marketing planning decisions are made in a dynamic context. The motives for this conceptualisation are to contribute to understanding by advancing the traditional model of marketing planning, to stimulate academic and practitioner debate about how marketing planning decisions are made, and to initiate new directions in marketing planning research. Two new competing models of marketing planning are developed, which address key management processes about how marketing planning decisions are made in a dynamic context, and research directions are proposed.