All managers and directors are faced with real, or imagined, conflicts of interest or competing demands for time and resources, between shareholders and stakeholders. This has always been the case, but the contemporary emphasis on stakeholders has brought this to a head. Although the more astute...

An historical saunter is taken through the development of approaches, legal and organisational, to deal with whistleblowing. Whistleblowing engenders strong emotions, and it is not surprising that some of the early pioneers met with stiff resistance. Some classic whistleblowing cases are...

We begin with health and safety, notably in the risky working environment of the oil rigs, before moving on to the health service. Social services have become a huge area of concern with cases of child abuse emerging from the past as well as the present. Professional regulatory bodies are...

A series of case studies of whistle‐blowers suggests that most suffer harm of one sort or another, however justified their cause. Research on whistle blowing shows that the average whistle‐blower in all other respects could be regarded as a model employee, and it is therefore a pity for the...

Chaos theory is about to invade the thinking and vocabulary of practising managers and management academics. It will mark the major breakthrough in the 1990s, just as systems theory represented the great step forward three decades ago. Indeed, it may be regarded as a natural extension of systems...

The environment is currently at or near the top of many agendas. It has certainly become integrated into the formulation of business strategy. If businesses do not wish to move towards being environmentally friendly of their own accord, there is now a plethora of legislation to act as a...

Managers spend most of their time asking questions. It is therefore of interest to them to be acquainted with some of the research conducted by survey methodologists, on asking questions. It appears at first sight that this is not an area that should give rise to any particular problems, but the...

In our constant asking of questions in our organizations we use a combination of open and closed questions. This is generally done in a haphazard manner according to custom or spontaneity. Argues that research evidence suggests there are appropriate contexts and occasions for the use of either...

Managers frequently ask questions that may be sensitive or threatening. The answers that come back may be disingenuous, owing to social desirability bias which has two sub‐divisions: personality and item characteristics. The first refers to an overall tendency for an individual to respond in a...

Religions, throughout their existence, have found it difficult to formulate a balanced approach to wealth and the world of business. They have tended to comment more on poverty, with parables about camels fitting through needles demonstrating their ambivalence. Perhaps then, surprisingly, and...