Management buy-outs

from the TQM Practioner Series, Stanley Thornes, including Gaining and

Benefiting from ISO 9000 Registration: A Step-by-Step Approach, M. J. Fox (1994), 70 pp., £29.50. Other recent quality studies include: ISO 9000 Quality Systems Handbook, DAVIDHOYLE, Butterworth-Heinemann (1994), 498 pp., £25.00 and Quality Certification

for the Small Business an IQA Guide, ALAN A. GRIFFIN, Sydney Jary Limited/1QA (1994), 122 pp., £18.00. Stanley Thornes also produces a Business Performance Improvement-Practioner Series (currently 7 volumes), including Practical

Implementation of New Management Strategies: Managing Your Processes, TOM DARK, (1994), 65 pp., £29.50; Self Assessment: A Tool for Integrated Managem en t, KEITHBEASLEY(1994 ), £ 29.50; Commercial Awareness: Increasing YourEdge, DAVIDBERTRAM,(1994), 123 pp., £29.50, and Better Planning for Performance Improvement, RICHARD VAREY, (1994), 66pp., £29.50.

Management Buy-outs, Edited by MIKE WRIGHT, Dartmouth Publishing (1994), 666 pp., £135.00. Twenty-nine papers on various aspects of the subject, arranged into five themes: Rationale for Buy-outs; Institutional, Financial and Ethical Issues; Effects of Buy-outs--Financial Performance; Effects of Buy-outs--Organizational, Cultural and Control Issues; and Longevity of Buy-outs. Encyclopedic but the direct reproduction of the original format does not make for easy reading. Author index but no subject index. Another volume in The International Library of Management series (which has a total of 25 volumes!) is

Training and Development in Public and Private Policv, Edited by PETER CAPPELLI, 478 pp., £100.00. A range of issues around the subject of acquisitions are discussed in eighteen papers in The Management of Corporate Acquisitions, Edited by GEORG VON KROGH, ALESSANDROSINATRAand HARBIR SINGH, Macmillan (1994), 529pp., £50.00. Essential reading for anyone involved in that highly risky activity.

Provides a trading and financial profile for each of the top 150 companies, combined with a five-year graph of its share price. Also included is background information that can contribute to aspects of the corporate governance debate. But 'in today's fast changing business environment, a company must express its identity in everything that it does.' Hence the value of Corporate Identity, WALLYOLINS, Thames and Hudson (1994), 224 pp., £14.95. But no figures on how this might affect the bottom line.

Store Wars: The Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, JUDITHCORSTJENS and MARCELCORSTJENS, Wiley (1995), 303 pp., £19.95. Provides a systematic analysis of the changed and changing environment for selling 'Fast Moving Consumer Goods' (FMCG) and discusses innovative strategies for dealing with these changes. Those concerned with that sector could also usefully read Making Customers

Count: A Guide to Excellence in Customer Care, DAVID CLUTTERBUCK and SUSAN KERNAGHAN, Mercury 2000 (1994), 202 pp., £9.99. Based on 15 case studies of companies who introduced programmes of customer care. An attempt to identify best practice, including why they go wrong and what can be done to ensure that they do succeed. Also Brand Power, Edited by PAUL STOBART, Macmillan (1994), 255 pp., £30.00. Includes contributions from senior executives at Coca-Cola, Guinness, Nestle, Grand Metropolitan, Benetton, Galbani, Siar Bossard, Tesco, Maruha and Mars, covering subjects such as: The importance of brand power; How to create, manage and value brand power? and How to protect brand power? A useful analysis of the application of strategic concepts to European business is provided by Com-

petitive Marketing Strategy for Europe, LINDEN BROWN and MALCOLM H. B. McDoNALD, Macmillan (1994), 370 pp., £16.50.

Market Place, Edited by DAVIDBRIDGES and TERENCE H. McLAUGHLIN, The Falmer Press (1994), 178 pp., £12.95 (14 papers that debate the application of market principles within the context of public education), which complements the earlier volume. Research in Edu-

cation Management and Policy: Retrospect and Prospect, edited by RENE SARAN and VERNON TRAEFORD, The Falmer Press (1990), 262 pp., £15.00; and Higher Education and Corporate

Realities: Class, Culture and the decline of graduate careers, PHILIP BROWN and RICHARDSCASE, UCL Press (1994), £12.95 (soft), £35.00 (hard) which raises important contradictions in the aims and purposes of (UK?) higher education. Other quantitative aspects of the (UK) labour market are considered in Achieving the National

Education and Training Targets, M. SPILSBURYand M. EVERETT,Institute of Manpower Studies (1993), 67 pp., £28.00; Urban Trends 2: A Decade in Britain's Deprived Urban Areas, Edited by PETER WILLMOTr, Policy Studies Institute (1994), 106 pp., £25.00; and Skills Needs in Britain-- 1994, IFF Research Ltd (1994), 150 pp., £40.00. Some of the more fundamental issues are (academically?) discussed in Wil-

ling Slaves: British workers under Human Resource Management, ANDREWSCOTT,Cambridge University Press (1994), 174 pp., £30.00. The importance of people to an organization is emphasized by All Together Now, JOHN HARVEY-JONES,Heinemann (1994), 211 pp., £15.90. Full of sound sentiments, but there are those who would take exception to the phrase 'people are our most underexploited resource'! Probably true, but the key issue is who controls the exploitation and why. An alternative view of some of the issues is provided by New Management: an MSF Guide, MSF (1994), 57 pp., £10.00. (MSF markets itself as 'the union for skilled and professional people.') A critical dimension of public sector policy is provided by The Campaigning

Handbook: Communications, Organisation, Direct Action, Lobbying, The Law, MARK LATTI/VlER. Directory of

The Guardian Guide to the UK's Top The importance of strategic thinking Companies 1995, Edited by ROGER and action is the public sector con-

Social Change (1994), 383 pp., £12.95. While the specific: nature of strategy and planning in organizations without a profit motive--based on the experiences of several agencies and including case studies--is contained in The Com-

COWE, Fourth Estate (1994), 454 pp., £28.00.s

plete Guide to Business and Strategic Planning: For Volunta~ Organisations,

tinues to get more exposure, including such volumes as Education and the

Long Range Planning Vol. 28

August 1995