Browse by subject:
- Latest podcasts
- Accounting, Finance and Economics
- Human Resource Management
- Marketing and Logistics
- Information Management and Technology
- Management of Quality
- Operations and Production Management
- Top Management
- Education, Learning and Development
Subscribe to our Emerald Podcasts RSS feed
We are now offering some of our management content as podcasts.
David Pollitt edits a range of journals in the areas of strategic management, human-resource management and training. In a journalistic career spanning more than 30 years, he has been a sub-editor for local, evening and national newspapers and has written on topics as diverse as local government and leisure.
He is based at the European Briefing Unit at the University of Bradford.
Podcasts are provided as .mp3 files which you can play on your computer or upload to your mp3 player. No special software is required.
Left-click your chosen podcast link, then:
- To play the file choose 'open' (Internet Explorer) or 'Open with' & click 'OK' (Firefox) when your browser prompts you.
- To download the files to your computer choose 'save' (Internet Explorer) or 'Save to disc' (Firefox)
We value your feedback on this service. Please send any comments to [email protected]
Top Management
Top Management: The power of good story-telling simply isn't a myth
Everyone loves a good story. One of the oldest and most human art forms, story-telling can inspire us or break our hearts, fire our imagination or prey on our greatest fears, make us laugh or make us cry, help us both to understand ourselves better and to connect with those around us. In short, through story-telling we can make more sense of the world we live in.
Top Management: Toyota and Hyundai steer different paths to success
When it comes to effective management, there is no such thing as one size fits all. Take the examples of Toyota and Hyundai. Both are successful vehicle manufacturers. Both specialize in mass-market products - although Toyota does have its luxury Lexus range. Both operate on a global scale. But the companies' leadership strategies could hardly be more different.
Top Management: Speaking effectively is an essential tool - but have you tried listening?
The art of public speaking isn't a skill needed only by those people who have to stand at a rostrum and address a packed meeting. It's essential for anyone who has to get across an effective message to an audience, whether that assembly comprises hundreds of strangers or just half a dozen or so work colleagues. That's why many organisations have recognised the worth of sending managers and executives to brush up their skills in speaking effectively.
Top Management: Success goes to firms that dare to be different
Ask 20 business people to list a dozen companies that stand out from the crowd, and it is likely that they would broadly agree on around half of them.
Top Management: Microsoft and Sony were wrong-footed by the internet
List 10 world-beating products of recent times, and they are likely to include Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, the Sony Walkman and the Sony PlayStation. All four had the 'wow' factor that transformed their product categories and even the way we live our lives. For a number of years after they were introduced, Microsoft and Sony could do no wrong.
Top Management: Lego builds a chain of own-brand stores
When was the last time you visited your friendly local toy-store? Last Christmas? The Christmas before that?
Top Management: The firms that are growing despite the downturn
Weak consumer demand because of the recession is hitting many companies hard. Think no further than international book and music retailer Borders Group, 60-year-old US airline Aloha and UK van manufacturer LDV Group, all of which have closed in the past two or three years.
Top Management: Is management mumbo-jumbo undermining your company?
It started with expressions such as 'going forward', 'touching base' and 'at the end of the day', but management speak now goes much, much further. Today's executives routinely talk about getting all their ducks in a row, picking the low-hanging fruit and sprinkling their magic.
Top Management: Siemens makes the most of the move to megacities
More than half of the world's 6.9 billion people live in cities. By 2050, this is likely to reach 70%, or 6.2 billion people. Almost all the growth will be in the emerging markets of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The United Nations estimates that by 2100, Europe's share of the world's population will halve to 6%, while Africa's will double to 25%.
Top Management: Mulally puts Ford on the motorway to success
Few were surprised when Ford president and chief executive Alan Mulally was recognized as Person of the Year in the third annual Financial Times ArcelorMittal Boldness in Business Awards earlier this year.
Top Management: A tale of two crises: the Chilean mining rescue and the Deepwater Horizon explosion
When the Chilean authorities first made contact with 33 miners trapped underground following a cave-in at the San Jose copper-gold mine on 5 August 2010, they estimated that it would be Christmas before the men could be brought to the surface.
Top Management: Tesco's quiet man checks out after 14 years at the top
Few business leaders - in any sector - have been as successful as Tesco's Sir Terry Leahy (Lay-Hee).
Top Management: Command without control: a way ahead for the multinational business
For 40 years from the late 1960s, Japan was a powerhouse of the developed economies. From cars to computers and from television sets to telecommunications equipment, many of the world's most efficient producers and respected brands were Japanese. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Japanese motor industry had established such a lead over its western rivals that populist politicians in the USA and western Europe took to attacking consumers for buying Japanese cars.
Top Management: Why agile companies are primed to succeed
Psion's hand-held personal organizers were the iPad of their day. Light and small enough to fit in a pocket, they threatened to make diaries, address books and filofaxes obsolete. The ultimate yuppie device of the 1980s, they helped to take Psion into the FTSE 100 of top UK companies.
Top Management: Why companies can stumble when they put profit first
For around 40 years from the 1960s, US aircraft-maker Boeing's performance was sky-high. The world's airlines were clamouring for such market-leading passenger jets as the short-haul Boeing 737 and the long-haul Boeing 747 Jumbo jet. The company's leaders, who would 'eat, breathe and sleep the world of aeronautics', could apparently do no wrong. But when, in 1998, they shifted their focus to shareholder return and return on investment, the company took a dive.
Top Management: The pork-barrel politics of the C-17
The US Defense Department has been telling legislators for the last three years that it has enough C-17 cargo aircraft, yet Congress keeps on authorizing more. This year's budget contains $2.5 billion for an extra 10 of Boeing's giant transporters, which would bring the US military's Globemaster fleet to 215.
Top Management: The creative thinking behind the click of a kettle
Click your fingers and think of a kettle.
Top Management: Bread, circuses...and a little bit of monkey business (leadership and corporate history)
With all the impudent wit for which he is famous, US journalist and critic of American life Henry Louis Mencken once said that democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
Top Management: How important are numbers in human decision making?
In the late-1980s and early-1990s, marketers widely recognized the power of the number 2000 to portray something positive and new. Companies from airlines (Air 2000) to private-hire firms (Car 2000) to hairdressers (Style 2000) cashed in on the cachet of a date that was close enough to convey excitement and innovation but not so distant as to be difficult for consumers to grasp.
Top Management: Sobering statistics on organizational success
Research spanning 10 years into succession planning reveals that organizations lacking effective succession management are five times more likely to disappear, and three times less likely to enjoy ‘organizational success’, than those with robust practices.
Top Management: When growth stalls there's often blood on the carpet
What do Levi Strauss & Company, 3M, Apple, Banc One, Caterpillar, Daimler-Benz, Toys 'R'Us and Volvo have in common?
Top Management: Nations square up for the battle of flowers
Addis Ababa may seem a long way from Amsterdam and Nairobi from Nijmegen, but developments in the cut-flower trade in Kenya and Ethiopia are shaking the earth in the Netherlands, its traditional home.
Top Management: The importance of good leadership on employee attitudes
Board directors have a more sanguine view of the organization than those they direct, according to The Management Agenda 2008, published by management-development specialist Roffey Park...
Top Management: Top management
US carrier Southwest branded itself 'the love airline' in the 1970s and dressed its stewardesses in hot pants. Three decades later, as one of its flights was preparing to depart, an airline employee asked 23-year-old passenger Kyla Ebbert to change her miniskirt, top and sweater - or get off the plane!