Return to AMJ Contents

Designing Women: A Qualitative study of the Glass Ceiling for Women in Technology

Although many women enter the field of information technology (IT), many also exit in or encounter obstacles to advancement within it.  Given the huge demand for IT personnel, managers would do well to try to attract and retain women as well as men in this field.  A study based on members of Systers, an informal, on-line organization for women in IT, suggests that women do, indeed, face some obstacles and prejudices that men do not -- educational background and family characteristics; corporate cultures; and sociological factors.
Mary A. Lemons and Monica J. Parzinger

A Business Policy Statement Model for Eliminating Sexual Harassment and Related Employer Liability

Following the enactment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers were required to eliminate sexual harassment.  Court cases involving sexual harassment continue to mount, and, partly as a result, the definition of harassment has broadened to include more than one on one incidents.  Employers can also be liable for allowing intimidating hostile, and offensive working environments.  The cornerstone of efforts to prevent harassment should be a policy statement that is thoroughly, widely circulated and explained, and identifies and eliminates all possible types of such harassment.
John A. Pearce II and Samuel A. DiLullo

Meeting the Need for Employee Development in the 21st Century

If employers provided employee training in the past, it was primarily to make them more productive.  In today's labor market, education and training may be necessary for a whole host of reasons.  A company that offers employees the opportunity to improve and add new skills, thereby making them more valuable to current and future employers, may be more successful in attracting new hires and even retraining existing ones than those lacking such programs.  Training may run the gamut from in-house "universities" to virtual, Web-based courses.
Amit Shah, Charles Sterrett, Jerry Chesser, and Jessica Wilmore

Business Cohesion: Managing Schools of Business in the Age of Knowledge

Without cohesion, a group or organization cannot hope to survive, to achieve maximum productivity, or to command commitment, loyalty, teamwork, and solidarity from its members.  Business schools should play an important role in teaching ways to achieve cohesion and in setting an example of cohesiveness, especially since today's "knowledge revolution" puts the spotlight on institutions of learning.  An appropriate mix of the 12 factors of cohesion discussed here can help these schools develop and teach cohesiveness as a management strategy.
Akpe Mbaatyo

Extranet: A New Wave of Internet

Your company or organization could well benefit by creating a variation of an intranet that's just for authorized users -- customers, suppliers, distributors, mobile employees, and so on.  Sharing information on an extranet, a hybrid Web site between the intra- and Inter-nets, may promote customer or member loyalty to your organization and generally grease the skids of e-commerce.  To succeed, however, an extranet needs high-level commitment and should be seen as a knowledge-management asset rather than a networking expense.
Raymond Rihao Ling and David C. Yen

Mind Your Business by Mining Your Data

"Drowning in data" is a common complaint in this day and age.  Many companies make decisions based on inadequate data, but often they don't lack the data, they just can't access it in a meaningful and helpful way.  Converting data into comprehensible information is a competitive necessity, and the techniques of data mining may accomplish this task.  A major caveat, however is that data mining results will be inferior if the data itself is not of high-quality and relevant to the particular purpose.
John A. Copoorian, Robert Witherell, Omar E. M. Khalil, and Mehnaz Ahmed