Marks and Spencer
As I write, the fate of Marks and Spencer, Britain’s iconic retailer, hangs in the balance. Will it remain a quoted company or be...
US politics
I have been in the US for two weeks now, and have not seen a Wal-Mart store. The world’s largest retailer is ubiquitous, but not...
European Union new members – languages
The founding members of the European Union shared four languages and six bilingual interpreters could have enabled any of its citizens ...
Shell
Most of the largest companies in the world a century ago – businesses like US Steel and International Harvester – are now but a shadow ...
Shareholders
In the 1990s corporate executives represented shareholders in much the same way as communist dictators represented the workers of the w...
America/France
As you walk down from my French house to the town and the sea, you pass the Centre Roger Latournerie, a holiday village for coal miners...
Thinking outside the blue box on recycling
In response to receiving a brown bin, blue box and some green bags, John writes a letter to Cherwell District Council questioning the rationale of recycling paper and calling for more practical environmentalism initiatives.
Why the Atkins approach is bad for business
Doing an Atkins diet is now as fashionable in business as it is in personal life. But in business – as on the female body – there are places where you want fat as well as those where you do not. Bottom line – rather than tinker with sustainability, it is still best to soak up resources and use the energy productively.
Bonuses are a problem diet for financiers
Heads, we win; tails, they lose! Managers, traders and advisers who take more of gains than of losses have incentives to support risky courses of action that are not in the best interests of the principals they represent. John explains why this scheme can never really align the rewards of the individual with the objectives of the organisation.
Saintly lies and the devil that lurks in double talk
Nothing so much undermines public regard for politics and business as the increasingly widespread practice of equivocation. In the light of the spectacle surrounding the Hutton report, this wisdom should be extended beyond the tale of St Athanasius.