BOOKS FOR MANAGERS

Cases in Environmental Management and Business Strategy by RICHARD WELFORD (Editor) Pitman Publishing, 1994, pp. 216, £19.99 Paperback, ISBN 0 273 60313 2

Professor Welford has produced a badly needed set of cases for teaching in environmental management. This volume complements Environmental Management and Business Strategy by Richard Welford and Andrew Gouldson (Pitman (1993)) and a table cross-referencing chapters between the two books ties the texts together. However, this does not mean that Cases does not stand alone as a text in its own right. By means of two brief introductory chapters, on issues and tools in environmental management, Professor Welford offers material that enables the reader to unders tand the main concepts that underlie the remainder of the text. Hence, readers may use this as a self- contained reference from which to learn from the experience of others.

That said, the book's main value lies in its illustration of environmental management practice at two levels -- individual companies and business sectors. Each case study in the first of these two sections presents an in depth discussion of individual company philosophy, policy formulation and implementation. The detail does not disappoint and apparently draws on sources such as company environmental reports, press coverage and, perhaps, ' inside information'. IBM UK, BT, the Volkswagen Audi Group and Body Shop International are each covered at length; each illustrating slightly different aspects of corporate approaches to environmental improvement.

Following this, the book presents case studies of environmental issues at a broader level. Not handled in quite as much detail as the individual cases, these

chapters nevertheless offer insights into areas as diverse as the Bhopal catastrophe and the Alaskan oil spill, environmental strategies at UK supermarket chains, the transport sector, small and medium sized enterprises, and co-operation in environmental strategy at the regional level in Eire.

The main part of the book concludes with an eloquent plea for action on the environment. Professor Welford is clear that the lead must come from senior figures in industry and government, and advocates the use of a committed, well thought out and managed approach. It is only here that I must carp a little. Although I believe Richard's overall approach to environmental management is full of excellent ideas and leads the way in terms of the committed approach we need, I feel that a little more structure, perhaps looking towards business strategy theory (other than TQM), might strengthen the appeal of the text and its companion volume even further.

The book concludes with a set of exercises each designed to test various skills and techniques that are important to good environmental practice. Whilst a good idea in principle, the exercises are a little ' thin' and might benefit from further development in future editions.

And finally, the acid test; what do students think? Elements of this text were used in the Environmental Management elective on the University of Bradford MBA programme 1993/94. Generally, the students felt that the cases were particularly useful, clearly illustrating principles presented in tutorials and readings. The exercises were not so well received. The students ' main criticism was that the Cases and text books were separate, adding yet more cost to already over- stretched budgets. They suggested that a reduced version

of the cases could be usefully combined with the text in a future edition.

Book shop and library shelves are becoming increasingly heavily laden with sub-standard texts on the environment and environmental management. It is therefore somewhat of a relief to find a book as useful as Cases in Environmental Management and Business Strategy and it is a worthy addition to the literature.

Clive Smal lman

International Dimensions of Human Resource Management (second edition) by PETER J DOWLING, RANDALL S SCHULER and DENICE E WELCH, Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994, pp. 267.

This book is in the excellent Wadsworth International Dimensions of Business series (formerly under the PWS-Kent imprint). This second edition updates, extends and includes an editional author (Welch) to provide a useful follow-up to the successful first edition. It covers the following areas: the international context of human resource management; recruitment and selection of international personnel; performance appraisal of expatriates; international training and development; international compensation; and international industrial relations. It then considers with a discussion of future directions and issues.

An appendix includes research issues which is less extensive than in the first edition, and a glossary of terms which at times seems banal (e.g. definitions of 'bachelor status', 'married status', etc.; and 'business trip' and 'foreign assignment') and sometime uninformative (e.g. definitions of ethnocentric, geocentric, polycentric and regiocentric employment

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BOOKS FOR MANAGERS

approaches should refer to the original work of Perlmutter and colleagues rather than offering these terms as universally accepted).

However, this is mainly picking holes, as generally the book is well researched and as comprehensive as a book of 267 pages can be. To commend it, this book does not suffer from the ethnocentricity which is seen in so many American

publications (helped perhaps by the fact that two of the authors are Australian) and could be used just as usefully in Europe and the Pacific basin. It focuses more on the expatriate than do many recent European publications. There has, for example, been a spate of UK/European HRM books which seem to focus on country differences, rather than trans-national management of human resources. Fortunately

Dowling et al take the latter approach.

For newcomers to the field of international human resource management, this publication is a good introduction. This second edition still provides the refreshing approach as did the first edition in 1990: and the publishers seem determined to keep it up to date!

Terence Jackson

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