Emerald podcasts http://info.emeraldinsight.com The latest podcasts from Emerald en-us Copyright 2009; Emerald Group Publishing Ltd Bread, circuses...and a little bit of monkey business (leadership and corporate history) http://info.emeraldinsight.com/learning/podcasts/podcast.htm?id=49 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. Lights flash amber for new green treaty http://info.emeraldinsight.com/learning/podcasts/podcast.htm?id=48 There are seven buttons across the top of the website of European low-cost airline easyJet. The default is, of course, ‘Book flights’. No surprise there. But the second most prominent, reading left to right, is ‘Fly greener – the environment’. Service quality mind games and the penalties of being a defender http://info.emeraldinsight.com/learning/podcasts/podcast.htm?id=47 ‘Some minds remain open long enough for the truth not only to enter but to pass on through by way of a ready exit without pausing anywhere along the route’, said Australian nurse Elizabeth Kenny, best known for devising methods to treat poliomyelitis by stimulating and re-educating the affected muscles rather than immobilizing patients with splints and casts. Is Silicon Valley the rust-belt of tomorrow? http://info.emeraldinsight.com/learning/podcasts/podcast.htm?id=46 Business Week ran a cover story in 1990 about the future of Silicon Valley. The article examined whether the USA needed a high-technology industrial policy to bolster the competitiveness of the country’s information technology and electronics industries and combat the threat from south-east Asia. Please do touch the goods - and then make a speech about them! http://info.emeraldinsight.com/learning/podcasts/podcast.htm?id=45 So long as people equate ‘feeling good’ with owning something that is really special, there will always be a market for luxury items. Consumers may purchase fewer luxury goods during a downturn, but they do not tend to give up on them altogether. While luxury items are ‘want’ based rather than ‘need’ based, with so much economic misery around people are probably in search of that ‘feel good’ factor more than ever. Why women leaders could have saved the day http://info.emeraldinsight.com/learning/podcasts/podcast.htm?id=44 The financial crisis might not have happened if more women had held top jobs in international finance. Research into business views on the causes of the financial meltdown reveals that the ‘macho’ culture and male-dominated working environment in many City firms caused excessive risk to be taken. Murray Blum, where are you now? Accountants as heroes or villains? http://info.emeraldinsight.com/learning/podcasts/podcast.htm?id=43 Global capitalism - a force for good or evil? Few questions can have exercised the human mind more in recent times. The debate has come into particularly sharp focus over the role of banks in the current recession.