This is the fifth edition of a long‐established and well‐respected title – the third edition was listed in Walford's Guide to Reference Material (Day and Walsh, 2000) – first published by Gale in 2000. Van Nostrand Reinhold were responsible for the first three editions (dated 1963, 1973, and 1982), which were edited by Carl Heyel. I have not seen the fourth edition, but I have looked at the third edition for comparison.
Now edited by Marilyn Helms (Professor of Management, Dalton State College, Georgia), the Encyclopedia contains over 300 signed articles on aspects of business and management. The articles are wide‐ranging, generally of good quality and seem to be up to date. There are signs of unevenness in the depth of coverage and treatment of the subject matter, however, and in an encyclopedia I would like to see annotated bibliographies and consistent citation of sources, not just uninformative lists of Further Reading. On this score, Encyclopedia of Management disappoints, compared to the Concise International Encyclopedia of Business & Management (Warner, 1997). And why are there eight items in the further reading attached to the article on Listening, but only one item relating to Logistics and Transportation?
Helms has retained her predecessor's dual approach of providing both a conventional A‐Z for reference purposes, and a guide to functional‐area readings, organizing articles under broad headings such as Leadership, Supply Chain Management, and Emerging Topics in Management. Some articles are listed under more than one heading. The idea is to provide the user with systematic reading programmes about particular elements of the management function. This is described as “the reader's own MBA”, but without a serious pedagogical approach the claim is unconvincing. Readers would be better off (in every sense) purchasing a good management textbook.
I found several mistakes. A short biography of the nineteenth century social reformer and industrialist Robert Owen repeatedly refers to him (as does the index) as “Robert Owens” – yet his name is subsequently spelled correctly! Owen is described as Scottish, but he was born in Wales. The Encyclopedia perpetuates a common confusion about Charles Babbage's birth date (which was 1791, not 1792), and claims, oddly, that he is “known as the patron saint of operations research and management science”. The European Union is misleadingly described as “an economic and political federation”, and as having “15 original member nations” (in fact, there were 12 members of the EC when it became the EU, and three joined subsequently). The word “cyberspace” is said to have been coined by William Gibson in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, but in fact he first used it in a 1982 short story. Malcolm Baldrige is misspelled “Badridge” in the index.
There is a table of contents, but annoyingly it lists as “essay titles” entries which merely refer you to a substantive article. For example, Acquisitions is listed as an essay title, but turn to the entry and it says only “see Mergers and Acquisitions”. Future editions must fix this. The index is worse than it was in 1982, with few properly analytical entries and some serious gaps. This is particularly problematic when relevant material may appear in more than one article, and when cross‐referencing between related subjects is as unreliable as it is here. For example, W. Edward Deming's famous “14 points” are listed in one article on p. 656, briefly summarised in another on p.737, and explained in more detail in yet another on pp. 727‐729. The articles do not cross‐refer, and the index unhelpfully fails to make any distinction between the pages it cites. The article on the internet includes a paragraph on blogs, but the index entry for blogs only refers the user to an article about professional readings for managers (again, the two articles do not cross‐refer). The article on international management includes a table (not sourced, by the way) showing the growth in the numbers of internet users between 1996 and 2002, but it is invisible to the index.
Minor inaccuracies and editorial failings aside, the articles are generally clearly, concisely and authoritatively written by academics, librarians, and business people. However, some of the contributors are freelance writers whose credentials are unknown. The contributors' list in the 1982 edition helpfully indicated who was responsible for which articles, but this edition does not. Some articles are signed by people who do not appear in the latest list of contributors: you have to consult previous editions to find out who they were.
There are very few non‐US contributors to the Encyclopedia, and the focus of the articles is squarely on the USA with no concessions to an international audience. Only the most specialist European reference collection will need a copy of this expensive volume, but it will be useful, despite its flaws, to American libraries.
