his special edition of the Irish Journal of Management represents a selection of the best papers from the Eighth Annual Conference of the Irish Academy of Management which took place on 7-9 September, 2005, in the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. By all accounts it was a very successful conference, with close to 250 people attending and 200 papers presented in the two days. The conference builds on the success of earlier confer­ ences that have established the lAM conference as the leading management conference in Ireland. I was delighted to be confer­ ence organiser, and to be the editor of this special edition of the Irish Journal of Management.