Research

The structure of the modern workplace has made it such that friendships are being formed between employees and managers. For one thing, people are spending more time at the office than ever before, so it's natural that their social circles are being filled out with other people in the workplace.

As globalization moves into ever more culturally diverse locations, the question of business and culture – "the Lexus and the olive tree" in the lexicon of Thomas Friedman's bestseller of the same name — becomes increasingly germane.

The auditing and reporting requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act — effective since 2004 for larger and midsize corporations and yet to take hold for the smallest companies — have triggered complaints about the costs and questions about the effectiveness of the law.

In the wake of spectacular corporate collapses, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act established new rules on a scale not seen since those meant to ameliorate the economic calamities of the 1930s.

The CANAMEX Corridor of Innovation initiative has been working in recent years to plan improvements to public and private shipping, rail, highway and inspection facilities through a multistate cooperative of Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Idaho.

U.S. sales of notebook PCs outpaced desktop computers for the first time in 2005, garnering 53.3 percent of the total PC retail market, according to research firm Current Analysis.

The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that 2005 U.S. e-commerce sales rose to $86.3 billion — 25 percent over 2004 sales. Yet e-commerce represents only around 2 percent of U.S. retail sales.

You wouldn't expect to see a scrawny, spectacled, beak-nosed Chippendale dancer any more than you'd expect Hooters to hire an obese waitress. But, surely, looks don't matter for the highly educated and trained sales professionals that pharmaceutical companies send to doctors' offices.

Did you ever notice how shoppers often thumb through magazines, but when it comes to making a purchase, they never pick the one at the front of the rack?

Arizona is at a crossroads, looking back at 25 years of spectacular growth and forward to a future that, while promising, is also uncertain. As one of 10 identified "megapolitan" areas in the U.S., Arizona faces the choice of creating high-quality jobs or ignoring that need.