Babson College

So you've never traveled to Cape Cod? No problem. Buy one of those weathered wooden Adirondack chairs and it'll look as though you vacation on the East Coast regularly. The only rodeo you've ever been to is the street that houses Tiffany? Doesn't matter. Get a lamp made out of old, rusted horseshoes and your friends will swear you were born in the saddle.

Applicants frequently lie on pre-employment personality tests to get jobs they aren't qualified to hold, to the detriment of competitors who tell the truth. "It is the less-qualified applicant who is most able to take advantage of faking because highly qualified applicants don't have much room to improve their scores," said Joseph Rosse, a management professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Rosse compared the test scores of 197 job applicants at an Aspen, Colo.

The timing couldn't be better. By the Fourth of July, it might be over. The U.S. soccer team, which needs only two more victories to virtually assure itself a place in the 2002 World Cup, next faces two teams in turmoil. Both Trinidad and Tobago, Wednesday night's opponent at Foxboro, Mass., and Mexico, which plays the U.S. in Mexico City on July 1, are disintegrating more visibly with each loss. Chances are, their respective coaches--Ian Porterfield and Enrique Meza--soon will be ousted.

General Motors Corp. filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the United Auto Workers, alleging that the strikes that have paralyzed its operations and cut earnings by $1.2 billion are illegal and should be subjected to expedited arbitration. A hearing is scheduled today before U.S. District Judge Paul Gadola on a motion filed by GM to compel the union to arbitrate issues concerning the strikes before an impartial umpire.

A weaker economy doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad time to start or expand a business. It does mean entrepreneurs need to do some extra projections and soul-searching before making any big moves. "Even if you're in a declining economy, some industries will do well," said William Dunkelberg, chief economist with the National Federation of Independent Business. "Do your research carefully." "If you found an opportunity . . .

The news tease promised "another Rodney King episode." Just as George Holliday awakened in the wee hours to minicam King for the ages, a private citizen had now come forward with home video of another, more recent episode of "police brutality." At least that's what the anchor said in introducing a chunk of amateur footage from another city, pictures that got wide national exposure recently. You braced for something shocking.

Talk to me. Better yet, listen to me. Sounds pretty simple. Yet many companies, whose approach has been to run dictatorships rather than democracies, find it hard to communicate with employees and involve them in decision-making. Often the problem is that the boss has a closed-door policy. Or employees are discouraged from developing their own ideas about their jobs and the company.

In a small victory for General Motors Corp., a federal judge Tuesday ordered the United Auto Workers and GM to promptly begin arbitration to determine if lengthy strikes paralyzing the auto maker are illegal. The hearings, which were previously scheduled, are to begin today before Thomas Roberts, a veteran arbitrator from Roling Hills, Calif. The proceedings are expected to take several days. U.S.

The high-stakes game of poker for Federated Department Stores continued unabated Tuesday as Campeau Corp. called rival R. H. Macy & Co.'s bid "illusory" and upped the ante on its own bid. Without increasing the dollar value of its bid, Toronto-based Campeau did proffer an olive branch of sorts, proposing to move its Allied Stores retail headquarters from New York to Federated's home turf of Cincinnati.

Consumers will find the customary sales events, holiday trim and marketing hype when they converge on the nation's shopping centers Friday, the official start of the holiday shopping season. This year, however, more and more retailers say they will seek a competitive edge by trying to make shopping more convenient for consumers.