Management Research News: Volume 15 Issue 5/6
Table of contents
The Fear of Death and Monumental Change
Gibson BurrellIn this paper an attempt will be made to weave together some thoughts on ‘the challenge of change’ which have their origins in quite disparate fields. It will be argued that…
Human Resource Management: Efficiency and Economic Organisation?
Ian ClarkWithin the disciplines which examine and evaluate the employment relationship, Human Resource Management (HRM) has become a major arena for prescriptive adoption and to some…
A Configurations Approach Towards Organisations — The Implications for Human Resource Management
Joanne Duberley, Shirley BlenkinsopThis paper will consider the changes in the way that we theoretically conceptualise organisations being brought about by the configurations approach towards organisations. It will…
International Managers and Mobile Families: The Professional and Personal Dynamics of Trans‐National Career Pathing and Job Mobility in the 1990s
Nick ForsterThe rapid internationalisation of companies has been one of the most significant economic and sociological developments in domestic, European and global markets over the last…
Understanding Retail Employment Relations
Paul Freathy, Leigh SparksThe objectives of this paper are two‐fold. First, it seeks to rectify an imbalance within the employment literature by focusing upon the important but neglected retail sector…
The Role of Social Agency in the Application of New Organisation and Management Strategies: Employee Responses to HRM Packages in Three UK Automotive Companies
Philip Garrahan, Paul StewartCurrent debates about new management strategies exhibit a marked tendency to regard economic, political and social changes largely as though they amount to the end of an old era…
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and Employment Relations: The Theory and Practice of Organisational Change
David Goss, Derek Adam‐SmithIt seems clear that one of the challenges of change to be faced by organisations in the 1990s will be that of dealing effectively with the impact of AIDS. According to Trebilcock…
Equal Opportunities Policies and Developments in Human Resource Management: A Comparative European Analysis
Ariane HegewischEqual opportunities policies in Europe are finding themselves in the middle of a paradox. On the one hand, after years of campaigning, the European Community and the Treaty of…
New Technology and Industrial Relations Change in the North‐West
Paul Johnson, Jim McGoldrickThe rapid technological changes experienced throughout industry in the 1970s and '80s have radically altered the nature and experience of work for many people in both public and…
From IR to HR? Change and Continuity in Industrial Relations — A Longitudinal Case
N.J. KinnieA great deal of attention has been given to developments in industrial relations on new or ‘green field’ sites, especially those owned by foreign companies. However, there is…
Decentralisation and Workplace Industrial Relations in the NHS
Caroline LIoyd, Roger SeifertThe current debate concerning the transformation of work, new management practices and flexibility in employment, has proved to be inadequate in its lack of attention given to the…
The Attempted Restructuring of Worker Representation under Different European industrial Relations Systems: A Post Modern Convergence?
Miguel Martinez Lucio, Syd WestonThe adoption of human resource management (HRM) and assertive attempts at organisational change in key multi‐national corporations (MNC's) present the European labour movement…
Changing Organisations: Gender, Bureaucracy and Culture
Karen Ramsay, Martin Parker“Bureaucratic and patriarchal structures are antagonistic in many ways, yet they have in common a most important peculiarity: permanence. In this respect they are both…
The World of Women's Work: The Benefits of Cross‐National Research on Women's Employment
Catherine TrussMuch has been written on the nature of gender segregation in the labour market, but it is only recently that researchers have turned to cross‐national comparisons as a means of…
Organisational Change and HRM: A Longitudinal Case Study
P.B. Beaumont, L.C. HunterIn the existing literature on organisational change (with a strong emphasis on human resource management) the cases discussed are frequently at the opposite ends of a spectrum: a…
Changing the TQM Boundaries: Extensions into the Supply Chain: Initial Stages in a Research Project
John Bessant, Richard Lamming, Paul Levy, Bob SangThis short informal paper introduces a research project carried out at The Centre for Business Research, based at Brighton Business School entitled: “Total Quality Management in…
The Problems of Effecting Change within the British Civil Service: A Cultural Perspective
Ian Brooks, Paul BateThis paper uses a cultural perspective to explore the problems of change within the British Civil Service. The catalyst for such change is the Government's “Improving Management…
Leadership and Organisational Transformation
Alan Bryman, David Gillingwater, Iain McGuinnessOne of the features of the New Leadership literature that has come to exert a substantial influence over leadership research in recent years is the role of leadership in relation…
Consumer: King or Peasant? Organisational Change in the Banking Industry
Dawn BurtonThe paper wishes to highlight the importance of consumers and consumer movements as an important dynamic of organisational change. This is an area of organisational analysis which…
The Role of the Mentor in Transforming the Organisation
Audrey CollinThis paper will argue that one explanation for the continuing interest in and application of mentoring programmes in organisations is that mentoring contributes significantly to…
Discovering Corporate Culture: The Ethnography of a Library Merger
Annette Davies, Ian Kirkpatrick, Nick OliverThis paper will investigate some of the theoretical and methodological problems associated with the way ‘culture’ is defined and studied in organizational settings. In short we…
Transforming the Health Service: A Prescription for Health Gain?
Sandra Dawson, Diana Winstanley, Veronica MoleThis paper draws on primary research from two sources. First a major research project begun December 1991 on ‘Senior Managerial Competencies, Succession Planning and Organisation…
Assisted Self‐Service: The Cult[ure] of the Customer in Retailing
Paul du Gay, Graeme SalamanAs the 1980s drew to a close a plethora of retrospective articles and programmes appeared in the media analysing, panning and celebrating perceiving key moments and transitions in…
Organisational Culture, Politics and Ideology: Understanding Customer Care
Eric Harrison, Mick MarchingtonIn recent years an increasing number of organisations in the service sector have sought to market themselves on the basis, not merely of value for money, but also on the standard…
Death of a Snake‐Oil Salesman. The Demise of the Corporate Life‐Cycle
Heather HöpflThe title of this paper comes from Arthur Miller's play “Death of a Salesman” and from a comment made to me by a colleague at a management development event for a major UK…
Introducing Strategic Change to a Hospital: A Case Study
R. McChesney, L Carswell, M. Connolly, A. Erridge, D. McAlisterThis paper reports on the introduction of major change into a large group of hospitals. While the study acknowledges the need to cater for technological, structural and personnel…
Managing Market‐Oriented Change in Public and Private Sectors
Terry McNulty, Richard Whipp, Richard Whittington, Martin KitchenerAttention to the realities of developing a market orientation has increased as managers endeavour to cope with the increasingly competitive contexts within which they operate…
Models of Organisational Transformation in the Public Sector
Sandra NutleyMuch of the research on the theory and practice of organisational transformation has been conducted in private sector organisations. The public sector, particularly in Britain…
Facilitating Public Sector Organisational Culture Change through the Process of Transformational Leadership
Peter Simpson, M. BeebyThe purpose of this paper is to re‐explore the concept of transformational leadership using a combination of action research methods in order to contribute to a clearer…
Dust Shaken out of a Book into an Empty Skull? Higher Education Culture in Britain and Canada
David StilesThis paper represents a unique methodology — developed, piloted and successfully applied in Business Schools on both sides of the Atlantic. Using a methodology integrating…
Transforming the Culture of the NHS: Vision, Paradox and Metalogic
Marie ThorneThe NHS and Community Care Act instituted a fundamental split between the purchasers and providers of health care; shifting the NHS from a bureaucratic process driven organisation…
Moving the Goal Posts? Organisational Transformation and Continuous Quality Improvement at BAe (Military Aircraft Division)
Alan TuckmanThis paper examines the changes currently occurring at a BAe plant. Recently they have seen a shift of emphasis on the production of military aircraft, away from their main…
Micro‐Multi and Mobile‐Mini: Observations on Initial Findings from Research into Small, High Technology Firms
Stephen AckroydThis paper reports some of the findings from a cross‐national study of small, high‐technology firms. It sets out some of the background to the work, describing methods as well as…
Towards an Interpretive Model of Information Systems Implementation
Andrew BrownThis paper draws on the literatures concerned with information systems, organisational interpretation and organisational symbolism, to formulate an interpretive model of…
Privatisation in Czechoslovakia — A Case Study in Organisational Transformation during Social Change
Ed Clark, Anna SoulsbyOur aim is to be as current as possible. What follows is a very broad overview of the ideas and intentions of the proposed paper, rather than a precis of a paper already prepared…
How has Management Changed? Evidence of Organisational Transformation in Larger UK Companies
Mahmoud Ezzamel, Hugh Willmott, Simon LilleyThis paper is situated within two debates. First concerns the theories of ‘disorganised capitalism’ and the like which argue for major restructuring of advanced capitalist…
Organisational Change: The Role of Telework
Paul JacksonThe coming of the “Information Society” would, many believed, spell wholesale changes for the way we work. With the power of new information technology (IT) the means by which…
Redeployment and Competitive Strategy
Hedley MallochThe aim of the paper is to demonstrate and explain the importance of redeployment as a HRM policy. The literature and empirical work on labour flexibility identifies three types…
Just‐In‐Time, New Buyer‐Supplier Relations and Change in Work Organisation
Kirsty NewsomeThe paper will offer a work in progress report of a three year research project, which started in February 1991, at the Local Economy Research Unit, Hatfield Polytechnic. The…
Subcontracting and the Global‐Local Connection: Myth and Reality
Al RainnieThe purpose of this paper is to question some of the assumptions underlying the new localism. To address the issue it will be necessary to construct a more sensitive approach to…
Flexibility Revisited: A Temporal Analysis of the Introduction of Flexibility
Stephen Procter, Louise McCardle, Michael Rowlinson, John Hassard, Paul ForresterPollert's latest contribution to the flexibility debate has been to denounce the concept as an appropriate framework for research and to state that it should be replaced by one…
The ‘Lean Production’ Model, New Technology and HRM: A Case Study of Automotive Presswork
Mike Rawlinson, Pete WellsThe lean production model does not say much about the shop‐floor implications for working practices and labour management relations — the assumption is that workers would prefer…
Experts, Professions and Organisations in Late Modernity
Michael ReedThe focus for this paper is the changing relationship between expertise, professional power and organisational control within advanced industrial societies. The analysis of this…
Citizenship, ‘Consumerism’ and Network Governance
Grahame ThompsonThis paper investigates a range of terms and concepts that are increasingly used to describe and analyse organisational and institutional configurations. Broadly speaking, it is…
New Organisational Forms in Traditional Industries: The Process of Change in the Metalworking Sector
Graham WinchRecent debates have suggested a wide variety of new forms for the nineteen nineties. The work of Piore and Sabel has stimulated a wide‐ranging debate about the relevance of a…