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This paper aims to contribute to prior gender-based conceptual models within organisational and management studies by incorporating an additional lens of disability. The authors present a context specific and embodied based model that we call the “two-way mirror effect” which accounts for the environmental and discursive effects of gender and disability within the workplace.

The paper reviews existing literature on gender, disability and employment and uses that literature to construct and support the concept of a two-way mirror effect.

By drawing on organisation and management-based studies, the authors have shown how previous models do not currently account for the experiences of disabled women within the workplace. Disabled workers, and especially disabled women face a myriad of unique barriers, including masculine and able-bodied employment practices (e.g. performative expectations) and exclusionary physical spaces (e.g. access, location to required facilities), that exclude them from full employment participation.

The review of existing literature and conceptual models reveal the gaps in research that academics and practitioners can build upon and the paper identifies the dominant norms that are embedded within organisational practices, which can be challenged to promote inclusion and equality.

The authors present a new intersectional-based conceptual model to fill a gap in organisational and management-based studies that accounts for the unique employment experiences of disabled employees, specifically disabled women.

Describes the development of the Healthy Schools Award in Hampshire. The award scheme has been developed by an alliance of pilot schools, health authorities, education inspectors and advisers. Offers schools an opportunity to develop a focus and a framework for cross‐curricular planning and the delivery of health education. Gives an account of two successful projects resulting from the scheme. One is the Family Food Challenge, a teaching pack for schools which contains ten challenges for children and their families to teach them the significance and benefits of adequate nutrition. The second is the Food Forum, a primary school project which aims to improve the school’s philosophy relating to healthy eating.

Describes a small investigation into keeping safe around fireworks with Key Stage 1 pupils. The investigation used the draw and write technique to find out what children in years 1 and 2 already knew about safety in relation to fireworks. Finds that many were already aware of the danger from fireworks, particularly the need to keep behind a barrier of some kind, and the importance of not putting fireworks in pockets. Year 2 children were much more aware that fireworks could hurt or even kill them. Describes a series of exercises that can provide a starting point for further work to reinforce the message that care needs to be exercised when watching fireworks. Makes suggestions for follow‐up work.

To review manufacturing automation products and technology on show at Interplas 2005, the UK's premier exhibition of equipment for the plastics and rubber industry.

Some of the automation products on display at the show are highlighted, particularly the take‐out or beam‐type robots favoured by several of the injection moulding machine (IMM) manufacturers who produce their own version of these robots, including Arburg and Negri Bossi. Descriptions are also given of products from some independent automation equipment manufacturers including ATM, Geiger Handling and Wittmann. Beam‐type and articulated arm robots are described as well as end‐of‐arm tooling including CaviGrip exhibited by ATM, which through cooling within the tool can achieve dramatic savings by reducing the cycle time of IMMs. The contrasting benefits of beam‐type and articulated arm robots tending IMMs are debated. Also revealed is new articulated arm robot hardware and software technology developed by ABB specifically for plastics manufacturing automation. Finally, a brief case study is presented of a robot cell at Characteristix, a UK manufacturer of injection mouldings for the entertainment industry, which has helped it compete against the Far East.

There are manufacturing automation products available to the plastics industry that can help lift it out of recession. Articulated arm robots can add significant value to injection moulded products.

Presents a review of the manufacturing automation technology now available to the plastics manufacturing industry.

This paper aims to first introduce the four contributions to the themed issue of The Learning Organization entitled “Learning Organization/Organizational Learning and Gender Issues”. Second, the commonalities among these articles function as themes that can generate further research and engaged or problem-driven scholarship and practice.

Feminist critique.

These articles challenge commonsense, blur boundaries between reality and imagined visions and form a multilevel matrix for understanding and change regarding gendered learning organizations.

As an introduction to a special issue, this essay summarizes and extends on the four contributions and then extends the insights to encourage discovery, learning and engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the lived experience of toxic leadership for a cohort of 11 individuals who work, or have worked, in the field of higher education in Ireland. Drawing on national and international literature, as well as the testimonies of a cohort of academic and administrative staff, the study considers the impact of this negative management style on these individuals as well as upon the organisation itself.

A total of 11 self-selected individuals (four males and seven females) were interviewed for this pilot study. Data from the semi-structured interviews were organised thematically and analysed with the support of the computer software package MAXQDA®.

The results show that the experience of toxic leadership was profound for the interviewees across a number of contexts. They reported adverse physical and psychological impacts as well as detailing the repercussions for their respective career trajectories as they endeavoured to safely navigate their often-hostile work environment. Human resources departments within their respective institutions were the focus of considerable criticism by the interviewees who highlighted, what they saw as, the inherent contradiction/tension between the perceived roles and responsibilities of such departments in addressing or resolving interpersonal work-related disputes.

The findings expand on the extant scholarly literature on toxic leadership in higher education and, for the first time, offer a revealing insight on this phenomenon within the Irish context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the orientations of line managers in handling workplace conflict. In particular it examines the tension between the traditional preference of frontline managers for informal approaches and the perceived certainty of written disputes procedures.

The paper draws upon findings from 12 organisational case studies, focusing on interviews conducted with HR and managers.

As line managers undertake more responsibility for people management, their preferences for informal approaches to workplace issues appears to be being replaced by a more rigid adherence to policy and procedure. This is largely driven by a lack of confidence and expertise in conflict management and a fear of the repercussions (both legal and organisational) of mishandling difficult issues. Written procedure therefore provides managers with both a systematic guide but also a protective shield against criticism and litigation.

It is not possible to generalise from a limited sample, therefore this suggested change requires further exploration to assess whether it has been evidenced in organisations more widely.

For practitioners this research highlights the critical requirement for organisations to develop key skills among line managers to enable them to respond effectively to problems at an early stage.

For policy-makers, the barriers to line managers implementing informal resolution should be considered.

This paper enriches understanding of line managers’ current role in people management and the challenges they face in doing so informally.

As part of a wider ethnographic project that examines the significance of the public interest across three public and private sector UK planning organisations, this paper uses tea-drinking as a lens to understand structural forces around outsourcing and commercialisation. Reflecting across the five case studies, the analysis supports Burawoy's (2017) recent critique of Desmond's Relational Ethnography (2014). Using Perec's (1997[1973]) notion of the “infra-ordinary” as an anchor, it highlights the insight that arises from an intimate focus on mundane rituals and artefacts.

The data were gathered through participant observation, chronicling the researchers' encounters with tea in each of the sites. A respondent-led photography exercise was successful at two sites. Up to 40 days of ethnographic fieldwork were carried out in each site.

The tea-drinking narratives, while providing an intact description of discrete case study sites, exist in conversation with each other, providing an opportunity for comparison that informs the analysis and helping us to understand the meaning-making process of the planners both in and across these contexts.

The paper contributes to critical planning literature (Murphy and Fox-Rogers, 2015; Raco et al., 2016), illuminating structural forces around outsourcing and commercialisation. It also generates methodological reflection on using an everyday activity to probe organisational culture and promote critical reflection on “weighty” issues across study sites.