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In this paper, we present and apply a new framework – the Poles of Production for Producers/Poles of Production for Users (PFP/PFU) model – to empirically study how one particular group of academic scientists has responded to neoliberal changes in science policy and funding in Canada. The data we use are from a qualitative case study of 20 basic health scientists affiliated with a research-intensive university in a large Canadian city. We use the PFP/PFU model to explore the symbolic strategies (the vision of scientific quality) and practical strategies (the acquisition of funding and production of knowledge outputs) scientists adopt to maintain or advance their own position of power in the scientific field. We also compare similarities and differences among scientists trained before and after the rise of neoliberal policy. The PFP/PFU model allows us to see how these individual strategies cumulatively contribute to the construction of dominant and alternate modes of knowledge production. We argue that the alignments and misalignments between quality vision and practice that scientists in this study experienced reflect the symbolic struggles that are occurring among scientists, and between the scientific and political field, over two competing logics and reward systems (PFP/PFU).

The performance construct may be one of the most elusive in organization theory. Health care organizations are particularly complex owing to their dual lines of accountability, i.e. professional and administrative. This article examines the factors affecting performance indicator development and use at the technical/managerial and institutional levels, including the accreditation process and the relationship between levels. Using institutional and rational/goal theory, the motivations behind performance measurement behavior at different organizational levels was explored. Results show that the institutional level is motivated by legitimacy while the technical/managerial level is motivated by rationality. Tensions exist between the two levels and between indicator development and use.

This Introduction gives a historical and theoretical overview of this volume on Fields of Knowledge: Science, Politics and Publics in the Neoliberal Age, which showcases original research in political sociology of science targeting the changes in scientific and technological policy and practice associated with the rise of neoliberal thought and policies since the 1970s. We argue that an existing family of field theoretic frameworks and empirical field analyses provides a particularly useful set of ideas and approaches for the meso-level understanding of these historical changes in ways that complement as well as challenge other theory traditions in sociology of science, broadly defined. The collected papers exhibit a dual focus on sciences’ interfield relations, connecting science and science policy to political, economic, educational, and other fields and on the institutional logics of scientific fields that pattern expert discourses, practices, and knowledge and shape relations of the scientific field to the rest of the world. By reconceptualizing the central problem for political sociology of science as a problem of field- and inter-field dynamics, and by critically engaging other theory traditions whose assumptions are in some ways undermined by the contemporary history of neoliberalism, we believe these papers collectively chart an important theoretical agenda for future research in the sociology of science.

Presents a number of papers from the Performance Measurement Association conference held in July 2002. Reveals that all the papers investigate developments in the field of performance measurement and management since the Kaplan and Norton Balanced Scorecard was first introduced.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between employees' perceptions of diversity training (DT) existence and effectiveness with organizational commitment (OC), and career satisfaction (CS).

The analyses in this paper utilize survey data collected between 2006 and 2007 from over 11,000 managers, professionals, and executives working in nine large organizations in corporate Canada. The survey included questions about employees' perceptions of their work experiences and outcomes and their organizations' diversity practices. Comparisons of means as well as multivariate regression analyses were undertaken.

The paper shows that employees who perceived DT to be effective were significantly more committed to their organizations and more satisfied with their careers than employees who perceived DT to be ineffective or non‐existent.

The paper examines the linkages between DT, OS, and CS based on survey responses from managers, professionals, and executives. Findings may therefore not be applicable to entry level employees.

DT, and in particular when viewed by employees to be effective, increases employees' OC and CS, which are associated with loyalty, lower turnover and higher employee engagement.

The paper found that employees' OC and CS are highest when they perceived DT to be effective. Factors associated with OC and CS are explored based on employees' perceptions of the availability and effectiveness of DT.

Questions regarding the effectiveness of criminal justice efforts to reduce crime have dominated social and political thinking in this area for more than a century (Bowen, 2011). During this time a number of philosophical shifts regarding the aims of correctional systems have occurred, fuelled typically by the prevailing political standpoint (McGuire, 2005). At the start of the twentieth century, policymakers in the United States and United Kingdom placed faith in the rehabilitative ideal and offender ‘treatment’-dominated corrections policies (Cullen & Gendreau, 2000). In this context ‘treatment’ refers to a range of interventions designed to alter the individual, contextual and social factors that sustain offending behaviour (Hollin, 1999). This remained the prevailing perspective for the subsequent seven decades until questions arose regarding the quality of ‘state run’ corrections facilities in the United States in the early 1970s. At this point, evaluation science was one of many influences on a change of policy (Hollin, 1999). Martinson's (1974) now infamous research synthesis, described by Glaes (1998, p. 713) as ‘a watershed moment’, provided politicians and policymakers with greater justification for changing the focus of corrections policy. Although arguably it was observers misreporting of Martinson's claims about the evidence which were most influential, rather than the review itself. According to Martinson (1974):It is just possible that some of our treatment programs are working to some extent, but that our research is so bad that it is incapable of telling. Having entered this very serious caveat, I am bound to say that these data … give us very little reason to hope that we have in fact found a sure way of reducing recidivism through rehabilitation. This is not to say that we found no instances of success or partial success; it is only to say that these instances have been isolated, producing no clear pattern to indicate the efficacy of any particular method of treatment. (p. 49)

Notions of justice and punishment seem inextricably entwined in the oldest conceptual traditions of the West. Changing notions of just state responses to citizen crime can tell us much about the culture and the politics of a given society. Yet, often those notions are radically contradictory, mutually exclusive, and/or counterproductive of the goals they seek, together, to achieve in the society.This paper traces a genealogy of punishment rituals practiced in the United States and maps the relationship of reigning ideas of just recompense onto transforming political and cultural realities. This paper highlights the multiple paradoxes that have arisen in the U.S. in the attempt to visualize and realize appropriate and just punishment practices in the state.

Business environments in the last decade have changed dramatically in the United States. Competition from companies with established world‐class techniques has placed heavy pressure on companies not quite as prepared for new realities. In the last ten years, leading companies with traditionally high market shares and profits have found themselves in a panic, implementing radical changes and new ways of doing things in order to survive in an environment where seemingly only the leanest, and most responsive, survive. This paper provides an analysis of how a medium‐sized company has reacted to a changing marketplace in order to remain competitive. Problems faced by this company in the last ten years are typical of the problems many firms in the US have faced: (1) competition in a global market, trends toward automated, high‐volume production and standardization, (2) rapid technology changes and their effect on human resources, and (3) advances in quality expectations. The most noticeable achievement by this company has been made possible by the technology exchange with its new parent company. The successful implementation of key automated manufacturing lines in high‐volume markets has set the pace for what the future business climate will demand.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on diversity training and examine the effect of power, privilege and politics on diversity in organisations.

This is a conceptual paper examining the arguments in favour and against diversity training in organisations. It identifies the presence of dominant groups in society leading to the marginalisation and oppression of minority diverse groups. It introduces the papers to the special issue under the three themes of: organisational impacts and outcomes; identify and self‐presentation and resistance to diversity.

The value of diversity training to promoting inclusivity, equality and fairness in organisations is underlined as is the importance of the human resource development community adopting a more proactive role in addressing the issue of diversity through research and course cirricula.

The paper introduces this special issue in “Diversity training in organisations” by examining the background concepts and providing an overview of the contributions to the issue.