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What effects did the last Government's wage restraint policy have on wage and salary administration at company and local levels? A research team at Strathclyde Business School has been studying newly introduced incentive payment schemes and holding seminars with management and trade union negotiators over the past 12 months. This paper reports some of their findings, and shows how the jobs of wage and salary administrators have been affected by the experiences of the past five years.

The credibility of the comparisons that are made between wage rates and earnings in supposedly similar jobs is frequently a major factor in collective bargaining in an industry or company. This is so, whatever other arguments are used, such as productivity.

Productivity has concerned managers, administrators and governments for many years, and understandably so when one considers the wide differences in rates of working and effectiveness of working which can be found between people.

Theories about rational motivation generate financial incentive payment systems; theories about self‐fulfilment motivation generate measured daywork systems. But empirical evidence indicates that the effect of a motivator on an employee is contingent upon the circumstances in which the motivator is applied. It is logical then to design payment systems to fit the circumstances of the particular firm or department. Methods for doing this are described in this paper.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

There are a number of different theories or models of organisation which can be identified in past and current management literature and teaching, and which have been analysed, studied and criticised by organisation theorists. Is this just an academic exercise reflecting an obsession with the historical development of Organisation Theory? Or are these different models empirically significant to behaviour in organisations? Do they help to explain things which happen in today's organisations? A research project started in August 1977 aims to find answers to these and related questions.

This article is the second in the series detailing recent and continuing research into Payment Systems. The previous article dealt with some of the main features found to be important in scheme success, whilst this one, “Participation in Payment System Design”, shows how the research results can be translated into practice. The procedure outlined here is one that has been recently applied to a number of organisations with uniform success.

The concept of working in groups has typically been applied to different industries and different levels within firms in distinct ways, and for distinct reasons. Table I shows the major types of group working which have been employed most commonly with particular technologies and organisational levels.

Drawing on research conducted over a number of years in a range of different organisations, how payment systems can be designed and implemented to increase the likelihood of success is explained. In addition, it is suggested that a participative approach to change can produce beneficial consequences for companies largely because the process of consultation can itself lead to greater understanding and commitment.

Much management literature has been devoted to the topic of change in recent years. It has been suggested that we are facing a more dynamic environment than ever before; and many authors have suggested new approaches to managing change in organisations. Very little attention, however, has been given to the conceptual frameworks on which organisation members base their attitudes to change and which influence their behaviour in situations of change.