Anne Cannings and Trevor Hills
This paper aims to propose that a new approach to human resource (HR) audit is needed. It also aims to explain the new approach and introduce a range of tools to support it.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose that a new approach to human resource (HR) audit is needed. It also aims to explain the new approach and introduce a range of tools to support it.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews traditional and existing common approaches, identifies the shortcomings of these, and proposes a new framework based on business contribution.
Findings
Existing approaches to HR audit do not reflect the current aspirations and rhetoric on HR practices as promoted by Holbeche, and Ulrich et al.This emphasises the need for a new approach.
Practical implications
The work proposes a new framework to assess HR activity against alignment and contribution to organisation strategy and goals, as well as the prevailing culture, thus forcing HR audit to move beyond legal compliance of HR practices. A range of processes, tools and techniques are identified.
Originality/value
The paper contains a completely new approach (the authors assert) to HR audit which is more rigorous and wide ranging in scope. It moves HR audit away from legal compliance to increasing the HR contribution to the organisation, thereby creating improved business performance.
Details
Keywords
Liz Lee‐Kelley, Alf Crossman and Anne Cannings
This paper uses social interaction theory and Tuckman's team development model to report and interpret the findings of a case‐based research into the forming and performance of…
Abstract
This paper uses social interaction theory and Tuckman's team development model to report and interpret the findings of a case‐based research into the forming and performance of eight internationally situated virtual project teams operating in the information technology industry. Its objective is to highlight the need to bridge the “gap” between the structural and process orientations of management and virtual team members' situational perceptions and psychological drivers (the “invisibles”). For organizations contemplating the adoption of these new organizational forms, its findings will provide a holistic framework to guide their transformation from conventional to virtual teams. Some of the issues identified here are also likely to be salient to those who are already using virtual teams.
Details
Keywords
Alongside universities, there are an increasing number of ‘third sector’ organisations actively involved in shaping widening participation (WP). In partnering with universities…
Abstract
Alongside universities, there are an increasing number of ‘third sector’ organisations actively involved in shaping widening participation (WP). In partnering with universities, employers and collaborative programmes like Uni Connect, they are responsible for delivering on institutional and national policy objectives around WP, as well as accountable to their own organisational missions. Despite being part of established practice in WP, with their activities praised by policymakers, their roles and practices are rarely considered in assessments of WP activity. In comparison with universities, they can experience different expectations, challenges and opportunities and can also have separate agendas driven by their missions and organisational sustainability. This chapter explores how these organisations have emerged, the roles that they have created for themselves and how they have attempted to sustain or develop these. It traces how these organisations have emerged as key players in national and institutional policy and draws on interviews with third sector leaders and practitioners to understand how WP is understood and done outside higher education providers (HEPs).
Details
Keywords
This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network…
Abstract
This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.
Details
Keywords
The United States of America holds, and easily holds, the first place in the world's production of canned foods of every kind. It supplies a home market of over a hundred million…
Abstract
The United States of America holds, and easily holds, the first place in the world's production of canned foods of every kind. It supplies a home market of over a hundred million people who are the largest per capita consumers of canned food in the world. It is by far the greatest exporter of these foods, a fact that should have a peculiar interest for us, as we are, at present at least, the largest buyers.
John C. Beghin, Anne-Celia Disdier, Stéphan Marette and Frank van Tongeren
This chapter uses a welfare-based conceptual framework for the assessment of costs and benefits associated with nontariff measures in the presence of market imperfections such as…
Abstract
This chapter uses a welfare-based conceptual framework for the assessment of costs and benefits associated with nontariff measures in the presence of market imperfections such as asymmetric information and environmental or health externalities. The framework allows for evidence-based comparative assessments of alternative regulatory approaches addressing these imperfections. The conceptual work is illustrated with an empirical case study of labeling internationally traded fish products.
Details
Keywords
Jason Canning and Pauline Anne Found
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contributing factors that lead to resistance to change, and to ascertain the relationship between organizational culture and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contributing factors that lead to resistance to change, and to ascertain the relationship between organizational culture and employee resistance in organizational change programmes, such as lean.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology for this research is in three main parts. Firstly, a systematic review of the literature pertaining to resistance to change is, secondly, followed by a case study involving an anonymous survey and semi-structured interviews to test the assumptions drawn from the literature. Finally, the literature research and case study results are drawn together to present a new model of resistance.
Findings
The finding of the literature, along with the finding of the case study confirm that lack of communication and participant involvement during change are highlighted as significant contributing factors to resistance and that these are related to organizational culture.
Research limitations/implications
Whilst the secondary sources of information provide a significant weight of evidence to support the results from the case study, the results of the research are based on a single case study; therefore, caution should be applied before making generalizations from the data.
Practical implications
The findings can provide organizations, and change practitioners, with an insight into a number of the issues that should be considered in relation to an organizations culture before attempting large-scale change programmes.
Originality/value
The research findings provide a new model, the “resistance model” that identifies the interconnected issues that affect employees’ attitude to, and thus acceptance of, organizational change.
Details
Keywords
The division between town and country in most areas of the world is marked and shows little evidence of any closer association, but in this country recent history with its wide…
Abstract
The division between town and country in most areas of the world is marked and shows little evidence of any closer association, but in this country recent history with its wide economic changes has made the division less deep than in times past, but still within living memory. Time was when country folk were almost a distinct breed, living under conditions for the most part primitive.
The value which can be placed upon the rights of property in a name of a commodity, a food or drink, perhaps famous all over the world, which has come down to us through the…
Abstract
The value which can be placed upon the rights of property in a name of a commodity, a food or drink, perhaps famous all over the world, which has come down to us through the centuries, is incalculable. Most of such foods and drinks have a regional association, and are prepared according to methods, often secret, handed down from one generation to another and from locally grown and produced materials. Nowhere are such traditions so well established as in cheese‐making and the wine industry. The names do not signify merely a method of manufacture, since this can be simulated almost anywhere, nor even the raw materials, but differences in climate, the soil and its treatment, its produce, harvesting, even in the contaminants of environment. Rochfort cheese, for example, is made from ewe's milk, but most important, with mould growths found only in the caves of that part of France where it is stored.