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This article reviews the opportunity provided by the work placement year for human resource management students to gain professional membership of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD). A case study approach is used to reflect on findings related to the first two cohorts. It concludes that the benefits of the opportunity to gain a separate professional qualification are twofold. First, it ties in closely with what appears is a more strategic career decision‐making process on behalf of the student and, second, the CIPD qualification provides a robust framework for the placement period during this important stage of student studies.

In 2000 a survey was undertaken in an attempt to establish a sustainable, coherent database of empirical information on NVQ level 3, 4 and 5 activity in English and Welsh higher education institutions (HEIs). As a result of this work a report was produced, The Utilisation of NVQs in Higher Education in England and Wales, which set out the survey findings. The article reviews the findings of the data collection and highlights a range of issues concerned with accurate and consistent reporting of data by organisations charged with this responsibility. The penetration of NVQs into higher education is discussed and reference made to a number of case studies. These studies offer valuable insights into the ways in which various institutions have addressed the problems of the integration of NVQs into higher education provision.

There's a conspiracy of silence about the failure rate of major managerial change initiatives. Three‐quarters of the initiatives—reputable programs to manage quality, customer focus, teamwork, mergers, downsizing, and reengineering—have failed, according to a recent Arthur D. Little survey of a large number of European and U.S. companies across many industries.

The influx of migrant workers in the UK has widespread interest. This group's experience of the British work place has evoked considerable debate ranging from the potential to be exploited through unscrupulous practices to allegations about taking away jobs from British workers. The purpose of this paper is to extend knowledge about the workplace experiences of migrant workers and discuss the implications this may offer for human resource management practice.

The method uses an interpretive approach as the principal method of inquiry. Insights are presented through the use of descriptive vignettes to preserve the contextual richness in participant's descriptions.

The dynamics of the psychological contract has been fundamentally affected by increasing numbers of migrant workers in the workplace. There is clear potential for a dual system to exist where migrant workers are treated differently in terms of recruitment, training and deployment. The ability to ensure employees work safely and are equipped to undertake their job roles is a key concern.

The research reports an initial study and as such the findings, although representative of the group reported, may be atypical.

Employers and HR practitioners are missing an opportunity to recruit and deploy well motivated highly skilled individuals. Earlier research which focuses on quantitative‐based approaches may possess methodological problems which this research aims to highlight.

The use of in‐depth interviews allows a better informed understanding of the philosophical (and cultural) tensions to emerge. Such an approach offers insights which until now have eluded research focused upon more quantitatively oriented studies.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the increasingly congenial relationship between business and government that developed in the immediate post Second World War period. This study explores the subtle, but systematic, uses of advertising for propaganda purposes to secure American political and commercial world dominance. It locates the relationship between the US Government and the Advertising Council as key components in a strategy to blur the lines between political and commercial messages. In addition to study the relationship between the two stakeholders, the study identifies some of the implications for both.

Scholarship on the government’s postwar relationships with other organizations is relatively scant and few other scholars have focused on the advertising industry’s role in this transformation. This paper draws on trade periodicals and newspaper accounts, and relies on archival material from the Arthur W Page and the Thomas D’Arcy Brophy collections at the Wisconsin State Historical Society and the Advertising Council’s papers at the University of Illinois. Charles W. Jackson papers, located at the Harry S. Truman Library, and the papers of Office of War Mobilization and Re-conversion, deposited at the National Archives, have also been consulted.

The Advertising Council’s “Peace” and “World Trade and Travel” demonstrate an acceleration of collaboration between business and government that continued into the postwar era. It shows the government’s willingness to trade on the Advertising Council’s goodwill and to blur the lines between political and commercial messages, in what can accurately be characterized as a duplicitous manner. Key conclusion includes a willingness among Washington’s policymakers to propagandize its own citizens, a strategy that it commonly, and disparagingly, ascribed to the Soviet Union, and a Council so willing to appease Washington, that it was putting its own reputation at considerable risk.

This paper is based on a study of two campaigns (“Peace” and “World Trade and Travel”) that the Advertising Council conducted in collaboration with the US State Department. While these were the first campaigns of this nature, they were not the only ones. Additional studies of similar campaigns may add new insights.

Recent political events have brought propaganda and government collusion back on the public agenda. In an era of declining journalism credibility, rising social media and unprecedented government and commercial surveillance, it is argued that propaganda demands scholarly attention more than ever and that a historical study of how the US Government collaborated with private industry and used advertising as a propaganda smokescreen is particularly timely.

This study adds to the scholarship on advertising, PR and propaganda in several ways. First, it contributes to the understanding of the advertising industry’s important role in the planning of US international policy after the Second World War. Second, it demonstrates the increasingly congenial relationship between business and the US Government that emerged as a result. Third, it provides excellent insights into the Adverting Council’s transition from war to peacetime. The heavy reliance on archival material also brings originality and value to the study.

Existing quality assurance arrangements do not consider the variations in design and delivery opportunities offered through the utilisation of emerging technologies and its application in non‐traditional forms of educational arrangements. One particular form of delivery, aided by technology, is on‐line delivery, either to the workplace or the home. This mode offers considerable significance for developing the role and principles of work‐based learning in providing a much broader population the opportunity to participate in higher education. This article reviews the development of the online E‐College and its role in work‐based learning with particular focus on the arrangements for quality assurance.

The literature on enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation has been dominated by variance theories which have identified numerous lists of critical success factors (CSFs) for managing implementation but there has been relatively little research adopting a process theory approach which explains how change occurs. One such theory, the teleological process, has been criticised in the IS literature for its capability to evolve and learn due to its convergence towards an end goal. Drawing upon the field of organisational development (OD), the purpose of this paper is to illustrate the usefulness of the theory and contend that, whilst it exhibits planned behaviour, events are adaptive and learned and emerge though social construction of actors in organisations.

An in‐depth interpretive study of eight public‐sector organisations is used. During the investigation, two primary methods of data collection were analysed: survey questionnaires (2) and in‐depth interviews (38).

The data were analysed and contrasted with themes and attributes associated with teleological design. The article highlights how the central role of an agent or entity, and its interaction with eight key attributes, is critical to the success of the change process.

The article proposes benefits of applying teleological theory to the context of designing the change, pre and post project implementation. Whilst the data are based in the UK, the framework also provides a useful starting point for further research in ERP implementation in developing and emerging nations of areas likely to be problematic.