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This study aims to reflect on “good practices” in doctoral research supervision and transfer the author’s experience to other academics. The author explains the sources of his approach to doctoral research supervision drawing on traditional practice in adult learning and some reference to phenomenology as a “meeting of minds” between academic and industry mindsets.

This is a reflective paper condensing many years of practical experience advising industry managers doing doctoral research. It is not an empirical study as such but draws on extensive practitioner experience based on many successful PhD completions in the business and management domain.

There are no empirical findings as such, but ample practical experience of doctoral research process and outcomes over 40 years of supervision in both the UK and Australian Universities.

Generalisation is limited to the number of doctoral research completions (between 70 and 80).

The paper concludes with indicators of what the author regards as “good practices” in doctoral research supervision.

None is directly applicable, but academe-industry working partnerships might be improved with the author’s learner- and customer-centred approach to doctoral research with adults in senior positions in the industry wanting to do research.

This paper is based entirely on the author’s own working experience as a senior academic in UK and Australian Universities.

This study takes the Japanese concept of kaizen, that is, continuous quality improvement, as a means of looking behind the Toyota Production System (TPS), to examine in some detail the work of kaizen and technology transfer instructors in overseas transplants. Special attention is paid to their role as learning facilitators. The research provides insights into how these workers prepare for their overseas transplant assignments, the methods they use to instruct other workers and the kinds of problems they experience in relating to and communicating with foreign employees of Toyota. The findings show the commitment the technology transfer instructors have to doing their work well and living by example the corporate culture and values of Toyota. These workers recognize the special challenge of communicating effectively as learning facilitators across different national cultures and languages and make practical suggestions for improvements in this regard.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the rationale for designing and implementing an action learning and research process to significantly transform the work behaviour of tradition‐bound bakers to embrace leading ideas of a new workplace culture in order to diversify the product range of the moon cake and generally improve the competitive performance of the company.

Emphasis was placed on action learning and action research as the main vehicles for managing the organizational change process.

The project demonstrates how an action learning and change management strategy was designed and implemented with a Chinese workforce that had no prior experience of modern ideas on production technology and other aspects of the new workplace culture.

The project was confined to a single case study approach in the bakery department of a major food company in Hong Kong.

The project demonstrates a close correspondence between organizational learning and change management theory and the actual process and outcomes of a practical change agenda.

The special value of the paper lies in its insights into the work behaviour of Chinese factory workers.

The management of workplace change takes place in many industry contexts and micro‐settings using a variety of approaches, all of which are widely reported in the academic and professional literature. There is less known about workplace change management in the context of an international company employing large numbers of Mainland Chinese employees. The company needed to improve its delivery of service quality; in this case to the maintenance of elevators and escalators, especially where breakdowns occur and customers get frustrated. It was imperative to change the work behaviour of the Chinese workforce. Integral to the change management strategy was the dual application of action research and workplace learning, natural companions in the process of modifying work attitudes and behaviour. This case study reports the design, implementation and evaluation of a process improvement program “custom built” for the Chinese employees of the international company.

This research paper reports the findings of the first comprehensive survey of senior executives in Iran’s teaching hospitals. It is based on an analysis identifying the continuing professional development (CPD) needs of the total population of the two senior levels of teaching hospitals management‐presidents of physician‐managers and administrative‐managers. Four key areas of management knowledge were selected as the focus of the need identification: operational; financial; human resource; and organization change. The findings reveal a pent up demand for introductory level, formal knowledge in all four areas of management theory, to complement and extend the practical experience they have acquired in managing the complex environment of teaching hospitals. The paper goes on to propose a curriculum design and overall framework of provision to meet these genuinely felt CPD needs.

Integrated pest management (IPM) is a well‐known innovation that accords with modern environmental management “best practice”. In this paper it is examined as an example of the theory and practice underpinning workplace learning and andragogy. Particular attention is focused on the role of agricultural extension workers (AEWs) as learning facilitators in a non‐formal setting. As contextual background, a recent IPM diffusion project in a region of Thailand, where durian is extensively grown, as a process of innovation adoption is outlined. In sum, the intelligent way IPM knowledge was transferred, though the mediating role of AEWs reflected the current emphasis on collaborative partnerships in “real‐life” workplace learning contexts as an effective means of managing change in complex environments.

In a recent article upon the improper handling of meat, the Daily Mail observed that if the public realised the condition of much of the meat delivered to them there would be such an outcry that the Ministry of Health would be compelled to issue definite regulations governing the transport and sale of meat. London butchers are not the worst offenders. Many of them conform voluntarily to standards of hygiene that are far better than in many provincial towns where the public health authorities are lax; but even in London it is possible, in every district, to see revolting methods of dealing with meat. The great Central Meat Market at Smithfield is under the control of the Corporation of the City of London. There are definite orders that meat porters must wear white overalls and caps in addition to various sanitary regulations as to the transport of meat. Many men disobey them with impunity. Among incidents seen there by a representative of the Daily Mail were :—Porters with filthy tweed caps and still filthier sacking carrying carcases on their shoulders; carcases of mutton lying unprotected on a muddy pavement; a scavenger sweeping up dust and manure just beneath an open cart loaded with mutton; a boy with muddy boots and grimy clothes sitting on a heap of meat in another open‐end cart. If the orders of the Ministry cannot be enforced at Smithfield it is not surprising that they are utterly ignored in other places. More than half the butchers' shops seen in a long tour of London neglected the most elementary precautions against the contamination of meat from dust and dirt. The following are some typical examples:—Meat exposed in trays on the pavement, with a marble shop wall behind absolutely black with dirt and mud splashes ; a road‐sweeping machine spraying dirt on to joints exposed without any covering on a stall in the gutter outside a butcher's shop; refuse from a dust‐cart blowing on to meat in another open‐fronted shop; cooked meats exposed in an open window in one of the busiest streets in London. The Ministry of Health, in an explanatory memorandum, expressly excluded cooked meat from the operation of any regulations. Yet, as Medical Officers of Health point out, cooked meat, since it is eaten as bought, is a more dangerous carrier of infection than raw meat. The Ministry, it is understood, “ hope to be able to issue regulations dealing with the sale of cooked meat some time,” but cannot say when or promise an early date. The whole fault, for which the public have to pay the toll of disease due to dirty meat, is in the vagueness of the regulations made by the Ministry a year ago.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

SOCIAL scientists have not yet been able to formulate any general laws about behaviour in industry that are capable of broad application. In recent years, however, they have made many useful case studies of which the one just published by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research is typical. It is an approach to the problem which can do much to increase the understanding of the way in which people react to common industrial situations.