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Civil service reform in developing countries may be inhibited unless a more culturally appropriate concept of management is developed. An Institutional Development Framework (IDF) may assist in the identification of possible reform strategies. A strategy is defined by a series of inter‐linked management and organisational components to each of which may be attached aims, values and/or skills enhancement ideas. Senior managers of the service should be responsible for drafting and reviewing the IDF as a shared learning experience. The IDF concept resulted from a study of civil service reform in the Solomon Islands.

Investigates (through interviews) the link between business needs and staff development policies within the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan. Analyses the Bank′s corporate planning cycle with a view to suggesting improvements that focus more clearly on staff performance needs. The corporate planning cycle should involve a more client‐based analysis of need which can then be matched against the strategic aims of government and international donors. Targets on performance and employee development can emerge that draw on the ideas of managers at all levels and build their commitment to the strategic aims. The training function could move into a more strategic role.

Focuses on the development of the Romanian Institute of Management (IROMA) since political and economic liberalization in the country. Describes how IROMA, as the leading provider of training for industry and commerce, has faced up to the change process and built itself as a self‐financing body. Makes an assessment of how IROMA is conducting its new found role, the development of appropriate internal management structures and the performance of its training and consultancy staff. Gives attention to the emergence of a corporate mechanism that allows use of a cost‐centre approach which is client‐based but which can also cope with rampant inflation in the economy. Finally, makes proposals for an institution‐based programme for the development of training and consultancy skills.

The paper aims to evaluate decision‐making processes in venture capital (VC).

The paper develops a conceptual framework to analyse optimal allocation of decision rights in venture capital environments. How investors and investees seek mutual beneficial outcomes is also discussed.

The paper finds that entrepreneurial activities are normally associated with the design and production of goods in new emerging or niche markets. Hence, coordinated choices need to be made to bundle activities such as setting up internal infrastructure to produce and serve goods, purchasing quality inputs from suppliers and establishing contacts with long‐term customers. Delegation of authority by VC firms in these areas permits a new entrepreneurial initiative to be successfully managed including the coordination of various strategic decisions as a self‐reinforcing bundle.

The paper shows that investors may allocate significant decision rights to portfolio company managers because it can be more efficient and feasible to commit to such an action in some environments. A particular instance of such a delegation of decision rights is venture capital finance, which is the subject‐matter of the present study.

Argues that the debate concerning the growth of public employment has remained largely uninformed in a conceptual sense beyond the economic variables. Suggests that the time is now pertinent to identify the additional parameters affecting the situation if an enriched understanding is to evolve on the future role and management of the public sector in the developing state. Reviews the literature contributions that are significant in this respect, not only with the aim of putting the public sector developments of the last ten years in perspective but also to contribute to the current debate on the emergence of new administrative paradigms for developing States that provide a more balanced view of political, economic and social development.

The article aims to shift the basis of organisational human resource planning away from the traditional prescriptive approach to a systems based model that incorporates an emphasis on learning. A brief history of human resource planning is presented showing how it has evolved towards current needs and the specification for the new model. The new model is conceived in the context of increased environmental pressures on organisations and resultant management approaches. At the heart of the new approach is the process of transformation by which inputs to the model are processed in a way that involves all stakeholders in planning to produce viable outputs for managerial decision making.

In spite of the increasing awareness that standardized performance appraisal practices must fit in varied local contexts, limited research and mixed findings still cloud our understanding about how those appraisal practices are perceived and implemented in the subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs). The purpose of this paper is to examine this issue, aiming to clarify the contextual and cultural boundary of standardized appraisal practices in China.

A case study was conducted in an MNC subsidiary located in Southern China. Organizational performance appraisal documents were collected, and in‐depth interviews were conducted.

It has been found that the implementation of a Western standardized appraisal system was far from attaining an optimistic effect in a Chinese business setting: employees were nowhere near being able to be involved in setting objectives and developmental plans; the appraisal system was not perceived be fair enough due to the influence of a seniority‐based rewards system; and managers hesitated to take ownership of performance reviews.

When designing and delivering standardized appraisal system to subsidiaries, foreign investors and global human resource practitioners are expected to be more context focused. Distinct cultural values and norms in local contexts should be carefully taken into consideration.

The paper fills in the literature gap by providing an in‐depth study of employees' perceptions towards the actual implementation of a standardized performance appraisal system in an MNC subsidiary in China.

The role of social support has been largely ignored in the organizational socialization literature. The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine this missing link in this research through the discussion of the role of perceived organizational support (POS) and leader‐member exchange (LMX) on newcomer adjustment.

A pilot data including 191 newcomers were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate the construct validity of the measurement scales on a Chinese sample. The main study data drawn from 167 newcomers in a leading insurance organization in China was then subjected to structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses and model fitness.

Results suggest that LMX plays a significant role in influencing newcomers' POS and social integration. Moreover, newcomers' POS was found to associate with their turnover intentions.

This research was based on cross‐sectional and self‐report data, which may not permit strong causal connections between variables.

The results signal, the message that it is essential for organizations to put greater emphasis on encouraging supervisors to establish healthy work relationships with newcomers, and organizations may find it possible to influence newcomers' turnover intentions by demonstrating organizational support.

Very few studies have investigated the role of POS and LMX on newcomer adjustment, possibly because social support is not well accounted for in the literature. This paper is one of the first to discuss such links in the context of China.

The purpose of this paper is to explore employers' perceptions of China's Labour Contract Law (LCL) and its influence on employment relations and human resource management practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This paper adopts a qualitative approach based on 24 interviews with owners and human resource managers of 23 privately owned SMEs in eastern and western China.

Mixed levels of reported compliance with the provisions of the LCL legislation indicate that the regulatory adoptive behaviours of SME employers are partially explained by the coercive mechanism. Various strategies adopted by employers suggest that when under the pressure of law, SMEs are formalising their employment practices while simultaneously seeking to maintain a degree of informality in respect these practices.

The adopted qualitative approach may limit the findings to be explorative within broader national contexts.

The move towards more formalised practices helps to address issues such as high turnover and widespread labour shortage in SMEs. The paper is likely to be of interest to policymakers seeking to gain insights into employers' perceptions as a means to develop more effective labour regulations.

Unlike most of existing literature examining the general compliance to the LCL and workers' perspectives, this paper reports the views of SME employers; as such, it offers an original contribution to understanding of the role and behaviours of SME employers in regulatory responses in the studied context.