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Recent years have seen traditional management practice questionned in many areas — in terms of personnel, manufacturing, buyer‐supplier relations and even accounting practice. In the sphere of manufacturing we have seen the emergence of practices such as just‐in‐time production, total quality control and now the generic title ‘World Class Manufacturing’. In buyer‐supplier relations there has been a swing away from short‐term competitive contracting to longer term obligation arrangements based on the Japanese model. Traditional management accounting methods have been labelled The number one enemy of productivity' (Goldratt, 1983).

With its heavy dependence on independent food retailers, the cash and carry sector has seen little overall growth in recent years. A number of operators have experienced severe pressure on net margins, and rationalisation and reorganisation have speeded up, especially with loosely organised groupings of wholesalers. What prospects for growth does the CandC sector show? This article looks at current problems and how the major companies are formulating their strategies for the future. Will this large sector — still with sales of over £3,000m, continue to suffer at the hands of the multiple food retailer? Are there enough new markets in terms of products or customers? And will we see an increasing dilution of genuine wholesaling to bulk buying by consumers?

The period since the mid 1970s has seen dramatic changes in the economies of the industrialized nations with the vast majority of OECD countries experiencing a reduction in growth of industrial production and a marked reversal in employment trends in the industrial sector (Rowthorn and Glyn, 1990). This process of “deindustrialization” has attracted the attention of academics and commentators from a variety of disciplines and been variously heralded as evidence of the advent of “post‐industrial” society (Bell, 1974), “post‐Fordism” (Piore and Sabel, 1984), “disorgan‐ized capitalism” (Lash and Urry, 1987), and the “postmodern world” (Clegg, 1990). These authors have described discontinuous shifts in the pattern of industrial society with broad changes in regimes of accumulation and regulation which involve socio‐cultural and political as well as economic change. Economists have described the failure of Keynesian economic policies in the West to sustain rapid growth and high employment as the “end of the golden age of capitalism” (Marglin and Schor, 1990).

In recent years certain writers have put forward the notion that a distinctive and definite change has occurred in the way in which employees are managed (Beer et al, 1985; Guest, 1987; Poole, 1991; Sisson, 1991). The term or concept of Human Resource Management (HRM) has been used to describe these changes and has fuelled a spirited debate among academics and practitioners. This debate has centred on the distinctiveness of HRM and in particular whether, and in what ways, it is different to its predecessor, so called Personnel Management. This debate has considered the extent to which HRM has theoretical validity as a concept with predictive capabilities and/or the extent to which it represents a model with internally consistent features and dimensions. Others have suggested it is perhaps better understood as a map or a bracketing ‘catch all’ concept for a cluster of related management practices or approaches (Legge, 1989; Noon, 1992). The related debate has concerned the attempt by writers and commentators to establish empirically whether definitive changes have in fact taken place. Apart from case studies of exemplar (usually American and Japanese) organizations, wider survey and case material of UK based brownfield operations has tended to suggest limited adoption of HRM although Storey's (1992) recent collection of case material suggests that the wider adoption of HRM is underway.

Reports the findings of a study into manufacturing performance and practice in 71 auto components plants in eight countries. Documents the performance differences between plants in different countries, and tests the extent to which lean production principles explain variations in performance. As a group, European plants trailed the USA and Japan on productivity and quality. Measures of process discipline and control most consistently discriminated between the high and low‐performing plants. There was no clear link between performance and patterns of work organization or human resource policy.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the life of Tony Lowe, Emeritus Professor of Accounting and Financial Management at the University of Sheffield, who died on 5 March 2014. It celebrates Tony Lowe’s considerable direct contributions to accounting knowledge and, possibly more significantly, his indirect contribution through his enabling of a range of those associated with him at Sheffield to become scholars of distinction in their own right.

Publication review, personal reflections and argument.

Apart from providing insight into Tony Lowe's direct contribution to accounting knowledge through an analysis of a range of significant sole authored and joint authored publications, the paper gives rather more attention to his more indirect enabling contribution. In this regard it traces the development of initially the Management Control Association and subsequently the “Sheffield School” to Tony Lowe, clarifying the values that underlie these groups. It also clarifies how some of the key elements that have allowed the now global Interdisciplinary and Critical Perspectives on Accounting (ICPA) Project to exist and flourish are traceable to Tony Lowe and the “Sheffield School” he created.

This paper provides an important historical analysis of the direct and indirect influence of a unique scholar on the beginnings and development of particularly the now global ICPA Project. This history is personal and maybe selective and possibly limited because of this but hopefully will encourage others to investigate the claims further.

The history of the ICPA Project has only partially been told before. This is another part of this history that has not been analysed before on which further work can build.

Andreas Stihl AG is the world's leading manufacturer of chain saws and other outdoor handheld power equipment. Based on marketing challenges in its high-volume retail channel—mass merchants such as The Home Depot and Lowe's—Stihl's U.S. unit has narrowed its distribution system to a single channel: independent retail dealers specializing in yard maintenance equipment. This risky and highly publicized decision has proved extremely successful, raising profits, attracting more dealers into exclusive relationships with Stihl, and strengthening the brand's top-quality positioning. But Stihl management are concerned that this channel system may not fit tomorrow's demographics, dominated by homeowners from the so-called Generation X and Generation Y. The case outlines Stihl's business and channel systems and customer needs, then poses a series of questions that management believes must be answered to determine whether to maintain or move away from reliance on its specialty retailers and how to adapt its system.

To understand issues related to retail channel strategy development in fast-changing consumer markets, as well as the challenges of adapting legacy routes-to-market systems to changing consumer service output demands.

This paper is intended as an overview and think piece, contributing to literature identifying accounting’s impact in making things knowable. Critical accounting research has always sought alternative ways of understanding the discipline and the legacy is extended here by considering pathways forward. Accounting continually impacts public policy in what it privileges for selecting and in what it silences and neglects. Given that humans are meaning-making we have choices, and this essay interrogates accounting techniques operating as façades while disguising social impacts. Promoting qualitative accounting research that reimagines these complexities and considers moral contexts is the substance of this essay, for advancing the public interest in accounting.

This paper reviews progress in deinstitutionalisation and community living for people with learning disabilities. The effects of replacing institutional care on residents are summarised and some emerging problems identified.