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The purpose of this article is to compare the effects of global competitive pressures on the UK and French B-schools' management systems through the lens of career ecosystems.

This is a qualitative inquiry employing in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 44 business school academics in the two countries.

This paper demonstrates the importance of top-down and bottom-up ecosystem influences for creating contrasting performance management systems in competitive B-schools in the two countries, to different outcomes for institutions and faculty careers.

The authors focus on faculty working in top business schools, which limits the generalizability of the findings. Future research could apply the ecosystem lens to other institutions and geographical areas to highlight best practices and evaluate their transferability across borders.

The study highlights alternative HR practices and potentially workable adjustments to current systems that could be envisaged in order to enhance performance of individuals and institutions without jeopardizing the chances of valuable human resources to bring their contributions to the success of B-schools.

This paper compares and contrasts different performance management systems, taking into account exogenous and endogenous influences on B-schools that operate in a highly competitive and rapidly changing global management education market.

This paper aims to explore barriers to employment, problems caused by working, motivation to work and job satisfaction of women employed in hotels in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The study surveyed 385 women working in 75 hotels in KSA and UAE. The sample included citizens of KSA and UAE (n = 177), Arab and non-Arab expatriates (n = 208) and women with and without caring responsibilities for children or adults. The survey responses were analysed by stratifying the sample, using mean-comparison tests to consider sub-sample differences and regression analysis to quantify associations with job satisfaction.

Women in the sample with childcare or other caring responsibilities were more likely to report work-family conflicts which were in turn linked negatively to job satisfaction. These women were also the most positive about flexible employment practices. Nationals and expatriate Arabs reported higher levels of satisfaction with managerial aspects of their work. However, nationals in KSA recorded lower levels of job satisfaction in relation to pay and conditions and also said that low salaries were a barrier to taking up employment in the first place. Negative social attitudes towards women working in hotels were a particular concern for nationals and expatriate Arab women.

The sample is not representative of all females working in hotels in UAE and KSA, and the results cannot be generalised. However, implications include the need to examine the experiences of self-initiated expatriate women and consider women as part of a family system.

The analysis is based on original data collected through fieldwork. The findings generate new insights on the experiences of women working in hotels in KSA and UAE.

This paper will consider the changes in the way that we theoretically conceptualise organisations being brought about by the configurations approach towards organisations. It will consider the implications of this approach for the theory and practice of human resource management.

Considers the changes in the way that we theoretically conceptualize organizations being brought about by the configurations approach towards organizations. Shows that the concept of fit is crucial to this approach and that this can be operationalized at both a macro and a micro level in organizations. With reference to three case studies, considers the implications of configurations to the debate over the differences between human resource management and traditional personnel management.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that in order to maintain the legitimacy of qualitative management research it is important to re-emphasise the link between epistemology and methodology and recognise that different knowledge-constituting assumptions can underpin what might on the surface seem to be very similar methodologies. This means that the ways in which any research is evaluated needs to be tied explicitly to the underlying philosophical assumptions at play and those involved in undertaking, judging and publishing research need to show increased awareness in the philosophical assumptions which underpin their judgements of research quality and a willingness to accept difference.

This paper is a discussion piece.

This is a discussion piece.

The paper aims to contribute to the debate concerning the future of qualitative methods in management research.

Many companies have found that the presumed benefits of organizational change initiatives, such as TQM or team working, have not been forthcoming because managers have failed to support those developments through the simultaneous adaptation of the company’s performance evaluation and control systems. This paper reports new research sponsored by the EPSRC which has developed a prototype practitioner methodology to help managers in their role as organizational designers to critically appraise and diagnose current organizational control practices and, where appropriate, intervene.

To apply and develop Stephen Barley's model of career structuration to offer insights into the transition into portfolio working.

A qualitative case study methodology is used. Interviews were conducted with managers who had left the National Health Service to develop portfolio careers.

The adoption of the Barley model of career structuration as a sensitising device has made it possible to show how individuals have drawn from existing scripts embedded in institutional forms but have also contributed to developing new career scripts, such as portfolio working. Their enactment of career scripts is a dynamic process whereby they impact back on those scripts in both intentional and unintentional ways. Thus the transformative capacity of individual career actions is asserted but, critically, alongside awareness of constraints as bound up in structures which have salience for individuals and for collectives.

This is a study based in one large public sector organisation. Further exploration of the potential role of career as a way of understanding socially embedded action and its capacity for change is required, which takes account of different occupational settings.

The study outlines some of the frustrations experienced by portfolio workers and has practical implications for the ways in which they should be managed.

The paper contributes to the debate concerning structure and agency in career theory.

This paper is concerned with the role of leadership in community organisations in Thailand. While previous studies of leadership have focused on leadership theories influenced by male‐dominated North American studies, the present paper aims to demonstrate that it is necessary to take the influence of cultural, historical and social structure into account. The purpose is to develop a model of leadership constructed through accounts of the leaders and their subordinates. The model of leadership can potentially enable the leaders, and their subordinates to have a better understanding of the qualities, structure, boundaries and processes of leadership, which can be useful in testing the application of the model in other settings and contexts.

To support the aim, the study uses two main qualitative methods of data collection, which are in‐depth semi‐structured interviews and a focus group. These two methods offer insight and help to explore unexpected phenomena and the complexity of leadership.

The results and analysis lead to the conclusion that there are three levels of leadership process beginning with the benefits to oneself, the benefits to others and mutual benefits. The findings suggest that “philanthropy” and “thinking beyond self‐interest” are the crucial qualities of leadership that make other people want to follow a leaders' path.

The process of leadership will help leaders and their subordinates to be more self‐reliant and develop themselves in the long term.

The paper highlights the influence of Buddhism on the role of leadership in community organisations in Thailand.

During the 1990s the contract has become a key feature in the restructuring of the UK public sector. Currently available literature demonstrates an awareness that the implementation of contracting must entail new forms of management control and organizational structure which involve new patterns of intra‐ and extra‐organizational relationships. However, there is little consideration of the nature of the relationships which are developing between contractors and clients nor the factors that influence those behavioural processes. This paper reports on research funded by ESRC into contracts in ten local authorities in the UK. Analysis was undertaken to identify the nature of the contracts and the factors which both clients and contractors felt had led them to develop a particular type of relationship. This is followed by an exploration of the literature on partnerships, summarising the implications for the nature of the relationship between the client and contractor, based in particular on the distinction between transactional and relational contracting. It is shown that “textbook” approaches provide a useful heuristic, but do not reflect the subtleties of the interactions which develop during contracts. The overall implications are then considered, and related to theories of fair process and trust. The practical implications for public sector contracting (in particular best value) and for partnership activity are then outlined.

This paper reports on research currently being undertaken into change in performance evaluation and control systems. Case study research involving the use of repertory grids, in‐depth interviews and observation has been undertaken to examine the impact of these systems on behaviour and the potentially problematic nature of change in performance evaluation and control systems. This contrasts with previous research which has often assumed that such systems can be treated almost as easily manipulable independent variables. The case study illustrates the ways in which performance evaluation and control systems provide a formative context which means that change can be difficult to achieve and requires an understanding of the cultural assumptions underpinning both current and desired systems.