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The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficacy of the demand‐control‐support model, augmented with employee perceptions of organisational justice and degree of met expectations.

Data were collected from 128 public sector employees working in a large state police force operating under many of the elements of new public management. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted using four indicators of occupational strain: employee wellbeing, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and intent to quit.

The results of this study suggest that the demand‐control‐support model has great utility in identifying those aspects of the work environment associated with employee strain. Job control and social support at work in particular were the most consistent predictors. In contrast, the expectation and justice variables failed to make significant contributions to the model in all but one analysis providing no support for the “injustice as stressor” perspective.

Although a cross‐sectional design was utilized, these results highlight the value of applying the parsimonious demand‐control‐support model to a wider set of outcomes, especially in a public sector environment.

The results emphasize the importance of the relatively neglected “softer” work characteristics support and control. In order to combat the ill‐effects of organisational reforms and prompt a shift towards the public value approach, managers operating under elements of new public management should ensure that adequate social support at work is available and that employee control is commensurate with their demands.

This study examined an augmented demand‐control‐support model and identified that whilst perceptions of justice can influence employee attitudes and wellbeing, the demand, control, and support variables remain the most influential factors with regard to public sector employee attitudes and wellbeing.

This paper aims to widen knowledge of and explore how convergent interviewing can be used to identify key issues within an organization.

This paper introduces the convergent interviewing technique and describes the method of selecting the interview subjects. The construction of a round of interviews is explained. The content of the interviews is described and the particular probing nature of the questions demanded by the convergent interview process is explained. The ways to analyze the full set of interviews for groupings or categories is also described. The case study example of a broad research question about influences on work behaviors in a local government council is used to illustrate the convergent interviewing technique.

The key issues revealed by using the technique can be subsequently used for a variety of research and consulting purposes and settings. Convergent interviewing is an effective research method, which conserves resources.

Convergent interviewing enables researchers to determine the most important and/or key issues within a population rather than a full list of issues in an organization or barriers to change in a particular organizational context.

Organisations with low absenteeism and low turnover can be distinguished from organisations with high absenteeism and turnover through the identification and implementation of sophisticated and strategic best practices such as benchmarking relative cost position, developing a corporate ethic, valuing the negotiation of an enterprise agreement, and not having a written OH&S policy. Several of the remaining 16 practices identified in the literature as best practices, including benchmarking customer service, having a policy addressing recruitment, selection and promotion, were shown to be standard industry practice in the AFI. The findings suggest that benchmarking allows organisations to identify and replicate the innovations of competitors, but competitive advantage requires innovation rather than replication.

To assess the impact of a course on the development of management competencies for students over the duration of the course, by examining changes in the competencies of the students. The potential impact of student learning styles was also examined in the study.

A “Pre, Post, Then” design and a combination of paired sample t‐tests, and alpha and beta change statistics were used to examine the change in competencies over time.

This study found that even a standard subject design had a significant and substantial impact on the management competence development of the students.

From the perspective of students‐as‐products, the base line provided here allows for the testing of alternative designs of educational systems, whereby alternative designs have to prove a benefit above and beyond that of a basic teaching system. Therefore, the present study should assist the field of management development to create a range of design options.

This study applies a powerful and under‐utilised research method to provide a base line of the amount of management development that can occur in a typical formal management course, but is unique in that it includes the impact of the students’ learning styles.