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The purpose of this paper is to identify critical aspects of quality management (QM) adoption in a small company. QM is more widely applied in large companies than in small ones. Previous research has pointed to QM ideas as sound and valid for small companies, but that many such initiatives fail because of poor implementation. With scarcity of resources and expertise, it is critical to study how QM can be initiated in small companies with often sceptical owner-managers.

This paper is based on a single case study of a small company; data has been collected through two sets of interviews: one in late 2009 and one in mid-2012, as well as project reports and public financial data. This allows for a study of the adoption process over time.

This study points to four critical areas when initiating QM work in a small company: the importance of initiation, the importance of contextualisation, QM adoption as an iterative process, and the need for external support.

This paper highlights the importance of overcoming small business owners’ reluctance towards QM. Most research on QM initiatives in small companies has focused on the stages that follow an actual decision to begin a QM initiative. This paper shows that it is critical to carefully consider the stages leading to the decision. Further, it contributes with a case study on a small company, otherwise uncommon in QM research.

In the late 1960s, as Peter readily admits (Hall, 1972, p. 70), he accidentally discovered Murray Edelman’s (1964) The Symbolic Uses of Politics. He immediately pilfered Edelman’s ideas and ran with them. That was only the beginning of his larcenous career. Over the years, Erving Goffman, Anslem Strauss, and David Maines, to name but a few, fell victim to his scholarly pillage. Yet, no one seemed to mind. Perhaps it was because Peter never tried to pawn the plunder as his own. Maybe it was because he didn’t hoard the spoils but publicly plied them. Most likely, it was because of what he did with the booty.

Many organizations now utilize action learning, and it is applied increasingly throughout the world. Action learning appears in numerous variants, but generically it is a form of learning through experience, “by doing”, where the task environment is the classroom, and the task the vehicle. Two previous reviews of the action learning literature by Alan Mumford respectively covered the field prior to 1985 and the period 1985‐1994. Both reviews included books as well as journal articles. This current review covers the period 1994‐2000 and is limited to publicly available journal articles. Part 1 of the Review was published in an earlier issue of the Journal of Workplace Learning (Vol. 15 No. 2) and included a bibliography and comments. Part 2 extends that introduction with a schema for categorizing action learning articles and with comments on representative articles from the bibliography.

This paper aims to discuss the interview held with Professor John Bessant conducted by Professor Peter Totterdill. John Bessant has been active in research, teaching and consultancy in technology and innovation management for over 25 years. He currently holds the Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Exeter University where he is also Research Director.

This wide-ranging and insightful interview looks at the challenges of implementing workplace innovation and the realities involved in the process. It covers questions concerning the importance of innovation to businesses coming out of recession and the relationship between employee involvement and innovation.

Professor Bessant also discusses the challenge of releasing individual potential and how to harness random creativity. He looks at the “starter conditions” for workplace innovation as well as the factors that mitigate against sustaining it.

Key to sustaining workplace innovation, he argues, are a number of elements including momentum, self-belief and confidence, appropriate resource, leadership and empowerment. In addition, the implementation of workplace innovation does not occur as one big hit but a series of small steps which evolve and develop.

New technology via intranets and social media also help to mobilise a lot more participation. Technology now provides the potential to reach every employee and their involvement can be instantaneous. This can create a notion of shared creativity, the Facebook process of “good idea, I like that, why don’t you try that?”

Notes that the New Testament provides a classic case of international marketing strategies in conflict, as well as clues to modern international management. Looks at the development of the organization left behind by Jesus Christ in terms of characters such as Peter and Saul and factors such as ethnic niching and the rise of the organization as a multinational. Considers historical events from the New Testament in terms of modern management thinking and concludes that the analogy is helpful in determining modern international management strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how strategy is developed and implemented in an organisation with an unusual ownership model. Partnerships are not a prevalent form of ownership but as this case demonstrates they can be extremely effective. Furthermore this case demonstrates how logical incrementalism can be used to implement major strategic decisions.

The paper draws on company documentary evidence and a semi‐structured interview with Mr Charlie Mayfield, Chairman of John Lewis Partnership. A chairman has a helicopter view of business whose perspectives are rarely captured by strategy researchers. This case study offers an insight into strategic thinking of a chairman and chief executive of a successful company.

The case study and interview offer a unique insight into the rationale behind strategic decisions within a successful partnership that has grown organically in a highly competitive retail market without high gearing.

This case study sheds light on strategic moves within partnership. Furthermore, very few case studies offer insight into the thinking of a chief executive who has successfully managed a business in a turbulent environment.

Suggests a selective approach to leadership development in organizations, focusing on employees identified as having high potential or those on the development “fast‐track”. Identifies (from research) key psychological characteristics of fast‐track staff, and discusses the match between those characteristics and the properties of an action learning approach to development. Concludes with a plan for adapting action learning to the development of fast‐track staff.

This paper proposes a dialogical approach for analyzing and presenting Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) data in organizational research.

The paper explores the story behind a story, showing how qualitative research can be fictionalized and reflexively framed in contemporary organizational settings, illustrated by IPA research conducted by the authors, into selection interviewing in Australia. Drawing from researchers' narrative notes that reflexively interpret interview data in narrative form, the data were re-interpreted in fictionalized dialogical form, enabling findings to be analyzed and presented more interactively.

The application of new interpretative techniques, like fictionalized dialogue, contributes to a richer interpretation of phenomena in qualitative organizational and management research, not limited to IPA studies.

Fictionalized dialogue brings to the surface an additional level of analysis that contributes to thematic analysis in a novel manner, also serving as a communicative tool.

Profound and lasting changes are afoot in the high‐tech industry. Only those high‐tech companies that align their business models for the new horizontal and hypercompetitive future will succeed. The seven deadly signs of the new competitive environment are: (1) growing downward pressure on price with an ever‐increasing demand for greater performance; (2) greater complexity for customers as they face the unbundling of hardware options, integration choices, and multi‐company business coordination; (3) a new distribution of value: greater value to innovative component makers and solution integrators; less value for product design and assembly; (4) branding and customer relationships will differentiate commodity products; (5) collaborative networks will emerge; (6) global supply and global customers will mean global organizations; (7) competitors will encroach horizontally. Recommendation: proceed with a five‐step approach to develop a new winning strategy: (1) pick a horizontal space; (2) redefine and Web‐enable your value propositions; (3) assemble your collaborative networks; (4) integrate your internal operations globally; and (5) realign your organization and technology. Studies demonstrate that during downturns, advantage shifts to companies that continue to invest strategically.