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The purpose of this study is to examine the direct and indirect effect of high and low‐level local union leaders on various forms of member participation.

Interviews and surveys of the leaders and members of an Educators Association operating in the USA were used to explore these complex relationships. Multiple regression, hierarchical regression, and path analyses were used to test direct and indirect relationship and the amount of variance explained by participatory leadership.

Survey results indicate that a member's perception of the participatory style of the local union president positively related to, and explained a significant amount of additional variance in, union activities that require moderate and high levels of effort. No support was found for the workplace representative's direct relationship with various measures of member participation. The indirect effects of the union president's and the workplace representatives’ participatory style on union involvement highlight the importance of various union leadership roles on developing various union attitudes.

Limitations include the cross‐sectional nature of the study, common method bias, and a small sample size (N=113).

Results of the study highlight the importance of the union president in fostering union attitudes and certain forms of union participation. The findings suggest areas for leadership development and training opportunities of union officials.

Unique elements of the study include an exploration of multiple leadership roles on union attitudes and various forms of union participation.

In this article, the authors explore one way that teacher preparation programs and elementary schools can collaborate to enhance science instruction for elementary school learners. This paper provides an overview of a project where a teacher candidate worked with six classroom teachers to organize science materials and prepare for science lessons.

This project included targeted assistance from a teacher candidate in “unpacking” a kit of science materials and a feedback survey given to classroom teachers after the project.

After the teacher candidate helped “unpack” the science kits, teachers reported that they were more confident in teaching lessons from the curriculum. The teacher candidate reported that she learned more about how materials can be used in science teaching and learning.

This project showed how PDS can involve teacher candidates in spanning boundaries to elementary science teaching to enhance outcomes for all stakeholders.

Corporations are increasingly expected to act responsibly. The purpose of this paper is to examine two types of corporate responses to these expectations: overt and covert responses. Specifically, it examines oil companies’ involvement in multi-stakeholder initiatives and sponsorships (overt responses) and their monitoring of critics, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activist organisations (covert responses).

Theoretically, the paper draws on theories of visibility and post-political regulation. Empirically, it focuses on case studies of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), Shell and BP, drawing on qualitative methods.

The paper demonstrates that overt responses create an impression of consensus between antagonistic interests and that covert responses support this impression by containing deep-seated conflicts.

Corporate responses have implications for the role of the corporation as a (post-)political actor. By containing antagonism and creating an impression of consensus, the interplay between overt and covert responses open up further possibilities for the proliferation of soft governance and self-regulation through participation in voluntary transparency and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Data on covert practices of corporations are difficult to access. This impedes possibilities for fully assessing their extent. The findings of this paper support trends emerging from recent research on covert corporate intelligence practices, but more research is needed to provide a systematic overview.

The paper contributes to the understudied area of covert corporate activity in research on the political role of multinational corporations.

The purpose of this research is to present the results of a recent interpretive study of 11 small Central Vancouver Island firms in British Columbia, Canada, which yield new interpretations of the nature of problem‐solving processes within the wider context of managerial capability as a critical contributor to small business survival.

The methodological approach taken is positioned within an emergent body of research in the field of small business and entrepreneurship that applies an interpretive paradigm to uncover the complex facets of how individuals develop their capabilities and management practices with a particular emphasis on the small business owner‐manager. More specifically, the critical incident technique method, along with an approach to data analysis and coding that draws from grounded theory, is combined and applied as a qualitative research strategy to yield new understandings of problem solving in small firms.

Research findings reveal the intuitive, improvised and non‐linear nature of how problems are actually solved in the sample of small firms studied, in contrast with a number of well‐known theoretical research frameworks that propose well‐defined and delineated steps in the problem‐solving process.

The small sample size and the methods chosen to conduct the research do not allow for the generalization of findings to all firms, yet do allow for the emergence of themes among the businesses that participated in the study. Research could be expanded by applying a similar research design to small firms in other regions of Canada to determine whether significant differences or similarities exist and to identify the implications for research in the area of problem solving in small firms.

The identification of problems as critical incidents represents a primary focus of the research and provides a more explanatory account of problem solving from the perspective of small firm owner‐managers involved in the process. The analysis of these highly subjective interpretations represents valuable research findings that provide a basis for the development of theory on problem solving in small firms.

This chapter uncovers the destabilizing and transformative dimensions of a legal process commonly described as assimilation. Lawyers working on behalf of a marginalized group often argue that the group merits inclusion in dominant institutions, and they do so by casting the group as like the majority. Scholars have criticized claims of this kind for affirming the status quo and muting significant differences of the excluded group. Yet, this chapter shows how these claims may also disrupt the status quo, transform dominant institutions, and convert distinctive features of the excluded group into more widely shared legal norms. This dynamic is observed in the context of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights, and specifically through attention to three phases of LGBT advocacy: (1) claims to parental recognition of unmarried same-sex parents, (2) claims to marriage, and (3) claims regarding the consequences of marriage for same-sex parents. The analysis shows how claims that appeared assimilationist – demanding inclusion in marriage and parenthood by arguing that same-sex couples are similarly situated to their different-sex counterparts – subtly challenged and reshaped legal norms governing parenthood, including marital parenthood. While this chapter focuses on LGBT claims, it uncovers a dynamic that may exist in other settings.

PROTEX™ Keyboarding System Fights Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) currently costs U.S. employers in excess of $27 billion annually in absenteeism and worker's compensation claims, and is deemed by many experts as the major occupational hazard of the information age. CTS occurs when the nerve and tendons in the carpal tunnel (inside the wrist) are compressed by awkward and forceful hand movements. The symptoms of CTS are numbness, tingling, and pain in the hands and fingers.

This article is concerned with strategies for managing the careers of women who work in paid positions in the union movement. Recently there has been some debate about the positive potential offered by the use of ICTs in a variety of areas of trade union activity. We link this to debates about the role of trade union education in developing women’s careers within trade unions by exploring the experiences of participants on a recent British Trades Union Congress (TUC) online course for women. The study suggests that the potentialities of ICTs in this sphere of trade union activity are mediated by a number of gendered constraints.