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The purpose of this paper is to focus on developing a deep understanding of the nature and impact of the workplace mentor role in degree apprenticeships (DAs). It investigates a theoretical model of DA workplace mentoring activity, with findings used to develop a set of principles for supporting the development of effective mentoring practice.

Data underpinning this paper were collected as part of the monitoring and evaluation of the first year of a Chartered Manager DA programme at a post-1992 university. Workplace mentors and mentees were interviewed to explore their experience of mentoring within this programme.

This study found there to be many positive benefits of workplace mentoring for apprentices, their mentors and the organisation. This understanding can be used to support the development of principles for effective mentoring practice.

The data support the validity of the proposed model for DA workplace mentoring activity. In order to become a helpful guide to mentors’ planning of areas of support, the model may need to be refined to show the relative importance given to each activity area. The findings of this small-scale study need now to be extended through work with a larger sample.

The set of principles offered will be valuable to workplace mentors of degree apprentices across organisational sectors to ensure the quality of delivery and outcomes.

This paper contributes to an understanding of the impact of mentoring as a social practice on mentor and apprentice development. Such an understanding has the potential to positively influence the quality of delivery, mentoring practice and thus apprentices’ learning.

This article examines the national and international connections made by women graduates of the School of Home Science in their efforts to develop the scholarly expertise and professional capacity that would enable them to pursue academic careers and to improve the position of women in universities. It argues that despite the obstacles, many women were able to pursue academic pathways and to establish their own authority. By undertaking a transnational analysis, this article examines webs of influence that linked women scholars in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States as well as those in the so called “centre” (Europe and the United Kingdom). It explores the networks formed by a select number of middle class women ‐ scholars such as Ann Gilchrist Strong, Elizabeth Gregory and Neige Todhunter ‐ as they attempted to expand the range of their scholarly work beyond national borders. It considers the influence of appointments of women academics from the United States and the United Kingdom on; the significance of post graduate study opportunities for home science graduates; and the role of scholarships and awards that enabled two way travel between the southern and northern hemispheres. A number of tensions are evident in the way women scholars located their work in new and emerging fields of academic knowledge within the university. This article explores interrelationships between women academics and graduates from the School of Home Science at the University of Otago and academic women in the United Kingdom and the United States. The final section of the paper examines the academic and scholarly life of Catherine Landreth who exemplifies the experience of a select group of women who gained personally, culturally and professionally from their international opportunities, experiences and networks. It considers Landreth’s transnational travels in search of scholarly expertise, the influence of her personal and professional networks, the significance of her pioneering work in the emerging field of early childhood education and the constraints experienced in a highly gendered academic enclave. To begin however it gives a brief overview of the introduction of Home Science at the University of New Zealand and the influence of initial international appointments on the expansion of women’s academic work at the University of Otago.

This chapter makes the case for imparting effective project management training and collaborative skills for information professionals. The authors identify the challenges of collaborative project work in online environments by reviewing the relevant project management literature within the library and information science (LIS) discipline and discussing the role of LIS schools in addressing project management and collaborative skills for information professionals.

The literature review revealed a significant lack of project management and collaborative skills among LIS professionals. However, most LIS schools are still falling short when it comes to offering project management courses on a regular basis. The authors examined the challenges of teamwork in online environments, identified project management strategies and approaches for successful teamwork, and proposed guidelines for strategic project management education for information professionals. It is recommended that information professionals should have the skills to prepare a team contract, develop a project schedule, create mechanisms for transparency and accountability, and use effective communication strategies through project management techniques.

In addition to reviewing the relevant literature on project management within LIS, and the challenges of teamwork in online environments, the authors analyzed the relevance of some collaborative concepts and frameworks that might be useful in managing collaborative projects. In particular, the implications of Tuckman’s (1965) team progression theory, lessons from Harvey’s (1988) Abilene paradox, and de Bono’s (1989) six thinking hats method were analyzed and discussed in managing collaborative projects.

By obtaining effective project management and collaborative skills, LIS professionals will be able to better meet the demands of contemporary libraries and information organizations.

Supermax prisons have proliferated in the United States since their contemporary introduction in the early 1980s and have developed a more recent trajectory in the war prison. Drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben and Zygmunt Bauman as well as ethnographic research in Washington state prisons, this article considers the internal dynamics and history of the supermax prison in terms of bare life, exception, indifference, and “choice.” Contradictory relationships within and around the supermax are contextualized in terms of the extreme and technologically sophisticated methods that make up contemporary incarceration.

WHY ARE THEY neglected or forgotten, those minor (sometimes nearly major) novelists of the first two decades of this century? They have far more than period interest; some of the novels are, in fact, historical, with a theme shaped by historical events. The novelists were all sound craftswomen, scrupulous and professional, having three excellent, even essential talents: that of telling a tale, that of creating character and presenting it in action and dialogue, and that of indicating background. They none of them wrote to order or in a set pattern to be repeated in the next novel.

Organisations have to be ambidextrous to survive in modern times. This study, therefore, aims to investigate the influence of contextual leadership on exploratory and exploitative innovation. Environmental dynamism was the moderator in this relationship, and innovation climate was the mediator.

The research design was a quantitative study, using a Web-based survey questionnaire, which consisted of valid and reliable scales. There were 1,204 respondents who completed the survey. Analyses included reliability, validity tests and structural equation modelling to test the hypothesised relationships among the variables.

The results show that exploitative and exploratory innovation is predicted by the innovation climate, which in turn is predicted by contextual leadership. The findings include a slight moderating effect of environmental dynamism on these relationships. The results suggest that contextual leadership is a significant predictor for improving innovation climate.

As contextual leadership explains 33% of the variance in organisational climate, companies can benefit from developing their leaders to create climates that promote innovation. At increased levels of environmental dynamism, innovation efforts should increase.

Contextual leadership is a crucial element to build innovation-friendly workplaces. The study addresses the gap in research on the influence of contextual leadership on exploitative and exploratory innovation with the mediating and moderator effect on this relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the dialogue between the disaster risk reduction (DRR) and adaptation community by investigating their differences, similarities and potential synergies. The paper examines how DRR and adaptation can inform development to tackle the underlying drivers of disaster risk.

Based on a risk-based approach to the management of climate variability and change, the paper draws from a critical review of the literature on DRR and adaptation. The study finds that known and emerging risk from disasters continues to increase dramatically in many parts of the world, and that climate change is a key driver behind it. The authors also find that underlying causes of social vulnerability are still not adequately addressed in policy or practice. Linking DRR and adaptation is also complicated by different purposes and perspectives, fragmented knowledge, institutions and policy and poor stakeholder coordination.

The author’s analysis suggests that future work in DRR and adaptation should put a much greater emphasis on reducing vulnerability to environmental hazards, if there is truly a desire to tackle the underlying drivers of disaster and climate risks.

This will require coherent political action on DRR and adaptation aimed at addressing faulty development processes that are the main causes of growing vulnerability. The study concludes with a first look on the new Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and how it aims to connect with adaptation and development.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between complexity leadership and contextual ambidexterity as well as the mediating effect of organisational innovation climate in this link. This study is an answer to a call on which leadership approach and mediating factors can meet today’s seemingly contradictory challenges of efficiently managing business demands, while simultaneously searching for new opportunities.

The researchers analysed 1,204 usable survey responses from employees of South African organisations. Analysis was in the form of structural equation modelling. Mediation analysis was carried out on estimates of the indirect effect.

Results show that complexity leadership was a strong predictor of innovation climate; in turn, innovation climate positively impacts exploratory innovation by 64 per cent; complexity leadership and innovation climate positively affect exploitation by 57 per cent. The innovation climate plays a total mediator role between complexity leadership and exploratory innovation and a partial effect on exploitation.

This study gives human resource management (HRM) insight into strategically directing leadership recruitment and development towards creating an organisational climate to enhance ambidexterity. HRM must conduct regular climate surveys to ascertain whether current leadership is creating an environment that enables exploratory and exploitative innovation.

The authors’ contribution includes a theoretical contribution to the emerging field of complexity leadership by offering conceptual as well as empirical evidence of its role in ambidexterity. This study extends previous research in highlighting organisational climate’s mediating role of being open to new ideas to enable exploratory innovation.

Film provides an alternative medium for assessing our interpretations of cultural icons. This selective list looks at the film and video sources for information on and interpretations of the life of Woody Guthrie.