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In this paper we describe the context for the three year project “Quality and the Human Resource Dimension” funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

There is a basic ambiguity in TQM in that, while managers seek the commitment and co‐operation of their employees, increased control over the work process is a cornerstone of TQM. This ambiguity is reflected in the literature concerning TQM (Wilkinson et al, 1992). Its advocates see it as universally beneficial, improving competitive advantage and, at the same time, empowering the workforce as responsibility is delegated to those actually carrying out the task. Its critics, however, note the tighter managerial control involved in the drive to reduce variation (Parker and Slaughter, 1993) and the increased surveillance arising out of the quality measurement systems introduced (Delbridge et al, 1991; Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992). From the latter perspective, TQM is seen as another development in the capitalist labour process intended to push back the frontiers of control and intensify work.

Unions are rarely mentioned in the writings of the quality gurus, and the industrial relations aspects of TQM can often be neglected by employers. However, because TQM involves changes in working practices and job control ‐ traditional areas of union concern ‐ industrial relations issues become increasingly important at lower levels in the hierarchy (Wilkinson, 1994). TQM, like much of the prescriptive writing on HRM, is unitarist in approach and is regarded as essentially a management policy, outside the union sphere of influence (Wilkinson, et al, 1992). Collard (1993) concludes that:

For companies striving towards total quality management and continuous improvement it is important to be sure that employees are receiving the right messages. A new non‐scoring audit tool, developed in work with UK companies, assesses whether human resource policies are integrated with quality management processes.

Uses a longitudinal case study approach to analyse changes in industrial relations in a chemical company over the last decade. The authors argue that the concept of “waves” can be used to help understand developments during this period. The first wave related to the crisis of the early 1980s and a “turnaround project”, while the second was part of a longer term and in a sense less urgent cultural change initiative. There was thus a shift in management thinking, from emphasizing compliance with short‐term imperatives, to an attempt to develop a more fully co‐operative relationship, where commitment was seen as central to the new way of working. However, underpinning this shift to a more co‐operative relationship was a considerable shift in the balance of workplace power, a fact which explains the new relationship more effectively than increased employee understanding or the growth of consensus at the workplace. At the same time, there remained ambiguity amongst the key actors in the process. Whilst senior management strongly supported the new programme of change, middle managers and supervisors were much less enthusiastic. Unions also were ambivalent in their attitudes, given the dimunition of their role. Amongst other things, the case illustrates the difficulty encountered when management attempt to change organizational culture to achieve high trust industrial relations.

British industrial relations has changed greatly over the past decade. A central development has been management′s sponsorship of new, direct forms of employee involvement (EI) such as team briefing, quality circles and profit sharing. In many larger manufacturing firms new schemes now co‐exist with traditional union‐centred collective bargaining structures. In 1988 Employee Relations Vol. 10 No. 6 reported on a quality circle programme and a range of other EI initiatives at Brown′s Woven Carpets. Here returns to Brown′s several years on, as part of a wider, Department of Employment funded research project on “New Developments in Employee Involvement” carried out at Manchester School of Management, UMIST. The Brown′s case illustrates how employee participation develops in successive “waves” – a major theme of the larger study. The firm has now entered a period of consolidation. No new schemes have been introduced, but the early 1980s initiatives have gained a stable if not dominant place in company industrial relations; while the emphasis has moved on from a “reactive” to a more “proactive” usage of EI.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to investigate public trust as an important factor of performance in the charitable sector, and explain the necessity of including public trust assessment in charity performance measurement.

Two focus group interviews were conducted in the UK to investigate the reasons for trust and lack of trust in charities, which contributed to the identification of the relation between public trust and charity performance measurement.

Indicators of public trust in charities are not only related to some conventional criteria for evaluating charity performance, but also shed light on “soft” factors which are relatively new criteria used to assess performance. Furthermore, measuring public trust is an indispensable supplement to existing approaches of performance assessment in the charitable sector. It remedies the drawbacks of previous studies by employing a “bottom-up” approach to evaluation that avoids the conflicting demands of different stakeholders when deciding assessment criteria.

Re-conducting the study with larger samples, combining with quantitative surveys, and applying more rigorous approach to data analysis could be helpful for improving the generalizability of the results.

The study highlights the necessity of considering public trust when measuring charity performance. Additionally, it suggests charities to make improvements of their performance based on the reasons for trust and lack of trust.

It provides insight into the public trust of charities and, for the first time, explores the applicability of measuring public trust in charity performance evaluation.

Kevin Bales' work on contemporary slavery has brought this under‐researched field of social enquiry to the attention not only of the academic world but to a wider global audience through his prolific publishing, his film work and not least his presidency of Free the Slaves, the US anti‐slavery organisation. The purpose of this paper is to explore some of his findings and methodologies currently prevailing in this field.

This paper is based on an interview with Kevin Bales conducted in April 2009 and subsequent discussions with Claire Griffiths.

Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, the book that brought Bales global recognition over a decade ago, reinstated slavery as a key human rights issue on the research agenda for the twenty‐first century. This interview is condensed from a longer discussion between Kevin Bales and Claire Griffiths on researching contemporary slavery. In this conversation they explore the relationship between slavery, trafficking and prostitution, a theme that leads the discussion to the gendered nature of slavery through the centuries. The interview concludes with some indications of where slavery studies research is going in the twenty‐first century.

This paper provides new insights into the emerging and interdisciplinary field of modern slavery studies.

The progress towards 1992 and the European Social Charter promise to draw UK industry further into the European pattern of employee relations. For many years Industrial Relations theory, in particular, has focused on our distinctive voluntarist and pragmatic tradition (Clegg, Flanders, Kahn‐Freund etc), while several Economic and Political writers (Marquand, MacInnes etc) have seen the associated patterns of strong trade union workplace organisation and anarchic, decentralised bargaining as major causes of Britain's economic decline.

The subject of employee involvement (El) has become much more central to debates about industrial relations and personnel management over the course of the last decade. Employers, confronted by increasingly competitive product markets and a greater emphasis on quality and customer care, have started to focus attention much more explicitly on attempts to develop and motivate employees, as well as aiming to draw more fully upon employee knowledge and talents. At the same time, developments within the EC — especially via the Social Charter — have caused British employers to think more carefully about how to involve employees at work. Amongst the academic community, the subject has also undergone a renaissance, with researchers questioning whether EI is really new, whether it is little more than a facade for u itarist management, or how it interrelates with human resource management or the “new industrial relations”. It is within such a context that our study of employee involvement was commissioned by the Department of Employment and commenced in the summer of 1989.