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In Britain, welfare‐to‐work has been hailed as a radical initiative to help those that are socially and economically disadvantaged in society. The New Deal promises to offer young long term unemployed people the opportunity to train and experience the world of work in a bid to make them more attractive to employers. It is especially pertinent to ethnic minorities who have been identified as having an increased tendency to be unemployed. However, the intention to help ethnic minorities has not been matched with changes to the institutional framework for the delivery of training and work experience placements. This article assesses the likely impact of the New Deal on unemployed people from ethnic minority communities. It contends that the failure of the present arrangement to cater for the needs of ethnic minorities may affect the success of the New Deal as far as ethnic minorities are concerned.

In analysing change in the public sector, and in particular the imperatives for change, there has been a tendency amongst some observers to isolate privatisation as a governmental strategy and divorce it from the wider political agenda, ignoring the political contingencies that have characterised this key development. So while the scale of privatisation, and indeed quasi‐privatisation, has been immense, the contradictions in terms of the aims and implementation of privatisation have been apparent (Marsh, 1991). In turn, the strategic and structural origins of such changes are usually ignored in the discussion on new public sector management with the research agenda tending instead to emphasise the problems of implementation with regards to an ideal typical notion of new public sector management.

This article aims to show through a case study analysis how a UK company has adopted policies that in practice appear to signify a move towards HRM techniques. The analysis discusses first the industrial setting that encourages the flourishing of HRM; second, organisational changes at corporate and company level; third, a model of HRM; fourth, the practice of HRM in a case study, using a goal method as the frame of reference; and, finally, the significance of the new approach in terms of the product life‐cycle.

Examines how a TQM programme has been implemented within the context of Royal Mail. Demonstrates that within the organization TQM has been “negotiated” around four main factors: the complexities of utilizing the discourse of the customer; the organization′s market dominance in the collection and delivery of door‐to‐door mail; its industrial relations; and the formal and central adoption of TQM within a public sector context.

Presents 31 abstracts, edited by Johanthan Morris and Mike Reed, from the 2003 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, held at Cardiff Business School in September 2003. The conference theme was “The end of management? managerial pasts, presents and futures”. Contributions covered, for example, the changing HR role, managing Kaizen, contradiction in organizational life, organizational archetypes, changing managerial work and gendering first‐time management roles. Case examples come from areas such as Mexico, South Africa, Australia, the USA, Canada and Turkey.