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The study sets out to demonstrate how a lifecycle perspective on complex, public-sector procurement projects can be used for making qualitative assessments of procurement policy and practice and reveal those procurement capabilities that are most impactful for operating effectively.

Agency theory, institutional theory and the lifecycle analysis technique are combined to abductively develop a framework to identify, analyse and compare complex procurement policies and practices in public sector organisations. Defence is the focal case and is compared with cases in the Nuclear, Local Government and Health sectors.

The study provides a framework for undertaking a lifecycle analysis to understand the challenges and capabilities of complex, public-sector buyers. Eighteen hierarchically-arranged themes are identified and used in conjunction with agency theory and institutional theory to explain complex procurement policy and practice variation in some of the UK’s highest-profile public buyers. The study findings provide a classification of complex buyers and offer valuable guidance for practitioners and researchers navigating complex procurement contexts.

The lifecycle approach proposed is a new research tool providing a bespoke application of theory by considering each lifecycle phase as an individual but related element that is governed by unique institutional pressures and principal-agent relationships.

Effective and robust governance of major projects and programmes in the public sector is crucial to the accountability of the state and the transparency of state spending. The theoretical discourse on governance, in the context of projects and programmes, is not fully mature, although is now sufficiently well developed to warrant an increased scholarly focus on practice. This paper aims to contribute to the empirical literature through a study of assurance routines in the UK Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP).

A framework analysis approach to the evaluation of a subset of GMPP database generates original insights into (1) the framing of assurance review recommendations, (2) the treatment of assurance review data and (3) the subsequent tracking of the implementation of actions arising from the assurance review process.

The analysis reveals that the “delivery confidence” of the major projects and programmes included in this study improves during the time that they are assured on the GMPP. This would suggest that “enhanced” governance routines are desirable in programmes and projects that exhibit high degrees of complexity and scale.

The research findings contribute to the wider conversations in this journal and elsewhere on project governance routines and governance-as-practice in the context of government and public services.

Introduction In the last decade the problem of product liability has become one of the major concerns affecting industry, consumers and government. Product liability, which relates to the responsibility of a manufacturer to compensate a user who suffers injury from using his product, is not a new concept. King Hammurabi of Babylon instituted these two laws over 4,000 years ago:

This book on uncertainty comprises the initial volume in a series titled “New Horizons in Managerial and Organizational Cognition”. We asked Frances Milliken and Gerard P. Hodgkinson, two well-known scholars who have made important contributions to our understanding of uncertainty to join us in this opening chapter to introduce this project. The brief bios found at the end of this volume cannot do justice to the broad range of their contributions, but our conversation gives a flavor of the kind of insights they have brought to managerial and organizational cognition (MOC). The editors thank them for helping launch the series with a decisive exploration of what defining uncertainty involves, how that might be done, why it is important, and how the task is changing. We were interested to discover that all five of us are currently involved in research that considers the nature and impact of uncertainty, and we hope that readers similarly find that paying attention to uncertainty contributes to their current projects. Working together, we can advance understanding of organizational settings and effective action, both for researchers and practitioners.

These days every important trend in business converges on the decision to relocate.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the editorial content of monthly women's magazines and consider their role in facilitating the Christmas food rituals. Of particular interest is the extent to which the special food features have adapted to support the changes in women's lifestyles over the last 20 years.

The authors conducted a longitudinal social semiotic analysis of Christmas food features in women's magazines in Australia and the UK over the period 1991‐2011.

The analysis reveals a recurring conflict between the magazine content and the lifestyles of their readers. For families to participate in and maintain the Christmas ritual still means devotion, typically by a woman. The message has not changed, even though the work/home balance for many women has. The responsibility for putting the “magic” in Christmas lies firmly at the woman's feet. The magazines' text convey a contradictory message by offering readers budget and timesaving tips, while their visuals imply that such “shortcuts” stand in the way of the sought‐after magical Christmas, the rituals must be followed in full.

Adopting a longitudinal social semiotic analysis enabled the authors to conduct a detailed comparison of both text and imagery across the magazines and across the years. The authors were also able to report on how the sign complexes such as colour and text worked in combination to create a social message.

Whilst women's magazines remain an important vehicle for the transmission of social values, the paper's findings demonstrate that they are not necessarily adapting to social change.