Search results

As computerised manufacture merges into computer integrated manufacture, with expert computer systems controlling other expert systems, where do human beings come in? Are they gaining or losing? Are they drifting into a catch‐22 situation? Maybe the time will come when they are merely spectators. The mushrooming progress of technology is reflected on, who is gaining and who is losing are questioned and suggested plan of action to keep progress – at least technological progress – on the rails is presented.

Positive action is a difficult and often misunderstood concept which covers a wide range of individual measures to improve the position of disadvantaged groups. Seeks to clarify the concept, outline its development and put forward a number of practical strategies for those working in the equal opportunities field. Its principal focus is the European Community, with particular attention given to the UK.

In the final years of the twentieth century there is likely to be an increasing rate of change for all types of organisations. How will they respond to this?

In the U.S. private sector, women are less likely than men to be union members. This study analyses a unique na‐tional survey (conducted in 1984) to determine if women are less interested than men in unionising or if, instead, they are equally interested but face higher barriers to unionisation. The results support the latter interpretation. In particular, non‐union women in private sector white‐col‐lar jobs (representing over half of the female non‐union, work force) expressed more interest than comparable men in joining unions. This finding appears to reflect more optimism among the women in this group than among the men about what unions can accomplish; it is not explained by gender differences in attitudes toward jobs or em‐ployers. The authors discount theories that family respon‐sibilities, or concerns of female workers that set them apart from men, present special barriers to unionisation.

On many occasions, organizational science research has been referred to as fragmented and disjointed, resulting in a literature that is, in the opinion of many, difficult to navigate and comprehend. One potential explanation is that scholars have failed to comprehend that organizations are complex and intricate systems. In order to move us past this morass, we recommend that researchers extend beyond traditional rational, mechanistic, and variable-centered approaches to research and integrate a more advantageous pattern-oriented approach within their research program. Pattern-oriented methods approximate real-life phenomena by adopting a holistic, integrative approach to research wherein individual- and organizational-systems are viewed as non-decomposable organized wholes. We argue that the pattern-oriented approach has the potential to overcome a number of breakdowns faced by alternate approaches, while offering a novel and more representative lens from which to view organizational- and HRM-related issues. The proposed incorporation of the pattern-oriented approach is framed within a review and evaluation of current approaches to organizational research and is supplemented with a discussion of methodological and theoretical implications as well as potential applications of the pattern-oriented approach.

This column inaugurates a new facet of the coverage of reference materials contained in RSR: the inclusion of sections devoted to reviews of useful reference books published around the world. Inasmuch as RSR's emphasis is on American reference sources and American libraries, the titles selected for evaluation were chosen on the basis of their appeal and relevance to libraries both in the U.S. and in other countries.

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the relationship between management research and practice particularly in the UK.

The paper takes the form of an historical survey of initiatives and different conceptual approaches.

The paper reveals a central focus on the role of management consultants in mediating between management practice and management knowledge,

The paper is a partial and limited analysis of a complex process: more work is needed to untangle the various institutional roles and conceptual frameworks.

Re‐framing the relationship between management research and practice to consider a greater emphasis on practice engaged scholarship and the two way process of knowledge translation.

The paper encourages a new perspective amongst policy makers, researchers and management consultants.

This study explores the influence individual characteristics identified in prior research have on ethical choice in a financial reporting task. An action-based, multi-metric dependent variable is developed to measure ethical reporting choice. Intermediate accounting students participate in the task as part of a curricular assignment in a revenue recognition module. Results demonstrate that several, but not all, individual characteristics found in prior research do influence accounting students’ ethical revenue recognition choices. Specifically, the external locus-of-control, idealism, consequentialist, and Machiavellian characteristics are found to influence ethical reporting choice.