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The Environment Agency needed to identify key areas of its communication processes for improvement in order to engage employees in major change. Summit‐IMM senior consultants Clive Hicks and Rory Gear explain how simplifying processes and introducing workshops helped align service strategy with the wider organizational focus.

In his previous article, “Measuring the immeasurables,” Rory Gear of Summit‐IMM made the case for measuring intangibles and introduced the Standard and Poor’s method as a viable approach. Here, he describes a worked example taken from a real “Intellectual Capital Rating” of a large international manufacturing company. The company is referred to as “Company X” for confidentiality reasons.

The rise of the “intangible economy” shows no sign of abating. Traditionally, companies have been valued on the strength of their financial and tangible assets, but the elements of business which drive real value in today’s economy are R&D, innovation, customer relationships, staff motivation, loyalty and intellectual know‐how. The question is, how do you measure something defined as intangible?

The average job description for a senior HR professional has changed dramatically over the past few decades. No longer the bastion of transactional processes and employee administration, the responsibilities of the director or VP of HR are markedly different

This paper aims to examine human resource management (HRM) in the gig economy through a moral economy lens and to uncover how sharing and firm ownership influences the (un)ethical use of HRM practices and worker treatment.

Conceptual and empirical insights from contemporary HRM literature are synthesised through a systematic literature review to elucidate pressing challenges for research and practice.

The analysis reveals that the different ownership structures used by gig firms shape the nature and degree of sharing. The gig economy built on investor ownership leads to greater sharing with investors and tends to be more exploitative of workers, whereas platforms built on collaborative ownership engage in greater peer-to-peer sharing which is more equitable and leads to higher quality work relations and HRM.

The closer an organisation's alignment with the more equitable/relational end of the gig economy spectrum, the better the work relations and HRM.

A new integrated conceptual spectrum of sharing in the gig economy is advanced, which aids in understanding evolving developments in HRM theory and practice.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Library uses Library Systems & Services’ (LSSI) Virtual Reference Desk (VRS) to provide live reference via the Internet. Energy Library reference librarians use VRS to conduct reference interviews by chat, take the patrons to or send Web pages, collaborate on questions, and provide transcripts for patron follow‐up. VRS allows the reference librarians to reach those who cannot or do not come to the library and makes the librarian a reference resource for a wider audience. The Energy Library VRS patrons and their questions have transitioned from mostly DOE headquarters employees looking for codes, policies and similar documents, to mainly non‐DOE people seeking information, increasing the diversity of reference skills needed.

This paper aims to explore how established multinational enterprises (MNEs) have responded to the perceived threat from rising power firms by seeking to alter the intellectual property institutional environment in key emerging economies.

The key place of emerging economies in the efforts of established MNEs to seek patent law change is discussed. Two case studies review developments related to pharmaceutical patents in India and South Africa, highlighting the influence of MNEs in driving policy change and the contested nature of their actions.

While India and South Africa both present evidence of MNEs seeking to influence pharmaceutical patent laws, distinct differences emerge. In India, most MNE pressure has been in response to the emergence of an active domestic industry and a patent law oriented towards generic entry, while the MNE priority in South African has been geared towards maintaining MNE dominance and a system which leads to generous granting of patents.

Managers and decision-makers seeking to invest in emerging economies must take account of a plethora of institutions present, which may be better suited towards local industrial and consumer interests and may prompt resistance to any established MNE-led attempt at institutional change.

The article offers a comparative perspective on pharmaceutical patent laws in India and South Africa, which have been subject to significant contestation by policymakers, civil society organisations and both rising power and established MNEs. The comparison explores and questions the increasingly widespread “institutional void” thesis in international business.

Discusses how, by incorporating the principles of TQM from the outset, State Farm Insurance has achieved a leadership position in its industry. Examines State Farm′s “good neighbour” approach to service. Asserts that the company′s management philosophy is simple:total commitment to the policyholder. Contends that agents are the key. Concludes by describing how the trainee agents become independent contractors working with other agents and the agency manager.

The study aims to provide an analytical overview of current innovations in peer review and their potential impacts on scholarly communication.

The authors created a survey that was disseminated among publishers, academic journal editors and other organizations in the scholarly communication ecosystem, resulting in a data set of 95 self-defined innovations. The authors ordered the material using a taxonomy that compares innovation projects according to five dimensions. For example, what is the object of review? How are reviewers recruited, and does the innovation entail specific review foci?

Peer review innovations partly pull in mutually opposed directions. Several initiatives aim to make peer review more efficient and less costly, while other initiatives aim to promote its rigor, which is likely to increase costs; innovations based on a singular notion of “good scientific practice” are at odds with more pluralistic understandings of scientific quality; and the idea of transparency in peer review is the antithesis to the notion that objectivity requires anonymization. These fault lines suggest a need for better coordination.

This paper presents original data that were analyzed using a novel, inductively developed, taxonomy. Contrary to earlier research, the authors do not attempt to gauge the extent to which peer review innovations increase the “reliability” or “quality” of reviews (as defined according to often implicit normative criteria), nor are they trying to measure the uptake of innovations in the routines of academic journals. Instead, they focus on peer review innovation activities as a distinct object of analysis.