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This paper is a case study of the effects of an organizational intervention on the recovery of the Ashanti Goldfields Corporations Limited mining operations in Ghana, a country in West Africa. We examine the events leading up to the company's decline, the deep‐level intervention strategy that was applied, and the effects of that intervention. The design of the change initiative could best be classified as a system‐renewal intervention, in that comprehensive changes in the organization were sought through an eclectic combination of strategies that recognized the unique cultural milieu in which the company was operating. Major emphasis was placed upon the development and establishment among management of a new shared vision of performance, the introduction of managerial goal setting, the development of managerial teams, and an improvement in the basic standard of living for line employees.

Complex issues arise when personality variables are incorporated into traditional approaches to personnel selection. Personality assessment and testing in employment contexts is more complicated than it would appear. Rather than arguing against considering personality variables, wefocus on five problematic issues associated with their use in personnel selection. These issues are: the appropriateness of linear selection models; the problem of personality‐related self‐selection effects; the multi‐dimensionality of personality; bias associated with social desirability, impression management, and faking in top‐down selection models; and the legal implications of personality assessment in employment contexts. Recommends that practitioners and researchers be cognizant of these issues in the use of personality tests in employment decisions.

Despite smart construction technology's great potential to improve the productivity of the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, the implementation of smart construction technology has failed to achieve the expected benefits due to the negative usage behaviors of construction enterprise employees. This study aims to identify the determinants and their configuration effects on the smart construction technology usage behavior (SCTUB) based on the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework. This study then verifies the practical paths to improve the employee's SCTUB from the configuration perspective.

A mixed-method approach involving survey and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is conducted in this study. Based on the detailed literature review and semi-structured interview, this study identifies the factors and proposes the TOE framework to determine the configuration conditions affecting employee's SCTUB and verify practical paths to promote this user behavior.

The TOE framework's technical, organizational and environmental elements are interdependent. The emergence of a high SCTUB is not determined by a single determinant but by configuration conditions. Four equifinal conditions (e.g. organization-technology type, technology-organization type, environment type and organization-technology balanced type) are verified to promote construction enterprise employee's SCTUB.

The four verified configuration conditions could guide construction enterprises to formulate complementary strategies for promoting the construction enterprises' employees to implement smart construction technology and achieve the enterprise's digital transformation.

The inter-dependence of the three-dimension factors, namely technical, organizational and environmental elements are explored to enrich the literature on the TOE framework. Meanwhile, the configuration effects of these factors on usage behavior are identified, expanding the literature on the information technology acceptance model.

This article seeks to review the current state of workplace learning evaluation, to set out the rationale for evaluation along with the barriers that practitioners face when seeking to assess the effectiveness of training and development. Finally, it aims to propose a scientifically robust and practitioner friendly approach to evaluation.

This article is based on a multi disciplinary literature review.

Despite the substantial investment in workplace learning there is a paucity of evaluation activity. There are a wide range of reasons for this including capacity and capability issues, lack of supportive organisational environment and a lack of effective measurement instruments. There is also a large research to practice gap. The starting point for evaluation approaches should be the needs of practitioners. Latest research on training suggests that effective evaluation approaches should adopt a stakeholder and systems approach and collect corroborative data.

This article presents research findings, based on a multidisciplinary literature review, on the factors that inhibit effective workplace learning evaluation, sets out a novel evaluation framework and approach, grounded in a conceptual model of workplace learning.

The findings seek to assist practitioners such as learning and development professionals undertake more robust and efficient evaluations. The article also addresses the research to practice gap.

This article presents a novel approach to workplace learning evaluation.

This paper aims to present a history of the marketing of hope chests in the USA, focusing in particular on one very successful sales promotion, the Lane Company’s Girl Graduate Plan. The Girl Graduate Plan is placed within its historical context to better understand the socioeconomic forces that contributed to its success for a considerable period but ultimately led to decreased demand for the product.

The history of the marketing of hope or marriage chests draws upon primary sources located in the Lane Company Collection at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Secondary sources and images of advertising culled from Google image searches provided additional insight into the operation of the company’s Girl Graduate Plan.

While the Lane Company benefitted in the form of increased sales, profit and brand awareness and loyalty from prevailing socio-economic trends, which supported the success of its Girl Graduate Plan, including targeting the youth market, this promotion ultimately fell victim to the company’s failure to stay abreast of social changes related to the role of women in society.

Like all historical research, this research is dependent upon the historical sources that are accessible. The authors combined documents available from the Virginia Historical Society archives with online searches, but other data sources may well exist.

This history investigates how one manufacturer, a leader in the North American industry, collaborated with furniture dealers to promote their products to young women who were about to become the primary decision makers for the purchase of home furnishings. As such, it provides an historical example of the power of successful collaboration with channel partners. It also provides an example of innovation within an already crowded market.

The hope chest as an object of material culture can be found in many cultures worldwide. It has variously represented a woman’s coming of age, the love relationship between a couple and a family’s social status. It has also served as a woman’s store of wealth. This history details how changing social values influenced the popularity of the hope chest tradition in the USA.

The history of the marketing of hope chests is an area that has not been seriously considered in consumption histories or in histories of marketing practices to date, in spite of the continuing sentimental appeal for many consumers.

The aims of the present study were to test the predictive validity of the Swedish version of the Team Diagnostic Survey (TDS).

A model with both performance and satisfaction was tested with structural equation model (SEM) analyses. Participants completing the survey were employees (N = 214) across three large workplaces. Analyses were done at the group level and data from 33 teams were included in the final data material.

Results from validation data indicate that the TDS has satisfactory high Cronbach’s alpha values on most factors. Results from the SEM analyses show a moderate model fit for the main model. Team-level factors predict both performance and satisfaction, while organization and coaching factors do not.

The present study was limited to a cross-sectional design, but earlier studies have shown that the accuracy of the TDS remains consistent over time. The main purpose of this study was to test the predictive validity of the instrument. Theoretical implications of the study are that a survey can be used to get a valid overall picture of the real-life work team’s effectiveness.

Practical implications of the study are that communication between researcher and/or consultant and organizational stakeholders is made easier, as the most important factors that affect team effectiveness are identified.

The work on the development on TDS has shown that it is possible to use a complex instrument to diagnose work groups, and this line of research is leading the way for better instruments.