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Under public sector reforms, HR departments are under increasing pressure to demonstrate how they add value to the organization. This paper seeks to contribute to our knowledge of HR functional roles in public sector organizations by considering how social capital may influence perceived HR department performance. Most prior research on HR functional performance has focused on what HR professionals do, rather than on how they do it, yet such process factors have been shown in the literature on organizational strategy to be crucial determinants of long‐term effectiveness. This paper aims to use the framework of social capital as a means of conceptualizing HR processes, and investigates how these are played out in an exploratory study.

The paper is based on four matched‐pair case studies in public sector organizations in the UK. A total of 77 interviews are conducted.

The research found that there appeared to be a link between HR social capital and perceptions of HR functional performance on the part of both HR staff and line managers.

This is a piece of case study based research in the UK public sector, and therefore the findings may not be generalizable. It would have been preferable to have had some hard metrics for HR department performance, but perceptual data was relied on instead. Further research is therefore recommended.

The implication for HR practitioners is that attention needs to be paid to the structural and relational dimensions of how the HR department operates, as well as to what it does, if it is to be regarded as effective.

This is a piece of original research on a topic that has received almost no prior attention. Previous research on the link between HRM and performance has focused almost exclusively on HR strategies and policies and has neglected process and implementation. This paper presents some evidence to show that HR processes in terms of social capital may be an important element.

This paper seeks to develop a system of how to judge the merit and worth of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects in the UK National Health Service (NHS) once they are operational. This concern is couched in relation to whether PFI can be seen to provide long‐term “value for money” (VFM) using a broad definition of this term. This paper does not attempt to further the debate that has focussed on the broader macro economic VFM arguments; rather, the focus is upon developing a model for evaluation at the organisational level where there is a paucity of direction and clarity. Whilst there are many VFM criteria available to guide whether PFI in the NHS should be pursued at the pre‐decision stage, there is little in the way of post‐project evaluation systems to judge VFM once decisions have been taken. Little thought has been given to the design of these post‐project evaluation systems let alone the experiences of how such systems may operate. This paper is addressing these lacunae but only in the sense of suggesting a design for a system for post‐project evaluation. This is drawn from PFI pre‐decision processes, post‐project intentions of some PFI schemes and evaluation theory. It is not about the judgements that come from the use of such a framework which the paper conclude will take some time to be forthcoming.

Public private partnerships (PPPs) are a recent extension of what has now become well known as the “new public management” agenda for changes in the way public services are provided. PPPs involve organisations whose affiliations lie in respectively the public and private sectors working together in partnership to provide public services. This special issue of the Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal explores this new development, which, in its most advanced form, is contained in the UK’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) but is now spreading across the world in multiple forms. This introduction provides an overview of this development as well as an outline of the seven papers that make up this special issue. These seven papers are divided into two parts – the first four looking at different aspects of PFI and the latter three providing three country‐based (from the USA, New Zealand and Australia) studies of PFI/PPP. Many questions about the nature, regulation, pre‐decision analysis and post‐project evaluation are addressed in these papers but many research questions remain unanswered, as this Introduction makes plain.

This paper reviews literature on interim leadership and management through the lens of effective interim performance. The purpose of this review is to advance understanding of interim assignment performance and the antecedent individual psychological characteristics of effective interim leaders and managers, to improve the practice of managing interim leaders from a human resources (HR) perspective.

The paper reports a targeted review of the literature on interim leadership and management.

The main proposition from this review is that the influence of individual factors on interim performance operates within the stages and contexts of assignments. Accordingly, the authors propose a framework of the demands on interim assignments (the interim assignment cycle), comprising stages of preparation, entry, delivery and exit. The paper subsequently reviews evidence of the potential individual characteristics (focussing on individual differences in personality, leadership approach, motivation and competencies) of effective preparation and entry to an assignment, actions and performance during an assignment and exit/disengagement.

The findings of the review have implications for the selection and placement of interims into organizations and their management once appointed.

The main original contribution of the paper is to provide a framework around which interim assignments can be modelled and better understood. The paper discusses implications for future research, theory and human resource management practice and calls for a renewed research effort in this critical area of management and leadership.

Any scheme whereby the treasures of a public reference library are made more widely known is sure of the sympathetic consideration of all serious librarians, for it is a lamentable fact that reference libraries generally, and especially those in the provinces, are very sparingly appreciated. Their primary function is largely defeated by the ignorance of those most likely to be benefited. When there is displayed any considerable use of the facilities for research and study, analysis will often show it to be a mere prostitution by competition‐mongers and acrostic‐solvers; the genuine student is seldom much in evidence.

IT is fitting that a new series of this magazine should be introduced by some reflections on the whole question of book selection, both for the general public and libraries.

IT is fitting that now and again stock should be taken of the present state of the Library Profession as compared with its past, and such an occasion as the commencement of the tenth year of the Library World is as appropriate as any other.

France is honouring this year the birthday centenary of a man who conferred a benefaction upon the whole world yet died without distinction and in comparative poverty, if not obscurity. When in the early ’fifties of last century governments in Europe were becoming gravely concerned over the rapidly diminishing margin between food demands and supplies, it was Charles Tellier who came to their rescue. Tellier, who was born at Auteuil, Paris, in 1828, had been trained as a civil engineer, but he combined with the practical mind of the craftsman the analytical capacity of the scientist, and was early attracted by the problems associated with the chemical production of cold. The spectacle presented by a vast continent like Europe faced by the prospect of imminent food famine, while countries like Australia, New Zealand and America, particularly the Argentine, had far greater supplies than they knew what to do with stirred his imagination. Inventive genius in all parts of the world had been stimulated by the promise of a rich reward to the inventor of a practical method of preserving not only meat, but other perishable foodstuffs. The Government of the Argentine held out $8,000 as a bait to the ingenious. In Australia, where the tinning of meat was first exploited, new experiments along the same lines were tried. In England, where a Committee of the Society of Arts had been appointed “to consider practical steps in the direction of providing a more ample food supply,” officials were kept busy testing the inventions submitted for their consideration. One suggestion took the shape of the manufacture of what was described as the “Flour of Meat”; another inventor, borrowing his idea from the method of curing English hams, submitted a device for the production of “Australian Mutton Hams,” and still another ingenious person discovered a process for drying meat with sulphur dioxide. Tellier first experimented with air‐tight chambers. But the presence of the elements of decay in the meat itself defeated his designs. Pasteur's pronouncements on the subject of the preexistent presence of organic germs, at once authoritative and decisive, had the effect of diverting his attention to the refrigerator, and by repeated investigations he found that not only flowers but all kinds of perishable goods could be preserved for long periods on being frozen. It was in “The Engine Carre,” an ammonia compression machine, produced by the French engineer Carre, with whom he is said to have been in some way associated, that Tellier found perhaps the most important factor in facilitating the solution of his problem. This engine was completed about 1860. Eight years later Tellier made his first experiment in the shipment of meat under refrigeration. An ammonia compression machine was installed in a vessel, the “City of Rio de Janeiro,” which shipped three hundred kilos of beef from London for Monte Video. The intention was to place a cargo of meat on board at Uruguay for shipment on the homeward journey to France. But twenty‐three days out from London an accident which could not be repaired occurred to the refrigerating apparatus and the meat had to be eaten on board. So it came about that the United States were able to anticipate Tellier in the actual inauguration of a meat trade between the new and the old worlds dependent upon artificially cooled storage during transport. A shipment of chilled beef was made from the United States to this country in 1874.

1916, the most difficult year in the history of the library movement, has passed not without some satisfaction to library workers. The war dominated everything, and in its atmosphere most intellectual movements have paused somewhat so far as practical activities were concerned. At the end of the financial year in March, the voice of the Philistine was prominent and strident, and many reductions were made in the rate grants to public libraries. Few, however, did more than cripple their activities, and on the whole a fair measure of public sanity prevailed. In the circumstances the wider progress of the library movement has been small, but there has been progress. Unostentatiously, but systematically, the Carnegie Trustees have urged rural library schemes upon several county councils, and have made grants to urban libraries for new buildings, the erection of which, however, they have required to be postponed until the peace. The tercentenary of Shakespeare found librarians and library authorities awake and interested, and much good work was done. Towards the end of the year commercial libraries were discussed with remarkable unanimity in most of the great cities, and actually materialised in the fine experiment at Glasgow described in our last issue. In so far as librarians are concerned, the year has been eventful for the calling away of nearly all remaining men of military age. In connection with this the military authorities in many districts have shown a complete indifference to the intellectual requirements of the people. It is difficult to say how many library workers are now with the Colours, but six hundred would be a very conservative estimate. Some, alas, of the most promising men in the profession have fallen. An endeavour is being made by the Library Assistants' Association to preserve a record of all who have gone forth for the Empire. Naturally, library appointments have been few, and most of those that have been made have been of a temporary nature. On the literary side, too, librarianship has been practically sterile in this country. The book by Messrs. Gower, Jast and Topley, on photographic record work is a remarkable exception, but is not entirely a book of library methodology. America has not produced very much, but we noted a useful book by Mr. Arthur L. Bailey on library bookbinding, which appeared in the middle of the year. Throughout the year the Library Association has pursued a policy of masterly inactivity, and has missed most of the opportunities for constructive schemes which war time has offered. Its general meetings were abandoned in London, its Council has met irregularly, and it has eluded practically every problem which it ought to have faced. We have been consistently critical of this state of affairs, but we still believe in the Library Association, and our criticism, however trenchant, has not been to destroy but to revivify and accelerate. We do not think that librarians can do without the Association, and in all our attacks upon its stagnation we have kept this view clearly before us. The President of the Association, while condoning the suspension of the general meetings, has generously filled the gap made by their omission with the interesting reunions at the Royal Society of Medicine. Hope of better things has been raised by the belated establishment of the Technical Libraries Committee, to which we look for a forward and aggressive policy. The Library Assistants' Association has wisely refused to follow the example of its seniors. The few monthly meetings it has held have been intensely practical and focussed upon the problems of the hour. We hope they will continue in spite of the increased railway fares which in the new year have added difficulty to travelling. The establishment of the North Central Library Association provided an immensely important part of England with a means of creating and circulating library opinion. This brief chronique of the doings of the year leaves us hopeful if not contented. Financial and staff problems are likely to increase while the war endures, but having surmounted these and our other difficulties thus far, we look forward with confidence to similar success.