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This paper aims to explore and compare academics’ experiences of managing work-life balance (WLB) in the British and Chinese contexts. The authors have three specific purposes. Firstly, to investigate whether there are marked gender differences in either context, given female and male academics’ work is considered fully comparable. Secondly, to examine contextual factors contributing to gender differences that influence and shape decisions in WLB and career paths. Thirdly, to explore the gendered consequences and implications.

A cross-national and multilevel analytical approach to WLB was chosen to unpick and explore gender land contextual differences and their influence on individual academics’ coping strategies. To reflect the exploratory nature of uncovering individual experience and perceptions, the authors used in-depth, semi-structured interviews. In total, 37 academics participated in the study, comprised of 18 participants from 6 universities in the UK and 19 participants from 6 universities in China.

This study reveals gendered differences in both the British and Chinese contexts in three main aspects, namely, sourcing support; managing emotions; and making choices, but more distinct differences in the latter context. Most significantly, it highlights that individual academics’ capacity in cultivating and using coping strategies was shaped simultaneously by multi-layered factors at the country level, the HE institutional level and the individual academics’ level.

Very few cross-cultural WLB studies explore gender differences. This cross-national comparative study is of particular value in making the “invisible visible” in terms of the gendered nature of choices and decisions within the context of WLB. The study has significant implications for female academics exercising individual scope in carving out a career, and for academic managers and institutions, in terms of support, structure and policy.

Relatively few studies published so far look at the extent to which librarians communicate with each other. In particular, there has been little attempt to compare communication activities in different sectors of the profession. The results of a questionnaire and interview survey which examined the communication habits of library professionals in public, academic and special libraries and the national library are presented. The results show a very high level of communication in all sectors, although communication between sectors is more restricted. Overall, the similarities between the sectors are more striking than the differences.

This study explores academic activities with particular reference to research in the accounting and management disciplines. It explores emerging social constructions of the role of research in academic work and the concept of what is deemed to constitute “quality” research. To this end it presents the results of an exploratory set of interviews with a sample of “gatekeepers”, namely professors and heads of accounting and management departments in British and Australian universities. They offer insights into the factors determining their construction of what constitutes quality in an academic’s research and publishing record, their ranking of various publication types and of publication activity generally, and their assessment of the influence of government policy priorities on the social construction of research quality.

This research paper aims to examine the global trends in publishing in the leading marketing journals between 1964 and 2008, focusing on how public policy intervention in the assessment and funding of academic research has influenced Britain's relative productivity in the world's leading marketing journals.

The method was an audit of contributions to the leading journals based on the authors' affiliation, country of origin and country in which they obtained their doctoral training.

The results show that the proportion of leading marketing publications by authors affiliated to British universities have held steady at about 2 per cent, while the productivity of several other countries has accelerated past Britain. However, to retain that share, Britain has increasingly depended upon importing people whose PhD is not British. This contrasts with some other European countries that are now more productive than Britain, but mainly recruit locals with local PhDs. The pattern of decline in the UK is related to the impact of Britain's research assessment exercise and the continuation of relatively weak social science research training.

The analysis is limited by only looking at one academic discipline and only the top few academic journals in the field.

The findings have implications at several levels. At a national policy level it questions the value of the research assessment exercises that appear to have presided over a decline in research productivity. For institutions, it questions the value in investing in developing local talent when success has come to those who buy talent internationally. Perhaps, the major implication arises from Britain's academic productivity declining while neighbouring countries have grown in international excellence.

At a time when the continuation of expensive university research assessments is being questioned the research findings add value to the current debate in showing how that very process has accompanied academic decline.

The UK is a popular educational hub for international students from different parts of the world. These students often face different transitional challenges, which have a significant impact on the success or failure of their studies. The purpose of this paper is to systematically investigate the issues and challenges confronting international students in the UK in their efforts to acquire academic knowledge and achieve personal development.

A total of 104 UK-based international students in five higher education institutes in London from 25 countries participated in this study. The study was undertaken qualitatively through 21 semi-structured and 13 focus group interviews.

The findings reveal that the process of transitional adjustment is affected by various issues, all of which determine the duration of the students’ involvement in each stage of the transitional process. International students in the UK experience language/accent-related difficulties; impaired communication; and a difficult adjustment to the British education system and culture.

The extent to which the findings of this research can be generalised is constrained by the limited scope of the research.

In choosing to study in the UK, international students primarily seek to obtain a qualification, other life experiences, and cultural assimilation. The students’ parents, institutions and the UK authorities (such as the Department of Education) have an important role in ensuring that the students achieve success. While the roles of parents and the UK authorities are not the focus of this paper, their supportive roles certainly allow students to complete the different stages of the process of transitional adjustment quickly and smoothly.

The study offers valuable insight into understanding the challenges facing international students in acquiring knowledge in a foreign land. The paper contributes to the pedagogic literature on this topic by proposing a three-stage scaffolding model.

This paper examines the disincentive effects of perceived underpayment on individuals' exerted effort, attempting to find out if payment above or below a worker's perceived revenue product has a defined effect on their effort on the job.

A theoretical model is introduced that investigates the relationship between the level of effort invested in work and the difference between perceived and actual income of workers. Empirical evidence is obtained by analysing data on British academics.

It was found that, tenured academics (or in other words those on a permanent contract) will tend to invest less effort in publishing as the difference between their perceived deserved income and actual income increases. On the other hand, for non‐tenured (or short term contract) academics this relationship is ambiguous. The model predicts that if tenured staff also derive utility directly from publication, over and above that associated with income and promotion, the difference between perceived and actual income has a smaller negative effect on the actual effort invested in research.

The empirical dataset used in the analysis is cross sectional, therefore only able to analyse a snap‐snot of the academic profession at one point in time and not fully capturing the dynamic effects of underpayment on individual effort.

The paper fills a gap in both the theoretical and empirical work on the incentive effects of perceived underpayment. This evidence may be useful in designing reward packages.

This paper focuses on the relatively unexplored link between international experience and academic careers. Drawing on a study of 30 British academics in four countries, it reports how they accounted for their decision to take an overseas appointment and how they evaluated that appointment. The contemporary career literature is used as a framework for analysis connecting the findings with “traditional” and “new” career themes. The desire to travel was found to be a key driver in taking the overseas appointment. When it came to evaluating the overseas appointment, however, upward career mobility in the context of increasing internationalisation was a major concern. The paper offers a number of key concerns for managers in institutions of higher education, particularly those concerned with the management and recruitment of international faculty.

This paper aims to study information behaviour of academics in the digital age. Compares information behaviour of British university academics in three disciplines – computer and information sciences, business/management, and English literature.

Discusses information behaviour of academics in the digital age.

English academics make higher use of printed information resources, such as text and reference books, than academics of any other discipline included in this study; they generally tended to be the least frequent users of electronic resources such as full‐text databases, indexing and abstracting databases, search engines, and internet sites. CIS academics generally tended to make greatest use of electronic‐based information resources, and the least use of print‐based information resources, and business/management academics fell somewhere in between these two disciplines. CIS academics were generally the most enthusiastic about the benefits of electronic resources, whereas English academics were the least enthusiastic about them. Nearly a quarter of English academics disagreed to some extent that electronic information was easier to use than printed resources, which might go some way to explain their lower use of electronic materials, and higher use of printed materials.

Results of the quantitative study should have been supported and substantiated by quantitative analyses. Similar studies involving users from many more disciplines could show better discipline‐wise differences in user behaviour.

This is a research paper based on a nation‐wide survey of academics in British universities.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief and partial overview of some of the issues and authors that have dominated British industrial relations research since 1965. It is cast in terms of that year being the astronomical Big Bang from which all else was created. It traces a spectacular growth in academic interest and departments throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and then comments on the petering out of the tradition and its very existence (Darlington, 2009; Smith, 2011).

There are no methods other than a biased look through the literature.

These show a liberal oppression of the Marxist interpretation of class struggle through trade unions, collective bargaining, strikes, and public policy. At first through the Cold War and later, less well because many Marxists survived and thrived in industrial relations departments until after 2000, through closing courses and choking off demand. This essay exposes the hypocrisy surrounding notions of academic freedom, and throws light on the determination of those in the labour movement and their academic allies to push forward wage controls and stunted bargaining regimes, alongside restrictions on strikes, in the name of moderation and the middle ground.

An attempt to correct the history as written by the pro tem victors.

Provides a response to Puxty et al.′s call for academics to become involved in public policy debate. Addresses the issue of the effect on British university accounting research of the promotion and undertaking of continual research selectivity exercises. This should be of direct concern to accounting and other academics. The key message is that greater co‐operation, not competition, is needed both to secure a healthy future for academic accounting across the broad range of institutions in which the subject is researched and taught, and to provide a worthwhile educational experience for all students, not just the favoured few.