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Within the general human resource management (HRM) literature, the devolution of HR tasks to line managers is often seen as a core element of an HR approach with a series of costs and benefits arising. However, concerns have arisen on the ability and willingness of line managers to carry out HR tasks properly including developing employees in their careers, the demands such changes make on line managers themselves, and how such changes alter their own career patterns. This article maps out a consideration of aspects of career development given the trend to line manager involvement in careers. The implications for employee career development are explored, as are those for line managers and HR professionals.

As human resource management (HRM) and knowledge management are still new areas of research, if we assume the co‐existence of strategic integration, and devolution of HRM responsibilities to line managers, then we can see that an organisation's strategic intent could be to maximise the contribution of employee's knowledge and skills, through creating competitive advantage by utilising human capital. The challenge of “capturing” employee's tacit knowledge, to facilitate its transfer into organisational competence for today's organisations remains paramount. Competitive business pressures are leading to streamlined organisational structures, flatter management layers, adoption of team‐working processes and employee empowerment, which offers line managers a key role in contributing to strategic HRM outcomes by encouraging knowledge sharing in teams. Reviews and discusses the impact of such devolved HR responsibilities on the role of line managers. Intends to: explore the role of line managers facilitating creation and transfer of tacit knowledge in teams; summarise barriers concerning the transfer of tacit knowledge between individuals and teams; and finally outline the importance of developing line managers as facilitators. Aims to construct an agenda outlining future research in this field.

This paper explores the importance of enhancing the facilitation skills of line managers at a supervisory level, and suggests that they can then promote a positive learning environment for informal learning within their work teams. Supervisors are important to their firms, because they are at the interface between the organisation and its work teams. The paper proposes that supervisors who are effective facilitators will utilise their own learning and interpersonal skills to encourage informal learning opportunities through knowledge‐sharing in their work teams, thus improving the team’s performance. The ideas outlined in the paper are intended to make a contribution to a discussion which advances a conceptual argument, and will form the basis of future empirical research.

This paper explores the themes and implications, concerning the role of the supervisor as a facilitator of knowledge sharing in teams. After describing the strategic context for devolving human resource responsibilities to line managers, the paper defines and discusses the line manager/supervisor role. The barriers to learning in the workplace are considered. It is suggested that supervisors, through their devolved responsibility for people (which, by implication, includes learning and development) have an influence as facilitators promoting knowledge sharing within their teams. The paper examines whether the supervisor's intervention as a facilitator, could provide the important link leading to the sharing of individual and collective tacit knowledge in teams.

Emerging biotechnology firms rely on a network of socio‐economic partnerships that can be classified as “interimistic” or close, collaborative but relatively short‐lived. Few studies have assessed the importance of relational governance to the performance of these partnerships. The purposes of this research were to determine the effect of relational governance on the performance of financial partnerships and to compare biotechnology manager assessments of their financial and non‐financial partnerships.

Interviews were conducted with managers of emerging biotechnology companies and lead investors in Canada, France and Germany. Relational governance was assessed by relational norms such as flexibility, information sharing, solidarity and fairness. Performance was assessed by overall effectiveness and partnership benefits. First, the contribution of relational governance to partnership effectiveness and benefits was examined. Second, for the financial partnerships, the perceptions of both biotech managers and lead investors were compared. Third, the biotech manager perceptions of their financial and non‐financial partnerships were compared.

Relational governance is positively associated with performance. Communication (information sharing) was most predictive of partnership performance. Biotech managers view their financial partnerships as being less relational than do their lead investors. Also, biotech managers view their financial partnerships to be less relational than those with their non‐financial partners.

The findings extend our knowledge of the positive influence of relational governance from longer lasting exchanges to “interimistic” technology partnerships. The communication of pertinent and timely information is particularly relevant for both biotech managers and lead investors and can allay fears of opportunistic behaviour and develop trust and commitment.

Researchers have shown increased interest in open innovation – that is, the inflow and outflow of ideas, or the collaborative efforts of innovating – while previous research on acquisitions of innovative firms has foremost focused on the inflow only. Open innovation, however, introduces several new challenges related to acquisitions of such firms, not the least related to intellectual property rights and innovative skills that may be distributed among several parties. This paper explores what issues the literature on open innovation and acquisitions deals with related to acquisitions in open innovation environments.

A systematic literature review is conducted to achieve the purpose of the paper. Two main questions are addressed. First, how can acquisitions be understood in relation to open innovation? Second, what does the open innovation literature say on matters of distributed innovations in relation to acquisitions?

The paper concludes that there is a quite limited amount of research concerning itself with open innovation and acquisitions combined. Furthermore, acquisitions are for the most part seen as a means to reach innovation in transaction-based transfers between parties.

With acquisitions of innovative firms, in general, being seen as an important means to reach new ideas, while open innovation is on the rise, the juxtaposing of these phenomena would be of high practical and theoretical relevance to study further.

The aim of this study is to broaden the understanding of the set of knowledge, skills, attributes and experience (KSAE) that teams should demonstrate and the necessary roles they need to play within the team in Relational Contracting (RC). This research seeks to answer three questions: first, what KSAEs are required in a team operating under RC, second, which of the identified KSAEs are more important to enable an integrated team to perform effectively and third, how do these required KSAEs correspond to the major role clusters identified in Belbin’s team role model?

In-depth interviews with 25 experts and key management representatives in infrastructure construction in Australia were conducted to enable detailed discussion of the research questions.

Sixteen behavioural traits and four knowledge and experience areas were identified. The findings highlight that in RC, team members and especially leaders and managers need to be competent in people-oriented roles, above all others.

This research mainly captured the perspectives of personnel working in state government infrastructure departments. Further research is recommended to explore the perceptions of employees in private construction companies.

By aligning the roles required for RC with the team role clusters of the Belbin’s team roles assessment tool, this study will be useful for identifying suitable members to form high-performance project teams.

The findings of this paper can inform government infrastructure organisations and construction companies as to which roles are more critical when selecting fit-for-purpose teams to successfully deliver large infrastructure projects procured under the RC method.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce critical issues of power, social reproduction, and agency in the practice and institutionalization of sport-for-development and the burgeoning “Sport for Development and Peace” (SDP) sector. To this end, the chapter draws on a host of recent academic contributions to the critical study of sport-for-development.

Key findings of several research projects are organized and presented in four thematic categories: terms of development, voice and agency, social reproduction, and privilege and dominance. In turn, the conclusion examines recent theoretical applications of participatory methods and critical pedagogy to the research and practice of sport-for-development.

The chapter provides a succinct introduction to critical issues in sport-for-development work and will be of value to researchers, students, and practitioners interested in progressive approaches to international development and the role of sport therein.

This paper aims to examine how and why an “old” technology and mode of consumption – vinyl records, which should have become obsolete – has managed not only to survive but also revive in the face of supposedly cheaper and superior digital formats.

The authors used constructivist grounded theory (CGT), a methodology rooted in pragmatism. The authors acknowledge the primacy of relational, conversational and social practices as the source of individual and social life, and that all knowledge is local and the product of negotiation between people within a given context and time frame. In terms of data, the authors draw on the extensive use of memos and participatory observation at the oldest vinyl record store in the UK. The authors also draw on interviews with the store owner and workers and in-depth interviews with vinyl enthusiasts.

The authors argue that authenticity is not a fixed and static concept but has fluid and porous boundaries that can be experienced by individuals in different situations. The findings center around three experiences of authenticity – staged authenticity, interpersonal authenticity and intrapersonal/existential authenticity.

This research is limited to a specific market, typical of old or second-hand vinyl consumption. Future research would benefit from broadening the sample to include new consumers and female enthusiasts of both old and new vinyl.

The paper has implications for consumer service and personal selling relationships.

Originality lies in theoretically positioning the phenomenon within a conceptual framework of authenticity. In particular, the authors shed light on the role that authenticity plays in the experiences of vinyl music consumption amongst buyers and sellers in a store that has a long established heritage. The authors find that vinyl in the age of digital reproduction retains and maintains a number of qualities that are missing from allegedly superior forms of musical reproduction. The authors further maintain that as it has aged, original vinyl has taken on greater power and meaning, and now that it is out of the realm of mass production/consumption, it has opened up a deeper more authentic interaction between human beings and technology. This deeper interaction goes beyond the immediate experience with the object itself and extends to the sensorial, the social and the personal.

This paper aims to contribute to the development and understanding of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by discussing two interrelated characteristics of current literature: a tendency in discourses to portray CSR as equal to the societal activities displayed by and demanded from large, multinational firms; and an increasing focus on and description of “small firm CSR” in research. These two characteristics instigate a limited approach to the meaning of CSR and an unjust dichotomization of CSR based on firm size are posited. A distinction that risks stimulating an un‐nuanced CSR discourse.

From reviewing the field, it has been concluded that firm size should not be a feasible main criterion when trying to understand or predict CSR behavior. From examples of far‐reaching CSR activities in the small business community and local initiatives by large firms, the distinctions suggested in the current discourse do not appear in practice are shown.

Additional firm features and contextual characteristics to explain the CSR approach in companies are proposed. Local embeddedness, corporate governance, and individual motivation are examples of issues that appear to explain a firm's CSR activities and characteristics, regardless of firm size.

The paper concludes by articulating a number of propositions. These are presented as a basis for research to further understand how CSR activities relate to various organizational and operational features.