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Examines some of the applications of repertory grid technique and theory to qualitative market research. In particular, it shows how together they can be used to explore five basic components of the network of subjective meanings that consumers attach to their consumption experiences, what are termed here consumers’ product construct systems (PCSs): consumption domains: how do consumers categorise different products and services?; decision rules: what search strategies and evaluative criteria are employed for each category?; values: what core beliefs underpin different decision rules?; construct complexity: how discriminating are consumer’s decision rules and values?; and construct commonalities: what are the similarities and differences in consumers’ PCSs and how are they mediated by their demographic backgrounds?

Industry studies suggest that since 1945 there have been both contractions and expansions in the earnings differentials of skilled and semi‐skilled workers. Unpublished data from the New Earnings Survey for Britain enables further detailed study of these differentials to be made. Changes in the distribution of employment were a less significant contributor to changes in male earnings differentials than were changes in differentials which took place within each industry. For females it is shown that similar differential narrowing took place but changes in the rankings of industries by pay level were also influential.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

In this report, published by PEP and Sussex University's Centre for Contemporary European Studies, the authors hope that union leaderships will again be able to exercise enough authority to create a unified strategy, despite current contrary strong pressures from sections of their membership. This strategy would consist not just in overall pay restraint nor in trying to restore ‘traditional’ differentials, but in moving towards a sensible policy and machinery for distribution of pay between competing groups.

This study uses cross‐section and panel data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey to explore contextual influences on the relationship between performance‐related pay (PRP) and organizational performance. While it finds strong evidence that the use of PRP can enhance performance outcomes, it also determines that this relationship is qualified by the structure of workplace monitoring environments. In addition, it presents evidence that managers learn about optimum combinations of pay system and monitoring environment through a process of experimentation. Finally, although there exists a robust positive association in these data between use of PRP and pay inequality, it appears that these higher levels of inequality carry no performance penalty.

In recent years a number of European countries have witnessed the breakdown of the centralised framework of industrial relations established in the early post‐war years giving way to a more decentralised system which allowed more room to shop floor movements. The outbreak of the strikes of May and June 1968 in France, and more particularly of the wildcat strikes of 1969 and the early 1970s in West Germany, France, Great Britain, and Italy, marked a shift in union power towards the shop floor.

Examines some of the underlying assumptions, research objectives and practical applications of the repertory grid technique (RGT) in consumer research. It explains why the use and evaluation of the RGT should be grounded in the assumptions of the theory from which it derives, George Kelly’s personal construct psychology (PCP), and examines the way in which it is both congruent with and can contribute to the development of the emerging interpretive paradigm in consumer research. The specific questions that the RGT can help to answer about consumer behaviour experience are identified and illustrated with the findings from a short empirical study. Overall, it is argued that when the RGT is employed within the guidelines of PCP it provides a useful interpretive research framework for exploring some of the similarities and differences in the content and structure of consumers’ subjective meaning systems.

Many organizations have implemented formal mentoring programs within the last few years. Some organizations have realized success with their formal mentoring programs, while others have not fared so well. A missing link with many formal mentoring programs is a corporate level mentoring strategy. The lack of a corporate level mentoring strategy inhibits the mentoring process from becoming an integral part of an organization’s culture, therefore not allowing for the maximization of benefits that can be gained from effective formal mentoring processes and programs. Thus, this paper offers a framework for creating a corporate level mentoring strategy; a standardized mentoring process; and customized mentoring programs, all of which should align with the organization’s strategic positioning to facilitate the achievement of maximum effectiveness from the implementation of formal mentoring programs.

This article seeks to examine the experiences of the recent introduction of performance‐related pay (PRP) in German public services. From an industrial relations perspective, it addresses the question of how different designs of PRP schemes and the circumstances under which PRP is implemented influence its functionality and its acceptance by employees.

The paper uses an analysis of 215 works and establishment agreements, 17 case studies in municipalities of the federal state of North Rhine‐Westphalia (including employee attitude surveys in three cases), and interviews with experts from the employers' federation and the trade union.

It is shown that – in accordance with the literature – enhancing employee motivation is not the only objective pursued by the collective actors in the introduction of PRP. Different PRP schemes have differing effects: highly selective PRP schemes tend to fail; schemes resembling conventional appraisal systems have little positive effect on motivation and performance, whereas participative systems focusing on the inclusion of employees can offer an opportunity to renegotiate performance objectives in the public services.

Factors such as balancing material interest and social recognition, and strengthening participative elements could be crucial for improving the acceptance and functionality of PRP schemes.

This paper provides first findings on the recent introduction of PRP in the German public sector and contributes to the discussion on the functionality of PRP in public services.

In the context of the publication of a survey commissioned by the Library Association into library and learning resources in further education (FE), the authors identify the key findings of a series of similar surveys of libraries and learning resource centres in the FE sector in Wales, carried out between 1984 and 1997. The impact of growth in student numbers, changes in funding and management arrangements at national and local levels, and quality assurance mechanisms, is explored. The study also describes the major problems associated with quantitative and qualitative research in this sector, compares the results achieved and identifies areas for future research.