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The burgeoning literature about the knowledge economy has marginalised its most important dimension – people. The development of human capital and its role in the competitive advantage of business is discussed in relation to the changed nature of the employment relationship. In particular Drucker's concerns about the threat to business of attenuated relationships between workers and their organisations are examined. Contextual factors such as the dynamic nature of labour markets, the centrality of profit making and the definitional difficulties inherent in the new and old economy dichotomy are acknowledged. A transitional model of human capital in the new economy is suggested as a way of modernising traditional thinking. An analysis of the capabilities required by new economy workers leads to a discussion of the corresponding competencies necessary for managers. The paper concludes that changed employment relationships do not spell death to people development. Rather it makes managing talent different and more challenging.

Since Schein’s evocative and enduring metaphor "think manager – think male" there has been a stream of literature discussing gender difference in managerial style. The newer literature about managerial competence, however, remains largely silent about gender, regardless of whether managerial competence is contextualised in an organizational or a human resources perspective. This is true even of edited collections where gender tokenism is generally evident. The study uses a rarely‐researched sample, female manufacturers in small and medium manufacturing enterprises, to explore gender and managerial competence and to test Marshall’s suggestion that the next wave of theorizing may well strengthen an “androgynous” manager model. The findings show a pattern of both similarity and difference in the managerial competence of male and female manufacturers in technology uptake and tentative support for the androgynous manager model.

This present work aims to report on a study that examines the applicability of Paternalistic Leadership (PL) to public sector organisations in Indonesia. The paper seeks to discuss whether the construct of PL is perceived the same way across different cultures on the basis of an empirically‐based profile of Indonesian public sector leadership developed on the basis of a large‐scale survey carried out in Indonesian government agencies.

The study sample consisted of 1,000 civil servants in the East Java and Jogyakarta Special Region Provinces of Indonesia. Data were collected using simple random sampling techniques. The 42 items in the PL instrument were subjected to explanatory factor analysis (EFA) with variamax rotation. EFA was used to test the degree to which the model of PL proposed by Cheng applied to the Indonesian sample.

Using confirmatory factor analysis the results showed that there are core similarities with the Cheng et al. model which has been tested in Taiwan. The Indonesian benevolent, moral‐leadership behaviour is substantially confirmed with the model adopted for this study. According to civil servants' perception, it seems likely that Indonesian leaders are visible and authoritarian.

The findings are based on a relatively small proportion of the total number of Indonesian civil servants, and focuses on those who are most likely to still uphold Javanese values. Another limitation is in the design of the study, broader focus on PL will allow the study to explain in any detail what the actual impact of PL is on management practices.

This research suggests that people teaching leadership or acting in leadership roles in Indonesia need to develop a clear understanding of the particular values of that country, rather than assuming that all Asian cultures are exactly alike.

The paper adds insight into the applicability of PL in Indonesian public sector organizations.

Following a review of assistance provision to New Zealand small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in 1998, the government established the BIZ programme. The purpose of the new initiative was to build management capability amongst SMEs by providing them with free access to a business needs assessment, followed by training and seminars, one‐on‐one mentoring and networking. BIZ became operational in February 1999 and in June 2000, a team of researchers undertook a comprehensive evaluation of the training component of the programme. This paper reports on one aspect of this evaluation, which was designed to capture the experience and views of the BIZ training providers. During this phase of the project a team of three researchers travelled throughout New Zealand to interview providers. Summarises the different experiences of these front‐line organisations in delivering BIZ training, as a contribution to the wider policy debate about the role of government in assisting small enterprise.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of specific human resource management (HRM) practices on knowledge sharing behaviour among employees of knowledge intensive firms (KIFs).

Based on previous literature, a model is proposed for the study and hypotheses are formulated. The cross-sectional data set comes from a sample of 390 employees of 19 KIFs. Confirmatory factor analyses were employed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the measurement model and the research model was tested using structural equation modelling.

The results suggest that collaborative HRM practices have a direct positive effect on employees’ knowledge sharing behaviour. Surprisingly, the authors find that employees’ knowledge sharing behaviour is independent of reward systems and employees’ recognition. The authors suggest that organisational learning environments based on collaborative HRM practices can help employees’ knowledge sharing behaviour and improve the capability of both individual and organisational capability.

Knowledge-sharing behaviour is examined using specific HRM practices. Findings should be confirmed using a larger sample, as well as through longitudinal study.

This study will be beneficial for researchers, practitioners, scholars, organisational leaders and employees. It will also be helpful for those interested in organisational structure and relationships across organisations in knowledge context.

This study makes a valuable contribution, given that there is a lack of empirical studies of this nature focusing on the South-East Asian region. The findings are more interesting given that the current study is based on employees’ perceptions.

Writing articles is a core activity in an academic's career. The aim of this article is to show prospective writers of an article in EJM how to go about getting published. It emphasises that an EJM article is a part of a conversation with the editors, reviewers and readers. First, the concept of joining this conversation is established. Then targeting a journal and other aspects of planning with co‐authors are noted, before an article's structure and style are described. Drafting, submitting and revising the article, and starting again if it is rejected, conclude the paper. This article should be useful for those academics who are not publishing enough, and for doctoral candidates and their supervisors.

At the commencement of this decade, leaving behind the “striking seventies”, we christened it the “anxious eighties”, for there was a profound disquiet and uncertainty among most of the population, a fear that things were going to get worse, but they could have hardly expected the catastrophic events of the year 1981. The criteria of quality of life are its richness, grace, elegance; by the promise it contains; inspiration and purpose, hope, determination (to survive, to make certain that the evildoer is not permitted to succeed), love of one's country — pro patria, of other days.

A NOTE arrives from Crispin Gill, present editor of The countryman, that unique rural quarterly that like so many magazines these days is not quite what it was, but which this year celebrates 50 years of successful publication. I am intrigued by the fine‐detailed illustration block at the head of the paper. It shows a farmer‐type in tweeds and soft hat contentedly smoking his pipe as he leans (on a summer's evening?) over a traditional five‐barred gate set in a field stone wall. His faithful collie stands at his heel, the village church nestles in the distance, a flock of birds (rooks?) wing their way over the horizon, a huge briar rose in full bloom angles in from one side, while beneath it an idealised song‐bird perches jauntily on a convenient dead bough, facing a tall clump of cow‐parsley. A sense of rustic peace pervades all. Everything is perfect, completely soporific, quite innocuous. A modern ad‐man's dream of the countryside, in fact. Precisely. And therefore totally the antithesis of everything that old J W Robertson Scott, the magazine's founder and original editor, stood for and believed in. Indeed, he coined his own description of it: ‘townee sentimentalising about the country’ was what he called such stuff.