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This article presents a case study describing the development, structure and operation of a comprehensive system for managing conflicts in a Norwegian city hospital. This was done in an effort to further develop the dispute mechanisms available in the hospital and to strengthen the management skills of clinical leaders and managers in general. By changing the ways managers and professionals handle their disputes, the hospital hopes to reduce the cost of conflicts and realize its benefits. The new conflict management system includes new procedures for managers and professionals to process disputes. The design process of the new system was framed according to an action research approach characterized by creating change through dialogue and the use of local expertise.

This paper aims to explore employee empowerment at the Shanghai Hanye Information Technology Company.

The paper describes the various forms that employee empowerment takes at the company, its limitations and the advantages it has brought.

It reports that empowerment is serving to encourage: honest, open, co‐operative and harmonious communications and relationships in the workplace; loyalty to the company; greater participation in the cultural life of the organization and its decision‐making processes; and a more unified enterprise spirit.

The paper explains that employees are expected to: contribute ideas that could help to overcome organizational difficulties; sacrifice self‐interest in favor of the interests of the organization; work on regardless if misunderstandings or conflicts occur; and serve as intermediary for building relationships with other organizations.

The paper reveals that this type of “spiritual” HR is part of the prevailing ethos in the People's Republic of China.

This study provides interesting detail, from an insider perspective, on employee empowerment in a Chinese context.

Green supply chain management is an effective, environment-friendly business practice. Based on institutional theory and dynamic capability theory, the study examines the effect of institutional pressures to implement green supply chain management (GSCM) on green innovation, by considering the mediation effects of cross-functional coopetition.

This study conducted a survey of Chinese companies and collected 1,481 responses. The effects of institutional pressures for GSCM implementation were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

This study finds that coercive pressure, normative pressure and mimetic pressure for GSCM implementation are sufficient conditions to promote green innovation. Normative and mimetic pressures have significant positive effects on cross-functional coopetition. Cross-functional coopetition not only mediates the relationship between normative pressure and mimetic pressure and green innovation but also represents a necessary condition for it to occur.

First, managers should comprehend environmental regulations, embrace social norms on the environment and focus on competitors' successful GSCM practices. Second, management can organize training and establish performance-based rewards for enhancing a cross-functional coopetitive mindset to effectively respond to institutional pressures. Third, companies should establish multi-functional groups and informal networking via social events to motivate interaction, knowledge sharing and creative tension to achieve green innovation.

This paper expands the application of institutional theory to investigate the antecedent effects of institutional pressures on cross-functional coopetition. In addition, the study deepens understanding of dynamic capability theory in analyzing dynamic processes of cross-functional coopetition based on three dimensions of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring and empirically examines its mediating effects on institutional pressures and green innovation.

Analogies between internal and external service quality suggest that internal quality can be assessed without too much regard to differences between organizational customers and fee‐paying customers. Research into organizational networks, however, indicates the importance of environmental and atmospheric factors in exchange activities. In this paper we explore the gaps in service quality arising from the conflict between departmental and organizational loyalties. Using methods derived from the external model of service quality put forward by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, we consider the value of internal research into service quality and suggest that organizational power struggles and lack of communication lead to misunderstandings about the priorities and resources available for internal service exchanges. The greater empathy generated among the participating departments suggests that improvement can occur when there is closer interaction between “warring” but nevertheless dependent departments. Balanced against this is an overarching need for organizational goals to take precedence and for limited resources to be allocated according to the ultimate needs of the external customer.

Alternative courses which present themselves when a new university is being planned are to replicate a traditional model, or to explore new ways of promoting scholarship, drawing on the experience of existing universities and their staffs and students, and on perceptions of external needs and pressures for various sorts of learning. The latter course was followed by Griffith University, Brisbane, which opened in 1975. The decision to organize academic activities in non‐departmental schools, each with a unifying theme or problem set orientation, in combination with concern at the cumbersome decision making processes of more traditional forms, led to the design of a relatively decentralized policy making and executive structure: a Council, supported by a range of policy making and advisory committees each with explicit responsibilities and authorities; a limit number of academic and other operating divisions, each headed by an executive officer with substantial delegated authority; and a structure for an emphasis on horizontal interaction.

Since 1997, the Labour Government sought to respond to the dilemmas and consequences of the earlier New Public Management reforms, according to the two principles of joined‐up government and public service delivery. A key aspect of its reform programme has been the public service agreement (PSA) framework, a target‐based performance regime that acts as a vehicle for the majority of spending and policy decisions across government and on the ground. Analysing its implementation and success, the article suggests that, in theory, the PSA regime provides an important example of steering at a distance as a form of political leadership, wherein the role of the centre is to provide the strategic framework for policy delivery. However, there are several structural constraints that have impeded the effectiveness of the framework, such as the pervading Whitehall departmental culture, and the tensions between top‐down performance management and devolved autonomy on the ground.

Introduction It is noticeable that most management training and education incorporates an element of marketing studies in one form or another. This is true for business studies degrees and diplomas, for post‐graduate management degrees and diplomas, and for professional studies. It may be in need of particular justification, since it is often the case that it is easier to see the link between topics such as management accounting and functions such as production or personnel, than the relationship with marketing, which seems a rather different type of business discipline. In fact, this problem is complicated further by the changing nature of marketing itself, since views on the role of marketing in the company have changed radically in most companies in the last two decades.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the sales and marketing interface and to identify some of the elements that may influence collaboration between sales and marketing and provide a framework demonstrating how these elements may interrelate.

This paper explores the sales and marketing relationship through qualitative research using one‐to‐one, tripartite interviews with senior executives and sales and marketing managers of three, UK‐based business‐to‐business organizations.

The paper indicates that there are two types of factor that affect collaboration between sales and marketing. Those that are out of the control of sales and marketing staff – management attitudes to coordination, interdepartmental culture and structure and orientation, and four that are internal to the interface – inter‐functional conflict, communications, market intelligence and learning. The paper also identifies that senior managers play a critical role in influencing this interface.

Improving collaboration in the sales and marketing interface should be a focus for senior managers. The paper is limited by the number of cases.

The factors identified may be used by organizations to improve collaboration between sales and marketing.

The identification of factors that may improve collaboration between sales and marketing, and provide a conceptual framework for further study. The paper increases the understanding of the sales and marketing interface by identifying two additional factors that may influence the interface – learning and market intelligence, and demonstrates how the various factors may interrelate to create improved collaboration.

Multiculturalism is now one of the greatest challenges in the Western society. It supposes a deeper awareness of the various cultures involved in a given society. Of course, the well‐known cultural and ethnic groups must basically be involved in such a social change. But, since the arising and growth of business ethics as a field of research, the business world as a social institution has revealed itself as a complex network of subcultures. So, the “organizational culture” has become an “a priori concept” in business ethics. Although many researches deal with corporate culture, very few authors emphasize its structural elements. A systemic view of the organizational culture expresses how we cannot develop a corporate ethics without at least a “fore‐understanding” or, at best, a critical judgment on the organizational culture of a given corporation. I will describe the four subsystems of the organizational culture and their ethical implications.

Looks at the effectiveness of marketing development in the organization. Relates the development of marketing in firms UK firms in a single industry to effectiveness in the areas of product development and customer relationships.