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The purpose of this study is to consider the potential use of social marketing to enhance safety compliance in a biomedical research laboratory.

This project used focus group discussions (n = 32) and semi-structured interviews (n = 10) to gather information on occupational health and safety professionals’ perceptions of safety culture, knowledge of barriers and facilitators of safety at the worksite and insights on how to effectively communicate safety information to employees through a campaign effort.

Results outlined the barriers (e.g. structural obstacles, lack of awareness of policies, perception of occupational safety and health professionals as safety police) and facilitators (e.g. rapport building, partnering with formal leadership and demonstrating the value of services) of safety and safety communication.

Results from this work add to theoretical and practical knowledge regarding how risk may be effectively addressed by using social marketing and health behavior theories to promote voluntary adherence to existing rules and recommendations.

The role of social support has been largely ignored in the organizational socialization literature. The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine this missing link in this research through the discussion of the role of perceived organizational support (POS) and leader‐member exchange (LMX) on newcomer adjustment.

A pilot data including 191 newcomers were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate the construct validity of the measurement scales on a Chinese sample. The main study data drawn from 167 newcomers in a leading insurance organization in China was then subjected to structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses and model fitness.

Results suggest that LMX plays a significant role in influencing newcomers' POS and social integration. Moreover, newcomers' POS was found to associate with their turnover intentions.

This research was based on cross‐sectional and self‐report data, which may not permit strong causal connections between variables.

The results signal, the message that it is essential for organizations to put greater emphasis on encouraging supervisors to establish healthy work relationships with newcomers, and organizations may find it possible to influence newcomers' turnover intentions by demonstrating organizational support.

Very few studies have investigated the role of POS and LMX on newcomer adjustment, possibly because social support is not well accounted for in the literature. This paper is one of the first to discuss such links in the context of China.

This paper addresses the problem of access in ethnographic research from a learning theory perspective. It extends a recent symbolic interactionist approach to the problem (Harrington, 2003) by conceptualizing access as a process of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’, broadly understood as the processes that enable ‘newcomers’ to become part of the sociocultural practices of a community (Lave & Wenger, 1991). I present evidence from my journey of gaining access to three social structures of a group of heroin addicts in India: a non-governmental organization (NGO), a small group of ‘brothers’, and a friendship with a key informant. Using this evidence, I argue that the ethnographer negotiates identity roles, acquires an understanding of the ‘rules’ of interaction, and engages in educative processes that make him or her a legitimate peripheral participant.

In this article I attempt a re‐conceptualisation of the process of organisational induction, borrowing concepts from discourse analysis, and Lévi‐Strauss's structuralism in particular. It is argued that previous treatments of induction have concentrated on the means by which “culture” is transmitted, and to a much lesser degree on how it is received. What is required is a treatment which recognises the creativity involved in both producing an organisational image and in interpreting it — that “culture” is created both by organisational authors and readers, inductors and inductees, managers and workers.

Not many weeks back, according to newspaper reports, three members of the library staff of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London were dismissed. All had refused to carry out issue desk duty. All, according to the newspaper account, were members of ASTMS. None, according to the Library Association yearbook, was a member of the appropriate professional organisation for librarians in Great Britain.

How can you be a good mentor? How can you pass on your wisdom? How can you help people to find their answers to challenges? Mentoring now plays a key role in organisations that wish to pass on their hard earned wisdom. But how to ensure that such an approach works? This article explores issues you may wish to consider when: selecting mentors; defining the role of mentors; and running a mentoring session. The article also illustrates the classic “Five C” model for helping people to focus on their challenges; choices; consequences; creative solutions; and conclusions. Good mentors create a “stimulating sanctuary”. They help people to build on their strengths, find solutions and achieve ongoing success. This article gives a snapshot of key elements to bear in mind when introducing mentoring into your organisation.

Discusses an extensive research project relating to the quality and quantity of training available to life assurance representatives. The research was undertaken for LAUTRO, the industry′s self‐regulatory body, and provided background information prior to the issue of training and competence standards which will operate industry‐wide from April 1993. Based on data relating to over 140,000 life assurance representatives, pinpoints the extensive variety in training and recruitment practices between companies in the industry and between categories of representatives, even within one company. Outlines the arguments in favour of providing comprehensive training for life assurance representatives, while concluding that there may need to be flexible forms of training to take account of the differing characteristics of representatives and their companies.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a critique of the sociological model of professionalisation known as the “professional project” put forward by Magali Larson, which has become the prevailing paradigm for accounting historians.

The paper challenges the use of the concepts of monopoly, social closure, collective social mobility and the quest for status as applied to the history of accountancy. The arguments are made on both empirical and theoretical grounds.

The use of the concept of monopoly is not justified in the case of accounting societies or firms. The only monopoly the accountants required was the exclusive right to the titles, for example, CA in Britain and CPA in the USA. They were right to argue that the credentials were merely to distinguish themselves in the market place from untrained accountants. The validity of the concept of social closure via artificial barriers to entry is questioned and new evidence is provided that the elite accountants have always recruited heavily from classes lower in the social hierarchy than themselves. The concept of the collective social mobility project is found wanting on a priori and empirical grounds; accountants behaved no differently to other business classes and have probably not enhanced their social status since the formation of their societies.

The paper offers, in the case of accountancy, one of the few critiques of the accepted model of professionalisation. It demonstrates the weak explanatory power of the sociological paradigms used by accounting historians.