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Four decades ago, Whyte (1956) described how a new human expression had become universally evident. This was the notion of the “Organisation Man”, an early corporate culture characterised by the middle ranks of ‐ male ‐ managers in large organisations, who were subject to a “social ethic”. Gender was not an issue. However, in a contemporary view of corporate culture, it has become crucial to understanding both notions of competitive advantage, and the thesis and influence of individual commitment to the organisation.This article deals with the issue of gender and the corporate culture thesis. Unlike many studies there is a need to make a distinction between women and men concerning their organisational perceptions and roles in relation to the corporate culture thesis. The paper is an initial analysis of research material, dealing with the above issues in relation to gender in contemporary organisations. It examines a changing notion of corporate culture to one where both men and women are implicated in the project at a full emotional level.

Much has been written about performance appraisal (PA) in terms of its outcomes: little however, has been focused on the mediation of actual practice, beyond simple descriptions informing its implementation. Seeks first to understand the historical implications of contemporary PA; second, examines the modern usage of PA with regard to its emphasis on managing and controlling the “image” of performance, which is then illustrated by the use of survey research, gathered from West Midlands organizations. Concludes that the original intentions of PA to manage physical performance have increasingly failed, and become superseded by the management of the “impression” of performance by both employers and employees.

Looks at performance appraisal (PA), which has become an important tool in the overseeing of employees in contemporary society. Notes, however, that little work, has focused on its mediation or actual practice, beyond simple descriptions informing its implementation. First examines the changing nature of employee management under PA, before investigating the contemporary usage of PA regarding its emphasis on the issue of managing and controlling the “images” of performance. Illustrates this with research, gathered from a case study in the Midlands. More specifically, focuses on the requirement on individuals to present the right image/self‐presentation as a means of subordination. Highlights, with the use of a hospital case study, some of these issues in relation to the changes taking place in the public service sector, which faces fundamental transformations to its concept of service. Concludes that, whatever the original intentions of PA were, they have seriously failed, and are superseded by the management of the subjectification of performance.

It is often suggested that in order for performance appraisal to positively influence employee behaviour, employees must experience positive appraisal reactions. The purpose of the present study is to examine two different models of the relationship between employee perceptions of developmental performance appraisal and self‐reported work performance: a mediation model and a moderation model.

Results from a cross‐sectional survey of 434 employees showed that the relationship between perceptions of developmental performance appraisal and self‐reported work performance was mediated by employees' intrinsic motivation, and strongly moderated by their autonomy orientation.

For employees with a weak autonomy orientation, the relationship was positive, but for those with a strong autonomy orientation, the relationship was negative.

The two most important limitations, which are discussed in more detail at the end of the paper, are the cross‐sectional nature of the study and the reliance on self‐reported questionnaire data. Consequently, experimental studies are needed to examine causality issues.

The most interesting and practically relevant finding is that autonomy orientation moderated the relationship between perceptions of developmental performance appraisal and work performance. Accordingly, extra emphasis should be put on participative and autonomy supportive application of performance appraisal involving employees with a strong autonomy orientation.

Reports that performance appraisal (PA) has become an important tool in “controlling” employees in modern public industries. Little work, however, has focused on its mediation or actual practice in relation to different groups, such as women and ethnic groups. Examines the changing nature of employee management under PA in relation to how it affects the role of women in organizations. Illustrates with research, gathered from a case study in the midlands. Moves analysis beyond the individual‐collectivist tradition towards assessing the subtle control strategies now employed in the contemporary form of 1990s management. More specifically, illustrates the requirement for women to make the correct self‐presentation as a means of “getting on” and, from a managerial stance, of subordinating them. The use of a hospital case study highlights some of these issues in relation to the changes taking place in the public service sector, which faces fundamental transformations to its concept of service. Concludes that PA has seriously affected the role of women in public health organizations and that PA has seriously failed to meet the needs of women.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which Portuguese companies have incorporated equality‐ and diversity‐related issues into their management discourse, and examine the prevalent rhetoric on these matters.

A comprehensive content analysis of the web sites of the 500 largest companies plus the 20 best companies to work for in Portugal, in 2005, according to the ranking of The Great Place to Work^® Institute Portugal.

The analysis of the web site data shows that equality and diversity rhetoric mirrors, to a large extent, the dominant US discourse and ignores the necessary adaptation to the local context. However, there are significant differences in the adopted rhetoric according to the origin of the ownership control (native vs foreign) and the intended audience (local vs global). Native owned companies with web sites intended to a local audience tend to ignore diversity issues altogether.

The study was limited to a single country's data, and to the discourse rather than actual practices. However, the paper adds to the debate on the globalization of management knowledge stressing the limitations of adopting the “one size fits all” management rhetoric as opposed to developing rhetoric more appropriate and that fits into the local context.

The paper provides an account of the equality and diversity rhetoric adopted by the most prominent organizations operating in Portugal, suggesting that such rhetoric is mainly for external consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new casualty scheduling optimisation problem and to effectively treat casualties in the early stage of post-earthquake relief.

Different from previous studies, some new characteristics of this stage are considered, such as the grey uncertainty information of casualty numbers, the injury deterioration and the facility disruption scenarios. Considering these new characteristics, we propose a novel casualty scheduling optimisation model based on grey chance-constrained programming (GCCP). The model is formulated as a 0–1 mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINP) model. An improved particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm embedded in a grey simulation technique is proposed to solve the model.

A case study of the Lushan earthquake in China is given to verify the effectiveness of the model and algorithm. The results show that (1) considering the facility disruption in advance can improve the system reliability, (2) the grey simulation technology is more suitable for dealing with the grey uncertain information with a wider fluctuation than the equal-weight whitening method and (3) the authors' proposed PSO is superior to the genetic algorithm and immune algorithm.

The casualty scheduling problem in the emergency recovery stage of post-earthquake relief could be integrated with our study to further enhance the research value of this paper.

Considering the facility disruption in advance is beneficial to treat more patients. Considering the facility disruption in the design stage of the emergency logistics network can improve the reliability of the system.

(1) The authors propose a new casualty scheduling optimisation problem based on GCCP in the early stage of post-earthquake relief. The proposed problem considers many new characteristics in this stage. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the authors are the first to use the GCCP to study the casualty scheduling problem under the grey information. (2) A MINP model is established to formulate the proposed problem. (3) An improved integer-encoded particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm embedded grey simulation technique is designed in this paper.

When designing an optimization model for use in a mass casualty event response, it is common to encounter the heavy and considerable demand of injured patients and inadequate resources and personnel to provide patients with care. The purpose of this study is to create a model that is more practical in the real world. So the concept of “predicting the resource and personnel shortages” has been used in this research. Their model helps to predict the resource and personnel shortages during a mass casualty event. In this paper, to deal with the shortages, some temporary emergency operation centers near the hospitals have been created, and extra patients have been allocated to the operation center nearest to the hospitals with the purpose of improving the performance of the hospitals, reducing congestion in the hospitals and considering the welfare of the applicants.

The authors research will focus on where to locate health-care facilities and how to allocate the patients to multiple hospitals to take into view that in some cases of emergency situations, the patients may exceed the resource and personnel capacity of hospitals to provide conventional standards of care.

In view of the fact that the problem is high degree of complexity, two multi-objective meta-heuristic algorithms, including non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) and non-dominated ranking genetic algorithm (NRGA), were proposed to solve the model where their performances were compared in terms of four multi-objective metrics including maximum spread index (MSI), spacing (S), number of Pareto solution (NPS) and CPU run-time values. For comparison purpose, paired t-test was used. The results of 15 numerical examples showed that there is no significant difference based on MSI, S and NPS metrics, and NRGA significantly works better than NSGA-II in terms of CPU time, and the technique for the order of preference by similarity to ideal solution results showed that NRGA is a better procedure than NSGA-II.

The planning horizon and time variable have not been considered in the model, for example, the length of patients’ hospitalization at hospitals.

Presenting an effective strategy to respond to a mass casualty event (natural and man-made) is the main goal of the authors’ research.

This paper strategy is used in all of the health-care centers, such as hospitals, clinics and emergency centers when dealing with disasters and encountering with the heavy and considerable demands of injured patients and inadequate resources and personnel to provide patients with care.

This paper attempts to shed light onto the formulation and the solution of a three-objective optimization model. The first part of the objective function attempts to maximize the covered population of injured patients, the second objective minimizes the distance between hospitals and temporary emergency operation centers and the third objective minimizes the distance between the warehouses and temporary centers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the application of the dynamic vehicle routing problem for last mile distribution during disaster response. The authors explore a model that involves limited heterogeneous vehicles, multiple trips, locations with different accessibilities, uncertain demands, and anticipating new locations that are expected to build responsive last mile distribution systems.

The modified simulated annealing algorithm with variable neighborhood search for local search is used to solve the last mile distribution model based on the criterion of total travel time. A dynamic simulator that accommodates new requests from demand nodes and a sample average estimator was added to the framework to deal with the stochastic and dynamicity of the problem.

This study illustrates some practical complexities in last mile distribution during disaster response and shows the benefits of flexible vehicle routing by considering stochastic and dynamic situations.

This study only focuses day-to-day distribution on road/land transportation for distribution, and additional transportation modes need to be considered further.

The proposed model offers operational insights for government disaster agencies by highlighting the dynamic model concept for supporting relief distribution decisions. The result suggests that different characteristics and complexities of affected areas might require different distribution strategies.

This study modifies the concept of the truck and trailer routing problem to model locations with different accessibilities while anticipating the information gap for demand size and locations. The results show the importance of flexible distribution systems during a disaster for minimizing the disaster risks.

Effective Emergency Response Management (ERM) system evaluation is vital to the process of continual improvement within emergency response organizations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if an entire ERM system can be captured and encoded within a standardized framework.

Employing an exploratory approach the authors apply a mixed methods case study design and inductive reasoning to analyse documentary evidence provided during the inquest into the London Bombings 2005. The authors use content analysis to investigate the nature of ERM system data availability and apply principals of Network Theory to iteratively develop a framework within which data can be encoded.

The authors find that complex ERM system data can be captured and stored within a standardized framework. The authors present a conceptual framework and multi-stage mixed methods process, the Standardized Emergency Response Incident Evaluation System (SERIES) model, to support data collection, storage and interpretation. The findings demonstrate that ERM system evaluation can benefit from the adoption of a standardized mixed-methods approach employing data transformation and triangulation. The authors also demonstrate the potential of the proposed standardized model, by integrating qualitative and quantitative data, to support interpretation and reporting through the use of appropriate data visualization.

The SERIES model provides a practical tool and procedural guidelines to capture and share vital ERM system data and information across all emergency services. It also presents an opportunity to develop a large comprehensive multi-incident dataset to support academic inquiry and partnership between academics and practitioners.