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The article explores the potential for self-employed personal trainers (SEPTs) to resist exploitation by gyms, with a focus on the attitudes of SEPTs towards trade unions and collective action.

This article is based on a multiple-method study with qualitative data drawn from participant observation and interviews and quantitative data from a questionnaire survey. The data were collected in 2018.

The potential for individual resistance to exploitation among SEPTs is limited. However, attitudes towards a collective response were largely positive, albeit there is certainly no consensus agreement on the value of trade unions. The logic of coopetition is applied to explain the issues on which trade unions might organize SEPTs.

The study suggests coopetition as an organizing logic for highly individualized self-employed workers in intense proximal competition with one another. However, the research presented in this article was undertaken with a unique group of solo self-employed workers. Further study is required to demonstrate the applicability of these findings.

The commercialization of work poses a threat to traditional employment and trade unions. It is crucial that trade unions represent the interests of all workers by focusing on workers who do not traditionally form the vanguard of its membership (e.g. dependent workers and the falsely self-employed). The study illustrates the way in which trade unions can organize micro-entrepreneurs.

Coopetitive representation whereby micro-entrepreneurs collaborate to resist exploitation while remaining independent has the potential to change the perspectives and values of entrepreneurs.

The article assesses the potential of organizing a highly individualized and competitive self-employed worker. Coopetitive representation is presented as distinct from other approaches to representation and as a means of trade union revitalization.

The purpose of this paper is to present corporate wellness (CW) as an approach to worker well-being and as distinct from workplace health promotion (WHP). Theoretical explanations of the contribution of CW and WHP to the economic and social legitimacy objectives of human resource management (HRM) serve to elucidate this distinction and also to highlight the problematic nature of CW. An alternative approach to worker well-being, firm performance and social legitimacy of the firm is discussed.

This is a review paper that analyses research into CW as a discrete approach to the management of people and compares this body of knowledge with ancillary studies of the impact of policies more commonly aligned with HRM in order to achieve the purpose of the paper.

The review is critical of CW as a means of achieving competitive advantage through people due to the probability of dysfunctional outcomes, namely exacerbating the health and well-being of the workforce, especially the mental health of workers.

Due to the sizeable investment in CW programmes, the paper advocates a focus on equity in pay, employment security and employee voice as an alterative means of enhancing the health of the workforce and the performance of the organisation.

This paper elaborates on recent critiques of worker well-being programmes (see e.g. Guest, 2017), offering a comprehensive and robust theoretical framework. The paper cites extensive evidence that improved pay, employment security and an effective voice in the workplace are more effective means of meeting the needs of the firm and improving worker well-being.

The widespread expansion of the financial sector over the last few years has generated a considerable increase of interest in the various offshore economies around Europe. In many cases these small economies possess the advantages of tax haven status which, together with special trade arrangements with the European Community, render them particularly attractive as locations for the rapidly growing service industries. The Isle of Man is one such community.

This paper aims to evaluate the institutional complementarity thesis, which anticipates that the institutional context of the firm will have a considerable influence on the choice and success of employment relations strategies. Focusing on two liberal market economies, the paper presents analysis of secondary data from the US airline industry and primary data from UK civil aviation to assess the power of the institutional context on employment relations.

Secondary data were drawn from trade journals, newspaper reports and other civil aviation information sources such as the Civil Aviation Authority database. Primary data collection involved interviews with airline management, officials at the British Air Line Pilots Association, and pilots. A large‐scale questionnaire survey of pilots was also conducted.

In both liberal market economies airlines have adopted a range of employment relations strategies, which demonstrates the robustness of strategic management choice. Moreover, in both the UK and the USA, airlines with institutionally complementary employment relations strategies performed less well over a range of measures than their counterparts with employment relation strategies more closely aligned with coordinated market economies.

The findings identify best practice in the management of people in the airline industry and build a business case for cooperating with employees and their trade unions.

The four sections to this article have distinct but inter‐related objectives. Part I introduces the concepts, problems and tensions central to an understanding of the product liability debate. These issues recur throughout the article. Part II outlines the development of product liability law in Europe and assesses the impact of the European Directive on Product Liability. The “product liability crisis” in the United States is discussed in Part III, which looks at the law's development and proposals for reform. In Part IV the United States and European positions are compared and the case is made out for a global uniform product liability law which recognises the social responsibility of the producer towards those injured by his products.

The enormous improvement in child health in this country—in infant mortality and morbidity, in physical growth and well‐being, are self‐evident. Not only do we see the physical improvement in our children, but it strikes visitors from overseas more forcibly, and there can be few other countries in the world which can boast such swarms of healthy, vigorous children. If this was preventive medicine's only success, it would be worth many times over the money spent on this branch of the National Health Service, which is little enough in all conscience: about £20 millions a year compared with over £400 millions for curative medicine. Can any of the undoubted great and dramatic advances of the latter match the far‐reaching effects of this one achievement of preventive medicine?

Much to the relief of everyone, the general election has come and gone and with it the boring television drivel; the result a foregone conclusion. The Labour/Trade Union movement with a severe beating, the worst for half a century, a disaster they have certainly been asking for. Taking a line from the backwoods wisdom of Abraham Lincoln — “You can't fool all the people all the time!” Now, all that most people desire is not to live easy — life is never that and by the nature of things, it cannot be — but to have a reasonably settled, peaceful existence, to work out what they would consider to be their destiny; to be spared the attentions of the planners, the plotters, provocateurs, down to the wilful spoilers and wreckers. They have a right to expect Government protection. We cannot help recalling the memory of a brilliant Saturday, but one of the darkest days of the War, when the earth beneath our feet trembled at the destructive might of fleets of massive bombers overhead, the small silvery Messerschmits weaving above them. Believing all to be lost, we heaped curses on successive Governments which had wrangled over rearmament, especially the “Butter before Guns” brigade, who at the word conscription almost had apoplexy, and left its people exposed to destruction. Now, as then, the question is “Have they learned anything?” With all the countless millions Government costs, its people have the right to claim something for their money, not the least of which is the right to industrial and domestic peace.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of knowledge management critical success factors (KM CSFs) on project management performance outcomes in major construction organisations in Sri Lanka. As a result, the significant KM CSFs are prioritised to support KM implementation.

This study is cross-sectional in nature, adopting the quantitative method of analysis. The research model includes nine KM CSFs (culture, leadership, organisational structure, IT support, T-shaped skills, training, teamwork, performance measurement and benchmarking) and nine items measuring project management performance outcomes. Data were collected from senior, middle and technical staff involved in projects by means of a self-administered survey questionnaire mailed to them.

The Pearson’s correlation coefficient suggests that all of the KM CSFs are adequately correlated except for organisational structure, which has a poor correlation with IT support, T-shaped skills, teamwork and benchmarking. The results of multiple linear regression show that four KM CSFs (T-shaped skills, teamwork, benchmarking and transformational leadership) are significantly and positively related to project management performance outcomes. The remaining five KM CSFs are not significant. The multiple-criteria decision-making analysis reveals that benchmarking, transformational leadership, teamwork and T-shaped skills are the main priority for the construction organisations to consider in implementing KM.

Future studies should consider construction organisations of multiple sizes and include factors beyond organisational control, KM processes and the effects of demographic variables. Longitudinal studies are also imperative to determine the performance impact brought about by KM implementation over a period of time.

Benchmarking, transformational leadership, teamwork and T-shaped skills should serve as the initial focus to support KM implementation to achieve the desired project management performance outcomes. It is only after these KM CSFs are in place that the construction organisations can concentrate on other factors.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the relationships between the KM CSFs and project management performance outcomes in the construction industry in Sri Lanka, which is still at its infancy stage of KM implementation. Prioritisation of the significant KM CSFs in supporting effective KM implementation in the construction organisations further enhances the value of this study.

This paper aims to review the knowledge management (KM) processes, knowledge conversion modes and critical success factors (CSFs) and contextualise them to the construction setting to guide effective KM implementation.

This paper is conceptual in nature. It begins with a review of issues faced by construction organisations, which led them to consider implementing KM. This is followed by a comprehensive review of KM processes, knowledge conversion modes, KM CSFs and their application to the construction industry.

Based on the socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation (SECI) model, the knowledge conversion modes are discussed, linking them to the KM processes of knowledge creation, sharing, storage and application. The KM CSFs identified from construction literature suggest that they can be categorised into two groups, namely, factors within organisational control (managerial influence, technological influence and resource influence) and factors beyond organisational control (social influence, political influence, environmental influence, economic influence, industry influence and construction technology influence). The resulting review is discussed in terms of how construction organisations can implement KM effectively to achieve the desired project performance outcomes in terms of time, cost and quality.

Although this paper has made some theoretical contributions, a quantitative analysis will further reinforce its value both in theory and practice, particularly in terms of applying the KM processes and CSFs to different organisational, industry and country settings. A quantitative research is being carried out in the major construction sector in Sri Lanka to establish the relationships between the KM processes, knowledge conversion modes and KM CSFs with project performance outcomes, which will be reported in a subsequent publication.

As the construction industry uses a considerable number of knowledge workers, implementing KM for project planning and execution is the key to sustaining the growth of construction organisations and industry, particularly when KM implementation is linked to project performance outcomes. Practical implications are provided in terms of what successful KM implementation entails.

Effective KM implementation can serve as a conduit for construction organisations to build capacity and develop the ability to react quickly to social challenges brought about by different stakeholders, even before the project commences, so that the project performance outcomes will not be affected. Another social implication is the role played by project team members, in which efforts have to be put in place to facilitate the use of KM processes, so that teams can align project activities to the general good of their organisations.

A comprehensive KM framework that guides the construction industry on KM implementation is long overdue. This research represents the first of such attempts to view KM from a wider perspective, both in terms of internal and external influences affecting construction organisations. Once the conceptual framework developed is validated, it is expected to bring enormous benefits to different stakeholders.