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The Management Systems Training Council was a co‐operative organization which was developed in the UK in the 1970s to support training and development activity in organization and methods and related topics. Charts the history of the Council from its origins in the 1950s until its demise in 1994, and highlights its achievements using comments from members of the Council. Also relates the work of the Council to more recent developments in quality and re‐engineering.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of protean and boundaryless career attitudes in early career employees during a time of economic recession in Ireland, specifically regarding their relationship to work characteristics, job satisfaction and career satisfaction.

Using a quantitative design, data were obtained from a variety of Irish organizations. Employees in the trial career stage (aged between 18 and 29) responded to questions pertaining to their career attitudes, perceived work context and satisfaction.

Skill variety was related to higher job satisfaction for those with a strong organizational mobility preference, and skill specialization was related to lower job satisfaction for those with a weak organizational mobility preference. Autonomy and skill specialization were positively related to career satisfaction for those who held a strong self-directed career attitude.

For researchers, this study contributes to our understanding of the boundary conditions of the work design-satisfaction relationship, and provides further insights into how these findings extend to career satisfaction.

For managers, they demonstrate the importance of considering career attitudes when considering the relationship between job design and satisfaction during recessionary times.

The research extends past findings on careers attitudes during times of recession, and provides insights into psychological and contextual variables that contribute to satisfaction during such economic periods.

Employees are increasingly speaking out against their employer on relevant social issues, which raises the human factor to a next level in organisational affairs. The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the concept of employee activism and locate it in the academic and professional discussion about employees' active role as organisational communicators. After scrutinising some of the most popular cases from recent years, the relevant literature in the fields of social activism and employee communication as well as strategic organisational communication and public relations is critically reviewed with the idea to (1) provide a terminological clarification regarding employee activism, (2) outline the unique characteristics of its current forms, (3) discuss several factors that may trigger externally directed employee activism and (4) elaborate on the communicative nature of this phenomenon as well as its implications for organisational development and reputation. As a result, five propositions are suggested to explain what constitutes employee activism as a specific form of employee communication behaviour. The chapter also calls particular attention to related risks and opportunities for organisations and opens up questions for further research.

To empirically investigate the problems encountered in trying to integrate supply chains in the UK construction industry and to set these problems in the context of the extensive literature on supply chain management and partnering.

A brief review of current supply chain issues in the construction industry is provided. Three case studies of leading construction clients were carried out and these included public and private organisations from different sectors of the economy, public transport, information and communications technology and vehicle manufacturing. A large number of interviews were conducted with the various clients, their main contractors and key subcontractors and suppliers.

The findings reveal that the large number of supply chain partners and the significant level of fragmentation limit the levels of integration that are achievable. The interplay of environmental and procurement related factors renders the realisation of truly integrated supply chains very problematic and difficult to achieve. Nevertheless the paper identifies some key principles that do need to be followed if the elusive goal of integration is to be eventually realised.

While the present cases were chosen to be representative, they may not necessarily reflect the experiences of all clients and contractors in the construction industry.

This paper adds another dimension to the extensive body of knowledge that already exists on supply chain integration. In particular, it focuses on construction, a large and important sector of the economy but one that does not receive as much research interest as the manufacturing and distribution sectors.

This work examines the intersection between traditional human resource management and the novel employment arrangements of the expanding gig economy. While there is a substantial multidisciplinary literature on the digital platform labor phenomenon, it has been largely centered on the experiences of gig workers. As digital labor platforms continue to grow and specialize, more managers, executives, and human resource practitioners will need to make decisions about whether and how to utilize gig workers. Here the authors explore and interrogate the unique features of human resource management (HRM) activities in the context of digital labor platforms. The authors discuss challenges and opportunities regarding (1) HRM in organizations that outsource labor needs to external labor platforms, (2) HRM functions within digital labor platform firms, and (3) HRM policies and practices for organizations that develop their own spin-off digital labor platform. To foster a more nuanced understanding of work in the gig economy, the authors identify common themes across these contexts, highlight knowledge gaps, offer recommendations for future research, and outline pathways for collecting empirical data on HRM in the gig economy.

THE ART OR PRINTING was first introduced into Cumberland in 1735 when Thomas Cotton came to Whitehaven at the invitation of Sir James Lowther. Whitehaven was at that time an expanding town with a growing trade with Ireland and the colonies of Maryland and Virginia.

To investigate different aspects of the development policies of high potentials and their relationships with organizational characteristics in a set of Belgian companies.

A set of research questions has been used to conceive a structured questionnaire to empirically investigate the different aspects of high‐potential development policies using a survey among 86 Belgian companies.

The results indicate that very often the development policies are of an ad hoc nature, but that individuals may get some say in the process. Job rotation and mentoring/coaching are quite popular activities and formal external training has the most diversified application. As expected, high‐potential development takes up more time and offers a wider scope of activities than is the case for other managerial development initiatives. Especially, organization size may bring some variation in these patterns.

The target group in this research is limited to the HR managers from the profit sector in Belgium. This is a “restricted diverse organization survey” and makes use of a non‐representative sample.

The link has been made with the “new psychological contract”. Implications for changing career planning are presented (from traditionalistic to a more “self‐directed” tendency). Also, the larger scope of development activities in an international environment and the role of management development as a “glue technology” has been elaborated on.

Most of the studies on high potentials are normative and prescriptive; very few articles have presented empirical findings on high potentials and placed them in an organizational context. Also, the specific role of development techniques in a planned international high‐potential environment has been highlighted.

With past studies indicating a lack of skill development in engineering education, there is a need for new pedagogical tools that are application and skill-oriented. Hackathons are widely accepted in the corporate world, in the engineering domain for skill development and recruitment but have not gained acceptance in mainstream engineering education. Very few studies have discussed engineering educator views regarding hackathons and their benefits. This paper intends to study engineering educators' perception of the hackathon and its benefits after participating in it. The findings could support hackathons as a pedagogical tool to develop an industry-oriented and skill-based engineering education.

A mixed methods design was employed where initially qualitative study was conducted. Its findings were used to conduct survey of 162 engineering educators who had participated in a hackathon. A five point Likert scale was employed for data collection.

The findings reveal that engineering educators who participated in the hackathon perceived hackathons to support industry-focused learning, problem-solving and new skill development. They also acknowledged its role in their professional development. The further discussion suggests that engineering educators and institutes may collaborate with industry to design and use hackathons as a teaching tool to develop industry-ready graduates.

The study was not designed to study how different aspects of hackathon lead to different benefits derived from participating in it. There is a need to study hackathons as a tool of pedagogy and assessment, focusing on how variables linked to it facilitate, moderate and hinder the learning and assessment process in participants. More in-depth studies need to be conducted to adopt the hackathon as a pedagogy and assessment tool in higher education.

The discussion suggests that designing hackathons effectively as a tool for learning and skill development will result in skilled graduates. Engineering educators should adopt hackathons as a pedagogy for their students. Management and policymakers of engineering institutes should consider hackathons as a part of pedagogy for students besides conducting hackathons for educators for their professional development that will be investment in skills helpful at workplace.

The notable contribution of this paper is to document perceptions of engineering educators regarding hackathons and their benefits after participating in a hackathon. The paper proposes that hackathons can be introduced in the engineering curriculum as they would offer educators a novel method of teaching and assessment and support engineering graduates in recruitment and making them industry-ready.

The past few decades have witnessed a phenomenal progress in our understanding of employee mobility as a critical driver and consequence of various outcomes for individuals, organizations, industries, and economies. In the process, researchers have tackled several important issues in conducting empirical research on employee mobility. This chapter provides a critical discussion of the extant literature focusing on five broad areas: identification of mobility, timing of mobility, outcomes of mobility and their operationalization, model identification, and other related issues. In doing so, this article identifies some of the empirical choices and methodologies adopted in prior mobility studies, evaluates those practices, and suggests areas of improvements for the practice. It is hoped that future studies will benefit from this chapter's insight by building on the best practices from the literature while continuously and successfully tackling the issues that have been challenging the researchers on this increasingly important topic of scholarly inquiry.