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We continue with our examination of The Grass Roots Approach potential opportunities coupled with potential risks The theme I now propose to develop is that, though the transfer of responsibility to the grass roots is a necessary condition of survival and prosperity, it carries with it a mass of unsolved — and, indeed, as yet, unconsidered — problems and is exposed to such immense risks that, if things were to go wrong, the outcome could be catastrophic. It is also part of my theme that the grass roots movement will gain strength and will expand considerably and rapidly. It isn't going to go into reverse. I foresee grass roots becoming one of the catch‐phrases of the eighties, just as involvement and motivation were the catch‐phrases of the sixties and participation the catch‐phrase of the seventies. A parallel development is likely to take place. Already the vocabulary of grass roots is beginning to creep into the politicians' bag of goodies and in the process it is coming to mean all things to all men, as in the case of participation at the earlier stage.

This paper aims to examine how small, grass‐roots non‐governmental organisations (NGOs) account for their actions and expenditures and how this accountability is discharged to, and benefits, the citizens they serve.

The paper draws on social capital theory to inform an interpretive analysis of documentary and interview evidence. The empirical material is derived from CHAI policy and project documents, coupled with interviews with 75 participants at the national, district and community levels of the CHAI programme. An illustrative case study is presented of an NGO that delivers welfare services to a Ugandan community affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The research finds that, by harnessing the attributes of social capital, grass‐roots NGOs can supplement formal accountability obligations to funders with effective “bottom‐up” accountability to an often overlooked NGO stakeholder group – the service beneficiaries, with positive outcomes for social services delivery.

The research examines a single community‐led public welfare initiative (the Ugandan CHAI), with a particular focus on one illustrative grass‐roots NGO within that programme. Nevertheless, it offers insights into how accountability mechanisms can be reconceptualised to suit the context of developing countries where smaller NGOs increasingly operate.

The potential for less formal, “bottom‐up” accountability mechanisms is illustrated using the case of the Ugandan community‐led HIV/AIDS initiative (CHAI), a programme for delivering social services to communities ravaged by the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

This research addresses the lack of empirical studies of smaller, grass‐roots NGOs in the accounting literature. It also contributes to the under‐researched area of how NGOs can appropriately discharge their accountability obligations to beneficiaries. The use of social capital theory to inform the study is also a novel contribution of this paper.

Many changes that have taken place in the work environment during the last 15 years have brought the challenges and opportunities of leadership dawn from the pedestal of formal management to the individual employee. People with no positional authority seem to have leadership challenges presented to them on an almost daily basis. This article summarizes new research on grass‐roots leadership. The study identified 17 leadership competencies as exhibited by a range of people — managers as well as non‐managers — in a wide variety of organizational roles. These competencies were then matched against a previous model of five leadership strategies. The result is a new definition of leadership, which shows that anyone can be a leader, regardless of tide or position.

The purpose of this paper is to provide contextual information around the grass-roots activities which resulted in legislation allowing the opening of drug consumption rooms in Denmark. This background has not been included in, e.g. the annual Danish Focal Point reports to the EMCDDA.

An account by some of those involved on the grass-roots and political activities which resulted in the enabling changes in law and the provision of building-based drug consumption rooms in Denmark.

The actions described originated in a concern for the health and well-being of drug users. That grass-roots action can act as a catalyst for political changes in social policy to take account of the situations and needs of socially marginalised groups.

The paper describes the sequence of grass-roots actions from the point of view of those involved. It does not seek to represent the views of those opposed to the activists’ aims.

The use of international evidence to support policy and legal changes in one nation, Denmark, in order to improve conditions for drug users. The need for funding commitments to support and realise the legal and policy changes.

The success of long-term campaigning on behalf of a specific marginalised and socially excluded group of citizens and the countering of myths and stigma associated with this group.

This is a unique account told by those directly involved of the social and campaigning processes which led to a change in the law and a shifting of popular and political opinion and action.

A microenterprise is modeled on Islamic epistemological premises to bring out its extensively applied perspectives using community‐based participatory instruments of Islamic law (Shari’ah). The case study is for Bangladesh, but the model developed has universal implications. Various organizational features of such a microenterprise model with a strong human resource development focus at the grass roots are explained in detail, keeping in view the process‐based systems perspectives in the knowledge‐induced learning process that is embedded in the model of the Islamic microenterprise.

China has, apparently, more trade union members than the rest of the world put together, but the unions are subservient to the Party-state. The theme of the paper is the gap between rhetoric and reality. Issues analysed include union structure, membership, representation, and the interaction between unions and the Party-state. We suggest that Chinese unions inhabit an Alice in Wonderland dream world and that they are virtually impotent when it comes to representing workers. Because the Party-state recognises that such frailty may lead to instability it has passed new laws promoting collective contracts and established new tripartite institutions to mediate and arbitrate disputes. While such laws are welcome they are largely hollow: collective contracts are very different from collective bargaining and the incidence of cases dealt with by the tripartite institutions is tiny. Much supporting evidence is presented drawing on detailed case studies undertaken in Hainan Province (the largest and one of the oldest special economic zones) in 2004 and 2005. The need for more effective representation is appreciated by some All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) officials, but it seems a long way off, so unions in China will continue to echo the White Queen: “The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today” and, alas, tomorrow never comes.

This discussion forwards a political economy framework for the analysis of the role and impact of political intervention on the process and outcome of environmental conflicts. The proposed analytic approach, advocated by the class‐centric state perspective, focuses on the economic roots of political action in conflict situations. The paper provides a critique of the existing analytic approaches to conflict analysis. The paper also offers a brief account of Hawaii's land use policy and history of land‐related environmental conflicts to illustrate the potential of the political economy approach.

This series is built around several independent propositions. One of these is that if managers (and personnel specialists in particular) are to be more effective then they will have to become more politically aware and seek to influence national decisions on work, employment and the economy. The assumption is that there is little point in slogging away at plant level trying to increase motivation, involvement and commitment and generally seeking to improve performance if the national climate is destructive of all these things. This is to pour water into a barrel with a huge hole in the bottom; it is more reasonable to try to repair the hole even if this means trying to influence events taking place outside the plant and therefore less under the manager's direct control. This is a new situation for the manager to face. Another aspect of my analysis is that in this socio‐political environment in which the organisation operates there are two influences in particular which have revolutionised our approach to the work and employment situation over the past century and, although these twin influences have had an enormous influence on industry and business, they have had virtually no effect on the way politicians behave or how they organise their own business. One of these influences is what we have learned about how to conduct human relationships and the other is the formal body of knowledge about management which has been built up over this period. Thus politicians, particularly the henchmen of the left‐wing political estate, are out of step with that large part of the national business and industrial community which has up‐dated itself on these two aspects of authority relationships and formal management procedures.

Operation Phoenix is conceived on a grand scale. It is complex, multi‐dimensional, affecting the wholeof world society at macro‐level and yet dependent on individual change. It is about change at the grass roots. Quality Circles are in the grass roots. The supervisor and workers sit down together voluntarily to pick and solve one of their work problems. The idea is elegant in its simplicity, but mind‐blowing in terms of the normal management philosophy which specialises tasks and isolates people in little boxes to carry them out. It is subversive in terms of the organisation structure which tries to separate power and knowledge from work, and preserve them for the top echelons. It works within the old society and prepares for the new. It is, to this extent, a creature of the Threshold.

This paper contributes to research in social entrepreneurship by introducing a typology that describes four distinct types of social entrepreneurs based on the nature of their lives and career experiences and the scope of their social engagement.

In order to build a typology of social entrepreneurs, inductive profile analysis and archival research design approaches were used. A large variety of social entrepreneur profiles that are available in prominent social entrepreneurship organizations such as Ashoka Foundation, Echoing Green, Schwab Foundation and Skoll Foundation were examined.

Using four types of social entrepreneurs from the typology, the authors developed a number of predictions as to how social entrepreneurs with an activist background may benefit more in the short term but possibly struggle in the long term given their attachment to their venture's “original” cause and lack of corporate/business experience.

By developing a typology of social entrepreneurs and discussing the implications of this typology for post-launch social venture performance, the paper advances the current understanding of social entrepreneurs and the performance of their ventures. Additionally, by focusing on social entrepreneurs as agents of social change, this paper sheds some light on who these entrepreneurs are, what kind of life and career experiences they had and what motivates them to engage in social entrepreneurship.