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Provides a brief history of the ways companies have reduced staffing in the past. Considers the difficulties experienced during these reduction programmes. Discusses the effects that new style company and structures have had with their flatter shapes. Suggests that not all expected benefits of downsizing are realized and asks at what cost to society? Concludes by looking at the effect this procedure has on the remaining workforce and lists the ten common mistakes which companies should avoid.

The goal of this research was to explore career patterns of senior marketing managers in the best European football clubs (SMMEFCs).

The data came from the LinkedIn profiles of current and past SMMEFCs. Firstly, the optimal matching algorithm was used to determine clusters of pathways leading to a first SMMEFC position based on the main activity of the employing organisation. Secondly, these patterns were compared in terms of variables depicting the career paths, clubs and managers. Finally, the evolution of the post-SMMEFC careers was analysed.

People in their first SMMEFC positions are mainly male with a university degree in business and marketing, and with a predominantly functional experience in marketing. There are five ways to become an SMMEFC: through business (40% of the sample), football (32%), other sports (11%), marketing and communication (11%), and media (6%). As the majority of SMMEFCs come to their positions from outside the sporting world, the specificity of the football industry is not a serious obstacle. Instead, the careers are bounded by functional marketing experience. Among the individual sequences leading to a first SMMEFC position, only around half of the football cluster may be considered traditional careers. Football, and sports in general, seem attractive for post-SMMEFC career development for the majority of managers coming from all pathways.

The study is the first one to quantify career patterns in professional sports management. It provides new insights about marketing careers and practice in European club football.

By undertaking a detailed review of the Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) discourse, the purpose of this paper is to uncover and explicate the power differentials embedded in the social structure of organizations and suggests ways to reconcile them.

Methods used are thematic review, content analysis, and inductive theorizing, with Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical analysis style as the overarching framework.

At the methodological level, the authors demonstrate the application of Foucault’s twin methods: archaeological and genealogical analysis. At the substantive level, the authors have two contributions. First, the authors critique and analyze the various themes of power that emerge from the SHRM discourse as well as the hybridized overlaps of SHRM with other organization studies topics of interest such as organizational learning, network studies, control and postmodernism. Second, the authors propose a “Power” theory based nomothetic, typological synthesis for crafting the business-facing human resource (HR) function. The power lens manifests as the meta-theory to guide a much required streamlining of constructs and “value laden” synthesis of the literature.

The potential of critical theory in crafting situated and context-sensitive research propositions is demonstrated.

Organizational strategists and HR managers can utilize the proposed typology to better understand their current ideological positions and decide future aspired images.

This is a conversation between two paradigms, SHRM and power theory, that are epistemologically at two opposite poles.

The purpose of this study is to examine the under‐researched subject of the role of mentoring relationships within and outside of organizational boundaries as individuals make the career transition from being a corporate employee to becoming an entrepreneur.

Using structured interviews, the authors collected data from 24 men and women in the financial services industry in the UK about their experiences in making the transition from a corporate organization to a new venture work context. All interviews were transcribed and systematic Nvivo coding was used.

Developmental relationships with structural, relational, and cognitive embeddedness were most likely to transfer from the individual's corporate workplace to their new venture. Support for both the recent literature on multiple mentors and for gender differences in the patterns of these mentoring relationships was also found.

This is the first published study to examine whether mentor relationships from previous corporate employment transfer to the protégé's new entrepreneurial venture and whether other types of relationships (e.g. coworkers, clients) are transformed into mentor‐protégé relationships after the career transition to entrepreneurship. It is also among the few studies to examine mentoring of entrepreneurs and gender differences in mentoring within the entrepreneurial work context.