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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of pay diversity between groups, for example, across competing workplace teams.

In Study I, 60 future managers from Newcastle, Australia, were paid either $1 or $2 to work on an identical intrinsically motivating task, either on an individual basis or as members of pay‐diverse groups. In Study II, with 84 future managers in Darwin, Australia, the $1/$2 group pay dichotomy was made more realistic, by positioning the pay either at the bottom ($1) or top ($2) rungs of a pay ladder, or embedding it within a wider pay scale ($1 at a first, and $2 at the second tertile).

In Study I, between individually paid workers, both below‐ and above‐average payment were linked to low intrinsic motivation, whereas between groups, those in the higher pay bracket remained more motivated compared to their lower‐paid group counterparts. In Study II, when pay was polarised, intrinsic motivation was higher in the higher‐paid compared to lower‐paid groups; but when pay was embedded, this comparative advantage dissipated.

Taken together, Studies I and II suggest that pay diversity across groups will de‐motivate both lower‐ and higher‐paid groups, except perhaps when a group tops the pay ladder.

The significance of computer technology in terms of industrial relations is an area which has been neglected in the proliferation of literature accompanying the computer boom. This omission is becoming increasingly serious. By April 1976, the National Computer Index recorded a total of 9,245 computers in operation within the UK, in industry, the commercial and service sectors, public administration and defence. During the decade 1965–74 the population of computer installations grew by more than five and a half thousand and because this figure includes bureau facilities, it certainly understates the growth in the number of end‐users who have come to rely on computer technology. More importantly, the degree of this reliance has increased as the technology has been applied to a wider range of organisational functions. The growing dependence of organisations on the computer has enhanced its strategic position in the work process. Control over the functioning of the computer thus constitutes a source of increasing power which may well be used by employees as a powerful tool in negotiation.

Systematically evaluates changes in people management in one case study, the London Borough of Brent, as the major arena for the regulation of employment relations in local government moves from the national to the authority level. Considers the impact of upstream decisions on mission, purpose and structure and of downstream decisions on employment relations, as they relate to the structure of the personnel function, the role of line managers in personnel activities, the way staff are treated and the role of the unions, based upon a strategic choice model. Argues that there are, indeed, strong linkages between Brent’s upstream decision to become a “competitive market” authority and devolve decision making to business units and the dimensions of employment relations distinguished. However, the consequences of the upstream‐downstream relationship were not necessarily as intended by the Borough, with some of the results having highly dysfunctional consequences for the organization.

It is a matter of common knowledge that beer, in its several varieties, is by no means the same thing to‐day as it was a generation or less ago; the progress of chemical and biological knowledge on the one hand, and the keenness of competition on the other, have led to great alterations both in the materials used in its production and the methods by which it is produced. Exact or reliable knowledge about this, however, is far from being common; vehement assertions are made that all or almost all the changes are for the better, and also that beer is now a manufactured chemical product of deleterious nature, in which little or nothing of genuine material is used. Such statements are rendered unacceptable by the existence of self‐interest on one side and prejudice on the other. A short account of some of the facts concerned may, therefore, be of service.

In a recent issue of the Municipal Journal there appeared a short but apparently inspired article on the subject of London Government, in which is foreshadowed another drastic and apparently imminent alteration of the system of local administration at present in operation in the Metropolis.

School sex education has the potential to evoke a range of personal and political reactions. While it is usually agreed that sexuality should be ‘done’ in school, few agree on the best way of ‘doing’ it. This article provides a personal account of the development of sex education at Shepparton South Technical School, Victoria, Australia from 1973‐1985. It is supported by interviews with the people involved in those events and archival materials, including media reports. It also documents the efforts of extreme right activists to discredit and stop programmes, and the State Liberal government’s attempt to formulate a policy on sex education. First I provide a general background to technical schools in Victoria in the 1970s followed by a discussion of Shepparton South Technical School specifically. I then discuss the development of the sex education (social biology) programme, the pivotal role of the Social Biology resource Centre, and the networks involved. I also describe the attacks on the programme in the late 1970s, and their origins and impact. I conclude with a discussion of the outcomes of this intense public scrutiny, and the demise of social biology and the secondary technical schools, the ‘techs’ in the 1980s.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Using the mutual gains model as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to explore the important issue of mutuality in employment relationships.

This study uses a sample of 215 New Zealand professionals to assess the relationships between commitment-oriented HRM practice, work intensification, work-life balance (WLB) and task and contextual performance.

The authors find commitment-oriented HRM practice does not intensify the work experiences of professionals, but nor does it contribute positively to the achievement of WLB. Both these well-being types do, however, contribute to explaining professionals’ task and contextual performance outcomes.

The findings suggest current narrow interpretations of well-being need to be revisited, with the meaning of well-being, its measurement and its role in delivering performance outcomes afforded greater attention within HRM studies.

A primary goal of managers is to deliver optimum performance outcomes. For professionals, the research suggests an important means to achieving this is by promoting positive well-being.

This study offers some important insights into the role mutuality plays in influencing performance outcomes. In addition, by exploring two contrasting facets of well-being, one health- and one happiness-related, the authors provide some empirical insights into how employees’ well-being affects performance outcomes.

To examine how an external performance review process introduced as part of the public sector modernisation agenda in England and Wales has impacted on HR service provision and processes in local government and the extent to which it has acted as a catalyst for the development of more integrative and innovative HR practices to support organisational performance.

A case study analysis of the Best Value Review (BVR) process of HR services at two county and two unitary authorities generated data from multiple sources including interviews, focus groups, consultative meetings as well as internal documentation. This approach was adopted to offer perspectives from different stakeholders in the employment relationship.

There was found to be a frequent lack of synergy between organisational goals, departmental plans and the performance objectives of individuals combined with an absence of shared understandings about human resourcing priorities or commitment to the processes needed to strategically integrate HR policies.

Whilst providing insights into the Best Value (BV) approach to public sector modernisation, a wider generalisation of the findings cannot be drawn from four case studies.

Line management and the HR function need to share better understandings concerning the HR practices needed to support the modernisation agenda and their respective HR responsibilities.

This paper reveals that the BV performance regime was not encouraging, and even limiting, a corporate approach to the HR policies and practices required to develop longer term organisational capability.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.