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The industrial relations and organisational behaviour literature contain frequent references to terms such as best practice employers, model employers, progressive firms, innovative management, etc. These firms are seen to be those that place a very high priority on good human resource management right across the board, and thus have been highly innovative in the policies, structures and arrangements that they have introduced in their dealings and relationships with employees. More formally, they can be seen to constitute the system of management that Likert has labelled System 4. According to Likert the organisational climate of such a system of management can be measured by a number of elements including decision making practices, where persons affected by decision are asked for their ideas, and there is concern for persons, whereby attempts are made to improve working conditions and organise work activities sensibly.

In the United States, the phenomenon of “concession bargaining”, whereby management seeks to obtain wage freezes or actual cuts in wages, is being widely discussed by both researchers and practitioners. In contrast, in Britain, it has been little discussed, although considerable media attention has been given to the case of the Hyster forklift truck factory in Scotland where management were seeking to cut the pay bill by some 9.8 per cent and eliminate attendance and time‐keeping bonuses.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the strategic postures and political market orientation profile of two Danish parties. Profile stability at the organisational level is used as a control variable.

The strategic political postures of two Danish parties are derived using a self‐typing study. Based on configuration theory, ideal organisational profiles to implement these studies are juxtaposed with the actual political market orientation profile for each party, gained from two datasets analysed using Partial Least Squares. Member activity levels are used to control for organisational stability.

The self‐typing study revealed that Party A was perceived to follow a relationship builder posture, and Party B a convinced ideologist posture. However, both market orientation profiles resembled the organisational structures of a convinced ideologist. Thus, Party A exhibits a mismatch between strategic orientation and implemented organisational profile, based on configuration theory. The results were generally stable across political activity levels.

The investigation represents an intra‐group analysis, i.e. it is concerned only with two parties in one political system; however, this reflects the oligopolistic character of the vast majority of electoral markets and thus, further research could compare results across political systems. A link with performance variables needs to be established to assess the extent to which the organisational alignment results in competitive advantages for a party.

Whilst there exists a general cohesiveness within parties regarding the overall strategic posture, political managers need to be aware of the subtle differences that can affect the market orientation of different groups within the party.

The study contributes to understanding the concept of market orientation in the political sphere. More specifically, it empirically links political market orientation as an issue of political marketing implementation on the one hand, and strategic postures of parties as a strategic issue on the other, following a configuration theory logic.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the development of a health and safety (HS) representative role typology that demonstrates how representatives enact their roles and improve occupational health and safety (OHS) under New Zealand law. It aims to consider the factors that influence the roles that HS representatives’ assume.

This qualitative, cross‐perceptual study centres on the role enactments of eight HS representatives at two metal manufacturers. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with HS representatives, managers, workers, senior managers, OHS managers and a union convenor. “Types” were differentiated by the HS representatives’ purpose, activities and OHS impacts.

In total, four HS representative role “types” were identified: administrators, workshop inspectors, problem solvers and craft experts. Administrators implemented and operated OHS management systems and improved OHS management. Workshop inspectors undertook compliance and monitoring roles and improved workers’ attitudes towards OHS. Problem solvers found solutions to control hazards and improved production from an OHS perspective. Craft experts applied technical knowledge to influence strategic OHS decisions. Role enactment appeared to be influenced by representatives’ expert power, job roles and the organisational role definition. Representatives operating under both managerial and worker defined HS representative systems, increased worker “voice” by providing an avenue to redress OHS concerns.

Implications arise for OHS policy, HS representative training courses and organisational/managerial support.

The paper presents a HS representative role typology distinctively based on cross‐perceptual data that also provides a more holistic perspective of the HS representative role by considering representatives’ purpose, role enactment and OHS impact.

Aims to provide a brief discussion of discourses of HRD, then a brief review of HRD within the NHS, including stakeholders in HRD, and particularly management development. To explore some of the different discourses used by different managers, particularly those with a nursing background and those without, and the possible reasons for the use of these different discourses.

A qualitative case study approach was adopted, including semi‐structured interviews. Primary research data were collected from tape‐recorded interviews with seven Directorate General Managers from two Welsh NHS Trusts. Discourse analysis was used to explore connections between the participants, the discursive resources they employed and their professional identities.

Provides evidence of some of the tensions associated with management development in the NHS, between professional and managerial development, between central and local HR activities, and between competition and cooperation. A particularly interesting dimension is the transition from being a nurse to becoming a manager and the ways in which different individuals cope, as articulated in their language use. Highlights some of the discursive struggles to maintain one's professional (nursing) identify when promoted to managerial positions. It provides examples of some nurses who have adopted the new managerial discourse without such apparent difficulty of changed identity. It also presents material from NHS managers who have no nursing background to enable further comparative analysis of the relationships between identity and discourse.

The findings are limited by small sample size, although feedback suggests the findings can be generalised to other NHS Trusts across the United Kingdom, and possibly globally. Not one senior manager used the term HRD – it was always “training and development” or “professional development” or “managerial and organisational development” and sometimes “learning”. Nor was there much use of the government's preferred term “workforce development”. This has implications for HRD research within this context, suggesting the need for shared understanding amongst researchers and participants.

Various and varying discourses and associated discursive resources are identified, illustrating the diversity of talk about HRD within the NHS. As one DGM commented, “I think we're using the same words but it means something completely different”. This has practical implications, suggesting the need for shared understanding amongst HRD stakeholders to ensure a coherent and integrated approach to HRD within this complex multi‐disciplinary context.

How HRD is talked about and accomplished through talk has been relatively neglected in the health care context. This paper contributes to our understanding of how the complex range of learning and development activities are perceived and articulated, from the perspective of senior managers responsible for HRD.

Focuses on recent empirical evidence on management approaches to industrial relations in greenfield companies in Ireland. Places particular emphasis on the impact of industrial relations on the location of greenfield site facilities, patterns of trade union recognition and avoidance, pay determination, and the role of employer associations. Finds that, despite a national system of “bargained consensus” and the integration of trade unions into corporatist decision‐making structures on economic and social issues, most recent greenfield site facilities are non‐union. Argues that this evidence points to extensive management opposition to conventional pluralist industrial relations, despite the existence of a State system which has consistently promoted a consensus approach over the past two decades. This apparent paradox is explained by reference to the transformation in the structure and performance of the Irish economy in parallel with related social changes since the early 1980s.

Aldo Leopold's idea of a land ethic was inspired by his work in game management. The land ethic merged ecology with an aesthetic and ethical sensibility. This chapter traces the origins of the idea to Leopold's efforts to devise incentives for private landowners to share their land with wildlife. Scholars have failed to account for how Leopold's affection for the institution of private property shaped his ethical philosophy. Although the land ethic is conventionally understood as a defense of the rights of animals, plants, and the environment they inhabit, it was also a defense of property rights. The limitations of the land ethic as philosophical basis of wildlife management and conservation stem from these contradictory purposes. Although Leopold's ecological aesthetic may help people to visualize an alternative to the violent simplification and diminished biodiversity of the modern form of capitalist agricultural commodity production, his emphasis on voluntary mechanisms has detracted from the objective of liberating wildlife and the land they inhabit from human exploitation.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the enduring, fundamental contributions of accounting practices in the pursuit of decentralization by governments, with an examination of Peter Leopold’s reform of the municipalities in the late eighteenth century in Italy.

An extensive textual analysis of the very comprehensive collection of primary sources of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany during the de’ Medici and Hapsburg-Lorraine’s rule identified the reasons for Peter Leopold’s decision to decentralize his government’s authority and responsibilities. A systemic comparison of the 1765–1766 and 1775–1776 financial reports of the Municipality of Castrocaro and Terra del Sole disclosed the importance of the micro-practices of accounting and reporting for the reform.

In the context of the eighteenth century enlightenment, Peter Leopold legitimized his reform by the introduction of a modern style of government based on the rationalization of the municipal administrative system and decentralization of central authority and responsibility. The reform was made feasible by the substitution of a birth right principle with an economic discourse which linked tax payments to property ownership. This had the unintended consequence of increased taxes, higher municipal expenditures and possible inequalities between municipalities.

The findings of the study are dependent on the resources which have survived and are now preserved in the official archives of Galeata and Florence. This work contributes to the extant literature on administrative reforms in a crucial period for the redefinition of sovereignty by the ruling classes, with the rise of the modern State. It extends historical understanding of the public sector with a focus on local government in the eighteenth century in a non-Anglo-Saxon context.

The examination of the reform of Peter Leopold contributes to an enhanced understanding of present-day decentralization by governments in the context of the new public management (NPM). It provides to NPM advocates a broader temporal and contextual understanding of the impact of current decentralization reforms.

Few accounting studies have considered the micro-aspects of decentralization reforms at the municipal level and tried to identify their impact on the wealth of the population. Moreover, Peter Leopold’s reform is considered one of the most innovative and enlightened of the eighteenth century, while the remainder of Europe was still overwhelmingly committed to the centralization of administrative apparatuses. Finally, this study relates to the multi-disciplinary debate about the recognition, qualification and accountization of the impact of decentralization of responsibility for the delivery of government services.

This paper aims to examine union and non‐union consultation and representative arrangements at South West Water (SWW) over a ten‐year period, from 1992 to 2002.

The paper attempts to fill the gap in the current research by examining the processes leading from union derecognition, non‐union employee representation (NER), to recognition of union representation using SWW as an example.

The SWW experience suggests that any representative structures within firms need to have full support of the majority of employees and to have been seen as being organic to the workplace rather than an imposed arrangement by management. Without such a bottom‐up approach, the legitimacy and respect for such arrangements will diminish, creating obstacles for developing meaningful dialogue and trust between management, staff and unions. For unions, maintaining high membership density, while no guarantee of continuing recognition, creates an environment of strong union organisation and representation at workplace level.

As the experience at SWW has shown, where unions have been excluded from the workplace, maintaining a presence through the representation of individual employee interests and through colonisation of NER structures has been shown to pay dividends in the long run. However, a recognition agreement is not enough on its own to secure new members and unions need to be effective and relevant to the workforce.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the implementation of talent management interventions in UK public sector organisations.

This paper draws upon the findings of a qualitative study of talent management in two UK public sector case study organisations.

Implementing talent management was found to present particular tensions for public sector managers, particularly in terms of its alignment with well‐embedded diversity and equality policies and their own perceptions of fair treatment in the workplace. Despite an acknowledgement that the sector needs to attract, develop and retain the most talented individuals to achieve its modernisation agenda, interventions which require singling out those individuals for special treatment challenges many of its established practices for recruitment and selection, employee development and career management.

Public sector organisations need to invest both time and effort into developing appropriate and relevant approaches to talent management, which take proper account of line managers' perceptions of fair treatment and established organisational approaches to diversity and equality.

Talent management is a topic of growing interest from employers concerned about their work force demographics, specific skills shortages and the retention of high potential employees but the concepts that inform talent interventions are often unclear or are an uneasy fit with the beliefs and understandings about fair treatment of those who have to implement them.