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The study maps workplace stakeholders’ perceptions of living wage (LW) impacts in New Zealand. Empirical findings inform an inaugural model of LW impacts and contingent factors at individual, organisation, sector/industry and national levels.

Data from a national employee survey, semi-structured interviews with business sector representatives, and staff in two LW organisation cases were subjected to thematic content analysis.

Informants emphasised anticipated LW impacts amid complex workplace and regulatory dynamics. Employers/managers stressed its cost effects. However, employees, human resource (HR) advocates and other LW proponents highlighted employee “investment” impacts that improve worker productivity and societal circumstances.

This study highlights the need for further context-sensitive LW analysis. An initial model of LW impacts provides a framework for comparative and longitudinal work in other national contexts.

The proposed model categorises perceived LW effects and can inform policy development. Findings also stress a need for cross-agency initiatives to address LW concerns, including a key role for HR.

The findings highlight perceptions of a LW impacting within and beyond the workplace. Whilst higher-quality management is seen to encourage better-informed decisions about “going living wage”, a LW's positive socio-economic impacts require multi-lateral initiatives, suggesting that those initiatives are is part of wider obligations for policy makers to encourage decent living standards.

This study provides a much-needed and inaugural focus on the intertwined workplace and wider impacts of a LW, extending extant econometric analyses. The paper also synthesizes different data sources to develop an inaugural, context-sensitive model of perceived LW effects.

A “living” wage (LW) is conventionally defined as enabling meaningful participation in society above subsistence through, for example, recreation, supporting a family, and savings. There is increasing debate over LWs due to growing inequality, rising living costs and welfare reform but this remains largely framed by the econometric cost-benefit parameters that apply to minimum wage regulation. The capabilities approach advocated by Sen (1999) offers a different perspective that is inclusive of choice, contingencies and the inter-connections between quality of (paid) work and private life. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper adopts this framework and utilises a qualitative exploration of the narratives of 606 New Zealand employees to understand perceived wage effectiveness. The results suggest that a focus on a specific LW rate might be conceptually limiting, in comparison to a LW range.

First, the findings indicate that there is a pivot range in which people move from self-assessed “survival” to “decent” income. Second, a LW may have more than a simply monetary effect in better meeting employees’ living costs; it can also improve well-being through subjective perceptions of valued freedoms to do with job satisfaction, equity and security.

The results thus draw attention to a wider notion of a LW in terms of personal and family well-being, utilising a capabilities approach, with implications for organisational practice, policy and theory concerning sustainable livelihood and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Examines the attitudes of employers with regard to age discrimination and the use of media advertising to infer age preference without actually stating an age‐bar. Analyses how, through discrete advertising in selected newspapers and journals, some employers are still youth‐oriented and not taking into consideration that the older end of the age spectrum can still offer commitment, attitudinal maturity, and mentoring roles. Also discloses how the use of recruitment agencies as a means for age discrimination/selection is the choice of many organizations, so avoiding the business of selection until the short‐list stage.

The voluntary and not‐for‐profit sector accounts for an important and growing proportion of employment in the UK though it remains highly under‐researched. Rates of pay are often relatively low, necessitating forms of human resource management that emphasise non‐financial means of eliciting employee motivation and commitment. This paper examines HRM in a major charity that provides services to adults with learning disabilities. It finds that the intrinsic commitment to the job held by employees – which the organisation is trying to tap – can form a competing commitment towards different entities of the organisation. This competing commitment is difficult to reconcile to organizational objectives because it reflects ambivalences in existing power structures and group dynamics. The results have wider relevance to the management of employee commitment in other service sectors.

Reports that the continued need to meet increasingly competitive conditions in service industries has encouraged the development of a more strategic human resource approach in pursuance of the maintenance of quality, service and flexibility goals. Presents an in‐depth case study in the retail sector, specifically examining the company’s approach to the recruitment and retention of older employees. Develops models to demonstrate the linkages between service with the social characteristics of this group of workers and consequent employment implications. Finds that, while senior management perspectives were positive, some degree of ambivalence was expressed in respect of line management views, and while older workers were perceived to be suitable for many types of work, preferred workforce profiles still tended towards traditional core labour sources. Notes that employment characteristics of a softer “qualitative” nature, such as service, motivation and job satisfaction, were seen as assets, and disadvantages relating to more “quantitative” criteria, such as trainability, job flexibility and new technology, were evident but less clearly expressed and might be qualified by appropriate management techniques. Discovers that older employees placed high value on service provision, in comparison to younger employees who were generally more dissatisfied with their jobs and were oriented more towards financial considerations. Utilizes an interview programme and surveys with both line managers and employees to assess the issues involved and to draw out the managerial implications for retail and service

Explores the extent and patterns of age discrimination within a changing workplace context, and specifically focuses on how employment flexibility may be used to the mutual advantage of employers and older workers. Results are presented from two large‐scale national surveys conducted with the Institute of Personnel Management (1994, n = 1,700) and the Institute of Management (1995, n = 1,665). Case study research conducted with Ford/XR Associates, J. Sainsbury and the UK National Health Service is also reported. Research shows that although age discrimination in employment remains extensive, an innovative approach to the recruitment, utilization and retention of older workers may bring a series of positive joint gains.

The purpose of this paper is to provide contemporary information and analysis of women's location within the service sector of New Zealand; to evaluate the responsiveness of two major policy initiatives designed to ameliorate women's circumstances therein; and to reconceptualise and suggest possible approaches and measures which could inform future government and workplace policy and practice.

The study primarily employs a thematic analysis of publicly‐available reports, documentation and pertinent academic work. Secondary, independent statistical analyses of nationally‐representative data are used in order to provide the context and rationale for the policy analysis, and to overview key trends and “problem” areas in the service sector for working women in New Zealand.

New Zealand has a high female labour force participation rate, with more than eight out of 10 female workers employed in service work. Although women remain over‐represented in low‐paid work, they have benefited from service sector growth, higher penetration of professional and managerial work, and some reduction in the gender pay gap. State interventions are justified in equity, labour market and welfare terms, with an emerging focus on “decent work” and productivity. Yet, this analysis of key initiatives for working women reveals an inadequate regulatory and policy framework. The significance and “genderedness” of service work to the economy means that it is increasingly but still insufficiently the focus of economic and social policy.

This study responds to the absence of a contemporary and comprehensive assessment of the location and inequities experienced by different groups of women in New Zealand's service sector, particularly Māori and Pasifika women. It provides a springboard to further analysis of the key trends, themes and policy impacts that it highlights, as well as of a reconceived regulatory approach for women working in the service sector outlined in the Concluding section.

In 2011, the World Bank announced its intention to conduct a holistic review and reform of its procurement framework. This reform was intended to ensure that its procurement system, which is the means through which the Bank disburses developmental loans and grants is in line with modern trends in procurement, is flexible enough to respond to unforeseen challenges and is coherent. This paper examines both how Bank procurement has evolved since the first formal regulations were issued in 1964 and the implications of the recent reforms for the Bank and its borrowers. Readers will see that ongoing reforms evidence a significant change for the Bank's approach to procurement and its relationship with its borrowers and will dramatically affect the way the Bank-funded procurements are conducted.