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This paper aims to assess the effectiveness of verbal self‐guidance (VSG) and self‐management on youth employability. It seeks to access the joint effectiveness of these interventions, grounded in social cognitive and goal setting theories, for youth job seekers.

The studies used experimental designs involving participants enrolled in an undergraduate business cooperative degree program. Survey data assessing self‐efficacy and anxiety were collected pre and post‐training. Interview performance was also assessed in each study.

In study 1, it was found that students trained in self‐management and verbal self‐guidance (SMVSG) improved interview performance and reduced anxiety. In study 2, it was found that self‐efficacy and job search effort were higher in the SMVSG group relative to VSG alone.

For study 1, the only measure of employment was a mock interview. For study 2, a limitation was that approximately 25 per cent of participants failed to either complete the post‐training survey or attend the interview.

Overall the studies describe a relatively simple and low cost training intervention, and associated performance measures, that can continue to be used by practitioners and scholars with future groups of youth job seekers.

The paper shows that these studies further support the effectiveness of VSG‐based interventions for employability. The paper also shows the value of augmenting VSG training with self‐management training in the context of youth employability. Furthermore, this research also considered anxiety, a key variable in successful employment that has often been omitted in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the application of an acoustic micro‐imaging (AMI) inspection technique in monitoring solder joints through lifetime performance and demonstrate the robustness of the monitoring through analysis of AMI data.

Accelerated thermal cycling (ATC) test data on a flip chip test board were collected through AMI imaging. Subsequently, informative features and parameters of solder joints in acoustic images were measured and analysed. Through analysing histogram distance, mean intensity and grey area of the solder joints in acoustic images, cracks between the solder bump and chip interface were tracked and monitored. The results are in accord with associated Finite Element (FE) prediction.

At defective bumps, the formation of a crack causes a larger acoustic impedance mismatch which provides a stronger ultrasound reflection. The intensity of solder joints in the acoustic image increase according to the level of damage during the ATC tests. By analysing the variation of intensity and area, solder joint fatigue failure was monitored. A failure distribution plot shows a normal distribution pattern, where corner joints have the lowest reliability and are more likely to fail first. A strong agreement between AMI monitoring test data and FE prediction was observed, demonstrating the feasibility of through lifetime monitoring of solder joints using AMI.

The paper indicates the feasibility of the novel application of AMI inspection to monitor solder joint through lifetime performance non‐destructively. Solder joints' real life conditions can be tracked by an AMI technique, hence solder joint fatigue failure cycles during the ATC tests can be monitored and analysed non‐destructively.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Questioning gender is about taking an active, critical role in the technological design of our daily behaviour. It is a deconstruction of the oppositions that exist in the discourses of Ambient Intelligence designers, the ICT industry and computer scientists. What underlies the assumption that Ambient Intelligence will, by disappearing into our environment, bring humans both an easy and entertaining life? The gender perspective can uncover power relations within the promotion and realisation of Ambient Intelligence that satisfy an obvious wish for a technological heaven. The deconstruction of the promise of progress and a better life reveals what is overvalued, what is undervalued and what is ignored. This paper is a deconstruction of the view, currently prevalent in the discourses of Ambient Intelligence; a view of humans and the way they live. A view that will influence the way women and men will be allowed to construct their lives.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the ethical and practical dilemmas faced by an experienced researcher in undertaking research with a person with dementia (whom we have called Amy). Amy died shortly after a period of observation had ended and the family subsequently consented to the data being shared.

This individual case study presentation was nested within a larger study conducted in England and Scotland between 2013 and 2014. The overall aim of the main study was to investigate how healthcare professionals and informal carers recognised, assessed and managed pain in patients living with dementia in a range of acute settings.

The presented case study of Amy raises three critical reflection points: (i) Researcher providing care, i.e. the place and positioning of compassion in research observation; (ii) What do the stories mean? i.e. the reframing of Amy's words, gestures and behaviours as (end of) life review, potentially highlights unresolved personal conflicts and reflections on loss; and (iii) Communication is embodied, i.e. the need to move beyond the recording of words to represent lived experience and into more multi-sensory methods of data capture.

Researcher guidance and training about end of life observations in dementia is presently absent in the literature and this case study stimulates debate in a much overlooked area, including the role of ethics committees.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of transformational organizational change that occurred over time in a small manufacturing firm using the conceptual framework of organizational change and archetypes.

This longitudinal study – which is based on six cycles of interviews with all members of the firm over a two‐year period – examined how the change attempt was perceived by the strategic leadership, middle‐level managers, and lower‐level employees.

The findings suggest that the pace of archetypal change is influenced by organization members' experience with, and capacity to, assimilate the change; that, sequentially, new structures and systems are implemented prior to new interpretive schemes; and that unresolved excursions are non‐linear. These findings question the conventional wisdom about the importance of leadership in sustaining organizational transformation. Most notably, it was found that most of the archetypal change occurred after the initiating change agent (a new CEO) had left the firm and been replaced by the previous CEO who did not support the proposed changes.

The paper offers the first longitudinal study to examine the issue of substitutes for strategic leadership. In addition to two new substitutes that should be considered at this level of analysis – information systems and interpretive schemes – the data also point to the impact of collective action by mid‐level supervisors and employees.

Outlines the dissatisfaction of US accountant graduate employers in relation to graduates’ communication and problem solving abilities. Cites that technical abilities are good and reviews prior research in this area. States that whilst progress is being made in training and graduates are in fact stronger than in previous years, employers’ expectations have yet to be reached. Argues that this may be that other countries are developing their training at a faster rate. Advocates a strong partnership between academics and businesses.

Intercultural competence has been found to be increasingly important. The purpose of this paper is to understand how intercultural competence impacts service providers’ ability to recognition faces of both black and white consumers.

Two experiments were administered to understand how intercultural competence impacts recognition of black and white consumer faces.

The authors find that the more intercultural competence that respondents report with blacks, the better they are at distinguishing between black regular customers and black new shoppers in an experiment. The authors find no impact of intercultural competence on the ability of respondents to differentiate between white consumers. These findings hold for respondents in the USA and South Africa.

One limitation of this research is that the studies were conducted in a controlled lab setting. Thus, one could imagine additional noise from a true consumer setting might increase the effects of these results. Another limitation is the focus on only black and white consumer faces. In this paper, the authors focused on these two races, specifically to keep the factorial design as simplified as possible.

The implications of this research are important given that the ability of employees’ recognizing customer faces can affect customers’ day-to-day interactions in the marketplace.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.