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Organizational socialization refers to the process by which newcomers learn to perform in their role and adjust to work after organizational entry. Unfortunately, there is little knowledge regarding organizational socialization from the supervisors’ perspectives, although the importance of supervisors in newcomer socialization is one of the most robust findings in the field. The purpose of this paper is to examine how supervisors’ perceived organizational support (supervisor POS) and the quality of their working relationships with newcomers (supervisor leader-member exchange (LMX)) relate to the delegation of authority to newcomers and how delegation in turn relates to newcomers’ work adjustment.

A sample of new employees completed questionnaires that included delegation and socialization outcome measures. Supervisors evaluated their POS and the quality of their working relationships with newcomers (LMX).

The results showed that supervisor POS moderated the relationship between supervisor LMX and delegation. Specifically, supervisors with high POS showed delegation to newcomers irrespective of their LMX. Conversely, when supervisors’ POS was low, a high LMX was related to delegation. The results further showed that delegation was positively related to newcomers’ role clarity, organizational knowledge, and job satisfaction. Finally, the results showed indirect effects of supervisor LMX on newcomers’ role clarity and job satisfaction through delegation contingent on supervisor POS.

This study showed that a supervisor’s social exchange relations both with the organization and with a new employee are important in the delegation of authority and responsibility to a newcomer and that this delegation in turn relates to newcomers’ work adjustment.

This paper reports on the implementation and evaluation of the JOBS programme in Ireland. This is a training intervention to promote re‐employment and improve mental health among unemployed people that was implemented on a pilot basis in the border region of the Republic and Northern Ireland. Programme participants were unemployed people recruited from local training and employment offices and health agencies. The evaluation indicated that the programme was implemented successfully and led to improved psychological and re‐employment outcomes for the intervention group, lasting up to 12 months post‐intervention. This paper reflects on the implementation issues that arose in adapting an international evidence‐based programme to the local setting and considers the implications of the evaluation findings for the roll out of the programme on a larger scale.

Increasing competition in global markets requires many countries to seek new growth sectors. In addition, the nature of competition is changing. This paper applies the business ecosystem concept and studies San Diego as a spatial health and life sciences ecosystem. The purpose of this paper is to identify issues that should be considered in design of innovation policies and regional industry development.

The research approach is built on a literature review of business ecosystems and spatial innovation. The empirical study is based on semi-structured interviews, observations, and information gathering and verification during field research.

The results include a description of the ecosystem structure and dynamics. This paper demonstrates the bottom-up nature of San Diego’s health and life sciences ecosystem without a dominant lead actor, and presents prerequisites for fostering spatial ecosystems.

A single case may not be able to offer a generalized picture of this topic. However, the study raises several considerations for researchers and decision-makers involved in innovation policy design. Future work should extend the study and involve other spatial and substance contexts to compare findings and to pursue a more generic picture of innovation ecosystems and networks.

This paper demonstrates that applying the concept of business ecosystems to the spatial context provides new insights in terms of dynamic mechanisms and factors contributing to economic growth in a particular location. Understanding how to facilitate the creation of successful spatial ecosystems is in the focal point of innovation policies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the distribution of learning and training opportunities in the Finnish workforce. It will concentrate on the sectors of the workforce that lack these opportunities.

The Working Conditions Barometer (WCB) data from 2008, 2009 and 2010 are used (N = 3,326) in this investigation. The focus of the study is to examine those employees whose learning and training opportunities fail to match the positive visions of the current “super professional hype”. The problems associated with the workforce training margin are considered as a part of the so-called work process debate.

Findings suggest that age, gender, type of industry and socioeconomic status have an independent influence on an individual’s presence in the training margin: women, older employees, employees in manufacturing and the private service sector and manual workers have a greater risk than others do. The relative differences between the social classes are still prevalent: incapacity and marginalization are primarily working class problems.

The workers should collectively demand certain benefits more forcefully, even when working under fixed-term contracts. Employers should be pressured to organise development opportunities and training for the fixed-term employees, including the type of training that not only benefits an employee in that one company but also the employees’ working life in general. Employers should be persuaded to organise the type of training that improves the chances of a fixed-term or otherwise powerless employee to find a new, perhaps better and more secure job.

Because the percentage of response to the WCB is exceptionally high, 80 per cent on average, the information obtained from the random sample can be generalised to represent all of the working wage earners in Finland and in a European context as well.