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Examines the management of quality from the perspective of organizational culture change. Discusses the nature of quality and the evolution of the management of quality in relation to key issues arising from the literature on organizational culture. It is found that total quality management (TQM) makes a number of assumptions about organizational culture. Adopts an integrationist perspective, with culture defined in terms of something an organization has, as opposed to something an organization is. Presents a tentative model of the relationship implied between TQM and organizational culture. A number of questions emerge, not least of which concern the strength and direction of this relationship. The culture perspective is likely to challenge some of the basic assumptions found in the TQM literature. In so doing, it may inform organizational attempts to raise levels of quality.

Goal setting and feedback techniques have previously been used to improve safety behaviour. Describes a pilot study of the application of a behaviour‐based quality improvement process in a continuous process production plant with a particular focus on certain aspects of the organizational structure and climate which might be conducive to the changes necessary to facilitate this approach. Since “quality improvement”, unlike “safety improvement”, is more likely to be contingent on interactions with other people, the need to optimize communication and interpersonal relationships at work are important. Suggests that an internal customer, linking‐pin model provides the optimal conditions required, and ensures a high level of employee participation in the process of continuous quality improvement.

For generations retailing has had to fight against its image as a second‐class occupation. Successive governments have tended to regard it as less important than manufacturing industry, and this view has been reinforced by careers officers who, in the palmy days when school‐leavers were in the privileged position of having an element of choice in their jobs, adopted a condescending if not dismissive attitude to “working in a shop”. If anything this attitude has been even more marked at graduate level; as our contributor writes, retailing has been generally neglected by universities, and even by many management centres and business schools. There are, of course, some exceptions. One of the most notable of these is the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology; UMIST was one of the first in the UK to develop courses in retailing, and these are described here in some detail. The author is only too well aware that there are a number of universities and polytechnics whose retail courses have not been mentioned in this feature; equally that there are personnel officers who will justifiably feel that they are not guilty of the charges levelled against them in the section entitled “Graduate Retailers”. We welcome correspondence from educational organisations or individuals who desire to put the record straight.

Moving away from the stories of financial disaster we encountered in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 examines what it means for fans when their club is suddenly awash with more financial muscle than some nation-states due to the generosity of a wealthy benefactor who is seemingly more interested in sporting glory than in financial gain. This chapter engages with the notion of the football club as a billionaire’s plaything. Roman Abramovich’s acquisition of Chelsea in 2003 saw the West London club embark on an eye-watering spending spree and a sustained period of on-field successes, one that was unknown in the club’s history to that point. As a result, we take Chelsea during the Abramovich era as a starting point for considering how this model of ownership affects the relationship between fans and the connection that they have with their club. The evident success that financial muscle can bring shows owners what a happy fanbase is capable of, what they are capable of doing, and what they are capable of ignoring. The success of the financially doped teams of the 2000s created a precedent for winning over a fanbase with a successful football club, but nevertheless sat awkwardly with the normative ideals of how a football club should exist in the world and relate to its supporters.

The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between the belief in redeemability – Version 2 (BIR-2) Scale and desistance from crime. It also seeks to explore how patterns of responding on the BIR-2 with offenders compare to previous patterns of responding in the general public.

The authors report the results of a study of offenders using the belief in redeemability – Version 2 (BiR-2) scale. In total, 180 offenders under the supervision of the Community Corrections Service (formerly the Probation and Parole Service) of New South Wales completed the ten-item questionnaire and when these data were combined with demographic and reoffending data collected by Corrective Services New South Wales, 168 sets of useable data were collected. Scores on the BIR-2 scale were compared to Level of Service Inventory – Revised (LSI-R) score, Most Serious Offence category, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status, number of custodial sentences in previous five years, age, gender and reoffending.

Results showed that the sample overall was closely representative of the caseload from which the study sample was drawn (a metropolitan community corrections office) and that BIR-2 scores showed a small, significant, negative correlation with LSI-R scores. Analysis of re-offending data indicated a small, positive, but non-significant correlation with BIR-2. Implications of this are discussed and future research outlined.

The paper suggests that it is worth attempting to measure belief in redeemability in the broader context of a narrative approach to desistance.

This is the first time that a scale has been used to test the importance of a belief in redeemability quantitatively and to permit the use of multivariate analysis.

Kevin McRider, the COO of a fledging research facility, needed to foster an environment where scientists explored the boundaries of the metals, chemicals, polymers and tools used to create innovating medical devices. The freshly-minted PhDs he hired were enthusiastic to design and conduct research projects that bridged their scientific disciplines, in a collaborative workplace, with time allocated to individual projects as well. Effectively managed, their research would help the parent corporation leapfrog over existing or near-future technology.

The problem for McRider was how to get Lintell to realize his vision of a collaborative organizational culture that promoted revolutionary scientific discoveries. His challenges included managerial behaviors that prohibited critical interaction and information sharing, as well as disruptive organizational dynamics he himself had set in motion including pressures to focus only on certain research goals and projects at the expense of creative exploration, and the violation of the psychological contracts McRider himself had created with the scientists during recruitment.

Asked about the day‐to‐day command of the giant Dell Inc. empire, entrepreneur and founder Michael S. Dell said of his close associate Kevin B. Rollins: “This company is much stronger when the two of us are doing it together – but if I get hit by a truck he’s the CEO. Everyone knows that.”

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the current landscape of training strategies being implemented and a view of the future.

This paper was written based on the findings and observations from our consulting work with organizational clients, placing them in an historical perspective.

While technologies change, how we learn does not. If you want to be strategic about the technologies you use, look for the underlying principles of learning upon which they are built.

This paper can help an organization be more thoughtful and intentional about the training/learning strategies they use rather than be drawn to the new shining object or latest fad of trend.

WHAT ARE ANY company's most valuable assets? There are some who would say they are its goodwill; but there are plenty of experts who go from firm to firm and from one country to another (and themselves gain an enviable living while doing so) stating without admitting any doubt that to any establishment worth anything at all a workforce is its most valuable asset.