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The Security and Intelligence Services (known as MI5 and MI6) have statutory authority to act in respect of the economic well‐being of the UK. The Security Service Act 1989 defines MI5's role as being to safe‐guard economic well‐being, while the Intelligence Services Act 1994 empowers MI6 more specifically to obtain and provide information in relation to this interest. Both organisations are limited, in this context, to operating in respect of the actions or intentions of persons outside the British Isles. This concern with the protection of economic well‐being is not a recent development. As long ago as the 18th century, Parliament was sufficiently concerned by the suborning of skilled British workers by the French to pass legislation against industrial espionage. At the same time, Britain was sending intelligence agents into France to gather similar information. The state and private industry worked closely together to protect national interests from espionage, and to seek out intelligence on foreign industrial techniques. The nature of the intelligence sought covered purely commercial targets, such as wool manufacturing and clock making, as well as military technology, such as shipbuilding. This brief historical comparison high‐lights issues which are still pertinent. First, the shared interest that government and industry have in acquiring intelligence in this area. Secondly, that such espionage has a twofold objective of gathering information relating to both commercial and military‐industrial matters.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on how the author’s status as an international academic wanting to maintain “local” research relationships in the author’s country of origin both improved and derailed the process of conducting an organizational ethnography.

Using visual representations of the research design process inspired by Maxwell’s (2013) model, the paper traces the evolution of a glocal engaged scholarship project and the personal, professional, and commitments that pulled the researcher and the research project in competing directions.

The first iteration of the project showed that, despite geographical nomadism, the author was firmly anchored to professional norms and methodological choices, with these attachments to values, principles, and practices constituting a global academic “home.” As the project unfolded, local organizational needs and desires that called into question the researcher’s local organizational knowledge and methodological choices destabilized the author’s sense of home, creating a situation of “away-ness” that acted as a catalyst for reflexivity about the project and relationships with organizational partners.

By overturning a view of home as being rooted in a particular locale and homelessness as being nomadic, this confessional tale problematizes the idea that some organizational ethnographers and projects are local while others are foreign.

The Integrated Supply Chain at Xerox Ltd is a large complex organisation which has many potential impacts on the environment. In order to better understand and reduce those impacts, an environmental bias has been introduced into the decision making process which allows more environmentally conscious decisions to be made. This paper details how the environmental bias was developed and how it can be used to provide both a measure of environmental performance for the whole supply chain, each functional element within the chain and for different product delivery scenarios. The environmental decision making tool construction is discussed and preliminary results show that it is the working life of a typical product which causes the biggest environmental impact.

During the last 20 years, there has been an explosion in the production and dissemination of a number of highly popular managerial concepts. These initiatives, such as TQM and BPR, highlight a number of themes. Refers to these new movements as “new managerialism”, supported by new institutional frameworks which all act as sources and bearers of management knowledge upon which, in part, professional managers draw for practical guidance. Uses Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical methods to argue that new managerialism is a discourse on a grand scale as well as emerging and dispersing locally, occurring in everyday talk and text, or “discourse”. According to Foucault, one of the effects of grand scale new managerialism is that it exerts a disciplinary gaze over managers who are immersed in its knowledges, and who seek to follow its guidelines to achieve “best practice”. As leaders, this best practice relies on the utilisation of “charisma”. Using interpretive repertoires, a method that is sympathetic to this approach, analyses the talk of two everyday managers who describe their roles as leaders, as well as a group of employees, or “followers”, and notes the importance of “charisma” in their accounts. Shows how the projection of a charismatic identity is central both accounts, and suggests that the individuals studied are subject to a charismatic gaze.

The homosexual community has undoubtedly been assuming senior managerial positions of authority within government for generations, Clinard (1968). However, homosexuals are now moving more publicly, rather than surreptitiously into the echelons of managerial roles within the bureaucracy, (Clinard, 1968, Barker & Allen,, 1976, Wofford, 1993). This research suggests that this homosexual openness has in some cases created an environmental despotism where the homosexual managerial minority may openly and selectively discriminate towards their fraternal association and specifically against the heterosexual majority. Is there now the means, for homosexual managers to impose retribution for the chronicled persecution of homosexuals by heterosexuals? If so, could this retribution be leading to homosexual managers replicating the ideologies of the “old boys’ club” by creating their separatist “guys’ club”. Would this sex-oriented preference discrimination resemble a somewhat disturbing paradox: Discrimination defined by sex inclination and such discrimination which ironically was associated with the powerful heterosexual males, and which they mysteriously fought vigorously and actively against?

The purpose of this paper is to aim to help those in the learning and training community understand the potential applications and practicalities of mobile learning, and how it can be exploited to improve competitiveness – particularly important in this difficult economic climate.

Based on recent academic research and on piloted initiatives, the role of mobile learning in improving organizational performance is explored in a step‐by‐step guide.

In today's highly mobile and competitive world, organizations need to change the way in which they provide skills training for employees. As traditional forms of learning become less common, mobile devices, such as MP3 players and PDAs, will increasingly be used to help train and support the performance of staff.

This article is of considerable practical importance to learning and development managers, as it outlines the most important aspects of mobile learning and how it can be used to improve organizational performance.

The purpose of this study is to determine the main challenges that IT security practitioners face in their organizations, including the interplay among human, organizational, and technological factors.

The data set consisted of 36 semi‐structured interviews with IT security practitioners from 17 organizations (academic, government, and private). The interviews were analyzed using qualitative description with constant comparison and inductive analysis of the data to identify the challenges that security practitioners face.

A total of 18 challenges that can affect IT security management within organizations are indentified and described. This analysis is grounded in related work to build an integrated framework of security challenges. The framework illustrates the interplay among human, organizational, and technological factors.

The framework can help organizations identify potential challenges when implementing security standards, and determine if they are using their security resources effectively to address the challenges. It also provides a way to understand the interplay of the different factors, for example, how the culture of the organization and decentralization of IT security trigger security issues that make security management more difficult. Several opportunities for researchers and developers to improve the technology and processes used to support adoption of security policies and standards within organizations are provided.

A comprehensive list of human, organizational, and technological challenges that security experts have to face within their organizations is presented. In addition, these challenges within a framework that illustrates the interplay between factors and the consequences of this interplay for organizations are integrated.