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The purpose of this paper is to describe a hybrid approach to the research developed during a multi-researcher, ethnographic study of NHS management in the UK.

This methodological paper elaborates a hybrid approach to the sociological analysis – the critical-action theory – and indicates how it can contribute to the critical health management studies.

After exploring the various theoretical, methodological and philosophical options available, the paper discusses the main research issues that influenced the development of this perspective and the process by which the critical-action perspective was applied to the studies of managerial work in four health service sectors – acute hospitals, ambulance services, community services and mental healthcare.

This methodological perspective enabled a critical analysis of health service organisation that considered macro, meso and micro effects, in particular and in this case, how new public management drained power from clinicians through managerialist discourses and practices.

Healthcare organisations are often responding to the decisions that lie outside of their control and may have to enact changes that make little sense locally. In order to make sense of these effects, micro-, meso- and macro-level analyses are necessary.

The critical-action perspective is presented as an adjunct to traditional approaches that have been taken to the study of health service organisation and delivery.

This paper aims to explore the culture of working life in British financial services multinationals in the period leading up to the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

Informed by labour process theory, the paper is based on a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews with technicians and junior managers in British insurance and banking MNCs.

The data demonstrate widespread employee disaffection with a new culture of corporate life that has emerged in the last two decades. Employees faced work intensification and were highly critical of what they saw as detached, ruthless, and often incompetent top leadership. Senior management is described as operating in an “echo chamber”, insulated from the “realities” of the workplace.

The paper argues that the unpleasant work culture experienced by employees at middle and lower levels closely mirrors the broader excesses and failings of banks and insurance firms during the recent financial crisis. Excessive risk-taking, short-termism, and inattention to detail are widely given as causes of the crisis. This paper argues that senior leadership failings are also manifest in short-sighted, undignified, and ethically unsound treatment of staff, leading to severe problems with staff morale.

The paper provides detailed qualitative data on the realities of working life in financial services before the recent financial crisis, and suggests ways for labour process theory to consider how restructuring is not only challenging for employees but can also be debilitating for the organisation itself.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

Presents a unique view of informality within the government of Tatarstan which challenges the notion that these forms can be dismissed as simply corruption. Focuses on interviews with investors and businessmen, showing how informality can be an important factor in the reproduction of elite classes. Limits the article to the unique dynamics of the transition from command economy to free market economy but provides resonance with the experiences of those who have worked in many third‐world societies.

This monograph contains abstracts from the 2005 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, 6‐7th September 2005

The paper's aim is to consider the effects of recurrent economic crisis on the management and organisational structures of transnational companies based in the UK by considering contemporary evidence and scholarly views of the processes involved, and especially to consider the contributions of the papers that follow in this special issue of the journal.

The paper provides a summary overview of some of the key evidence and arguments concerning the origin of recent continuing crises in Western capitalism. The paper places in context and assesses the contribution of five papers especially selected by the editors to be included in this special issue which bear on different aspects.

The paper suggests several key processes are at work in contemporary capitalism, which can be summed up as increasing financialisation. This is the process by which businesses are increasingly orientated to the extraction of value, and success is primarily assessed in terms of the rate of return to capital employed. In their different ways the papers in the special issue illustrate aspects of the process of financialisation, including: the operation of a new set of financial institutions including private equity and hedge funds, and the effects of these on the various policies and priorities of the executive leaders of large businesses in such areas as human resource management and the adoption of new organisational forms. The discussion extends to the consideration of the effects of change on international finance and argues for the origins of changes in changed class relations.

The implications of this work are that the character and reach of current economic change are further illuminated – including especially the underlying causes of the present economic crisis.

Financialisation represents both a reorganisation of the processes of capitalist production and a class strategy of international elites to entrench their advantages in the new conditions of international political economy opened through the intellectual and policy triumph of neoliberal thinking.

The work brings together scattered insights and viewpoints and builds them into a coherent synthesis. It thus moves beyond limited conceptions and insights.

This paper aims to identify the relationship between national culture, enterprise application (EA) implementations and firm value for a sample of the largest and most actively traded firms in Japan, the United Kingdom and the USA. The study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the cultural traits that play a role in successful technological innovation.

Using 11 years of price and accounting data, as well as corporate announcements from English- and Japanese-speaking sources, this study applies event study methodology and fixed-effects regressions to a sample of international adopters of enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management and firm-specific applications.

The results show a country-related contrast in the way investors perceive value in EAs. Investors with national cultures that are more collectivist perceive their firms to be well-prepared to extract value from large-scale technologies. In contrast, individualistic cultures seem to face more implementation challenges.

Although the study provides statistically significant results, a larger sample of countries and enterprise systems adopters would further enhance a generalization of results.

The empirical results provide evidence of the national culture traits that seem to increase the likelihood of success in enterprise systems implementations as seen from the perspective of actual investors.

The empirical study of how multiple EAs (ERP, SCR, CRM and SPECIFIC) and national culture differences interact with a market-based metric of value (stock market prices), while also using an international sample of firms from three distinct regions, is novel to the existent literature.

This paper seeks to consider employees' perceptions of engagement from their lived experiences of UK employees following the global credit crisis, post 2008. It draws from the prior studies of Hassard et al. (2009), which researched work practices in the period preceding the study.

The research utilised focus group discussion, which was analysed by template analysis from an interpretive perspective and adopts narratives to facilitate a critical interpretive paradigm.

There is clear evidence of theories surrounding the positive value of employee engagement, however the findings do not demonstrate that it is necessarily valued by UK management by their responses towards the work environment given post 2008 trading conditions.

The limitation of the study lies with the size of the sample participating. While this reflects the need for further future research to be undertaken, the study also recognises that the findings are determined by the perceptions of employees which may not reflect the intentions of the management within the organisations which they work.

There is a dearth of empirical study into the post 2008 period. This research attempts to ground theories of engagement within the post global credit crunch timeframe.

Economic activity is typically provided by three distinct sectors. For-profit entities seek to maximize owner profit by providing various goods and services. The not-for-profit sector consists of private or quasi-public entities that provide goods and services without regard to making an explicit profit. Government entities extract resources from the economy and redistribute them to achieve certain public goods.

Recently a fourth or gray sector has developed that combines elements of the other three. As a corporate form that explicitly sacrifices profit maximization to advance some predetermined social good, benefit corporations are one example of this gray sector. Owners are aware of this dual mission but still invest as the social objectives are consistent with their personal goals. Thus, the benefit corporation can be viewed as a for-profit entity subject to an explicit social welfare constraint.

Since the late 1960s governments have spent trillions of dollars on a wide variety of social welfare programs. Nevertheless, poverty persists and government altruism may have made poverty more intractable in some respects. Economic logic suggests that providing social welfare transfer payments with few work or training requirements can make recipients dependent and enable dysfunctional behavior. Over time this may rob recipients of opportunities for labor and self-sufficiency.

Benefit corporations are typically viewed as a form of socially responsible investment that leverages the economic advantages of market-based systems. To date, however, little has been written about the benefit corporation’s potential ethical dimensions. The purpose of this paper is to provide a moral argument based in Catholic Social Teaching to support the use of benefit corporations as a substitute for some government service programs. Our arguments are centered on the primary principle of Human Dignity and will include, but not be limited to: Work, Solidarity and there role social and economic society as well as the Role of Government or Subsidiarity (including the Welfare State).

What does it mean in practice to claim a right? Does claiming a right add to the persuasive power of political demands? Does it clothe political demands with a moral urgency, setting such claims apart from the ordinary class of interests? In examining these questions, I suggest that in practice rights’ claims add little to political discourse. This is because Americans equate their policy preferences with rights. I find scant evidence for the belief that Americans have sufficient knowledge of rights to make them meaningful or that pronouncements of rights have persuasive power or imbue issues with heightened moral legitimacy.