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The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of organizational level on employees' perceptions and reactions to a complex organizational change involving proposed work force redesign, downsizing and a physical move to a new hospital.

Participants included executives, supervisory and non‐supervisory staff in a major tertiary hospital. Recorded in‐depth interviews were conducted with 61 employees about the positive and negative aspects of the change.

A total of 12 themes were identified from content coding, including emotional responses and attitudes toward the change, issues about the management of the change process and about change outcomes. Supervisory and non‐supervisory staff referred more to conflict and divisions, and expressed more negative attitudes toward the change, than did executives. Executives and supervisory staff focused more on planning challenges and potential outcomes of the change than did non‐supervisory staff. Finally, compared to other staff, executives focused more on participation in the change process and communication about the change process.

This study examines the organizational change at only one time point in one organization. Perceptions of the change may change over time, and other identities like professional identity may influence perceptions.

These findings suggest that change agents should consider the needs of different organizational groups in order to achieve effective and successful organizational change.

This study clearly shows the impact of organizational level, identifying similarities and differences in perceptions of change across level.

This review is divided into three sections describing the state of the Canadian clothing market; the trade situation and the penetration of the market by American retailers, giving an interesting insight into the ongoing internationalisation of the sector. It is based upon articles published in Apparel Insights (The Canadian Apparel Market Newsletter) and the material is reproduced with permission from the aforementioned ‘Apparel Insights — A Canadian Quarterly Apparel Market’, a newsletter published by Apparel Management Insights, PO Box 694, Postal Station B, Ottawa, ON KIP 598, Canada (publisher: Constantine Campaniaris; editor: Jim Heppell). Data from the Canadian Apparel Market Monitor were provided by Randy Harris of Kormos, Harris and Associates.

The paper seeks to explain the pattern of strategic responses by the US textile and apparel industries to changes in their business environment since 1979.

The study is based on a literature review and interviews with officers from leading US corporations, government agencies and trade associations. The approach examines strategic responses to environmental change. The study takes a macro perspective to permit an understanding of the forces operating at the industry level.

Shifting market requirements, intensifying international competition, powerful retailers, and rapid technological change have confronted the US textile and apparel sectors. In responding to these, companies have developed more creative, change‐seeking business cultures, and more flexible operational arrangements. However, both industries have exhibited change‐resisting characteristics in their responses. Many companies have been forced into bankruptcy. Today both industries are radically different, in terms of their strategies, business scope, technological intensity, organizational structure, and supply chain relationships.

The paper provides a generalized perspective on the broad thrusts of strategic changes across the two sectors. Further work could develop this analysis at a micro level.

The paper highlights the need for US companies to develop more change‐seeking business cultures, more flexible operational arrangements, an international orientation and a sharper business focus.

The paper provides a long‐term, systemic perspective on strategic responses to environmental change at the industry level. It has policy‐making value to practitioners and government agencies, and instructional value to teachers and students.

Library of Congress update The Urgent Supplemental Appropriations Bill for FY 1986 signed into law in July by Ronald Reagan contained an appropriation of $867 000 for the Library of Congress. This means that the general reading room is able to restore evening and weekend hours. The ten “Books Not Bombs” people who first protested the closure spent several weeks in July in a courtroom trial, where testimony was given by the Librarian of Congress and other officials. Since the “freedom readers”; as they are called in a newspaper article, face jail and/or a fine, perhaps appreciative scholars and researchers should start a fund to help defray the costs of their protest.

Explains how the induction week and day‐long Beer Academy course prepare new employees for work at Coors, Britain's second‐largest brewery.

Provides the background to the brewery's involvement in the Beer Academy and presents a timetable of a typical induction week.

Highlights the way in which new recruits are taught about beer and the brewing process, the Coors structure and the company's vision and values.

Contains plenty of ideas for HR and training specialists responsible for planning induction training.

Describes the Coors belief that, if you get people fired up about the company early on and explain to them exactly where the company is going, they will be more likely to feel part of it.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight gendered media constructions which discourage women's acceptability as political leaders and trivialise or ignore their contribution.

Media analysis of UK newspapers, government web sites, worldwide web relating to the UK 2010 government election, women MPs and in particular representations of Harriet Harman and Theresa May.

Media constructions of UK women political leaders are gendered and powerful in messaging women's (un)acceptability as leaders against embedded stereotypes. Being invisible via tokenism and yet spotlighted on the basis of their gender, media constructions trivialize their contribution, thus detracting from their credibility as leaders.

UK‐based study grounded in opportune “snapshot” media analysis during election and resultant formation of UK coalition Government. Focus on two women political leaders, results may not be generalisable.

Raises awareness of the numerical minority status of UK women political leaders, the invisibility‐visibility contradiction and the power of the media to construct women leaders against gender stereotypes. Call for continued challenge to gendered leader stereotypes and women's representation in UK political leadership.

Highlights power of media to perpetuate gender stereotypes of UK women political leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of involving students and staff on school action groups, and staff and student experiences of reviewing local data and initiating school-level changes, to address bullying and other aggression.

The authors draw on qualitative, process data collected at four purposively sampled pilot intervention schools in England via semi-structured interviews with school managers, action group members and facilitators (n=33), focus groups with students (n=16) and staff (n=4), and observations.

School staff used multiple methods to recruit a diverse range of students onto school action groups. Locally tailored data reports were an important catalyst for action groups to identify priorities and plan whole school change – both through the process of “validation” (whereby existing concerns were confirmed) and “discovery” (whereby new problems were identified). An unexpected benefit of providing schools with these data was that it triggered analyses of other data sources, including routine monitoring data. External facilitators were important in promoting student voice and ensuring the intervention retained integrity as a whole-school restorative approach.

It was feasible to involve young people using action groups, and there was evidence of school-level actions led by students, including in disadvantaged school contexts. Future Health Promoting Schools interventions could incorporate this approach to support locally appropriate, school-level change.

The micro-level processes that were observed, whereby action groups interrogated feedback reports and collected additional data, suggest the responsiveness of such youth-involvement interventions to local needs. Contrary to many public health interventions, implementation appeared to be facilitated rather than hindered by features of the secondary-school “market” whereby parents have some choice between schools.

While there is a rich literature on the role of partnerships between statutory agencies and third sector organisations for public service delivery in health and social care, the evidence base on, partnerships between community-based groups and charities for older people in the UK is lacking. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, the purpose of this paper is to examines partnerships within 46 live at home (LAH) schemes. These schemes were specifically designed to tackle isolation and promote independence and wellbeing by providing a wide range of activities, based on the needs of its members.

This study is based on an online survey of 46 LAH schemes and face-to-face interviews with seven scheme managers to capture data on the various partnership initiatives within the LAH schemes.

Third sector partnerships for older people varied by type – formal, semi-formal and informal. In addition, third sector partnership working fosters the achievement of clear outcomes for older people who LAH and could be a mechanism for building social capital in communities. The study also identified barriers to developing third sector partnerships within this context. Mapping existing partnerships in LAH schemes were considered to be useful in engaging with partners. LAH scheme managers were better able to identify partnerships that could be deepened and broadened, depending on the desired outcomes.

To the author’s knowledge, there are few studies on third sector partnership working in LAH schemes for older people. According to Age UK, there are 1.2m chronically lonely older people in the UK. Over half of all people aged 75 and over live alone (ONS, 2015). Loneliness and social isolation in later life are considered to be two of the largest health concerns we face. Scaling up these third sector partnerships may offer a credible way to shore up support for older people who live alone or want to live at home.