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The purpose of this paper is to profile the research activity, research skills and enablers of research of clinical psychologists in the Republic of Ireland.

All clinical psychologists working in the Health Service Executive (HSE) or HSE-funded organisations were requested to complete an online survey examining their research capacity. A total of 170 clinical psychologists completed the survey, with an estimated response rate of 20-25 per cent.

Within the preceding two years, 60 per cent (n=102) of the clinical psychologists sampled had engaged in research. These research active participants were involved with a median of three projects and the majority spent 10 per cent or less of their work time engaged in research. The weakest research skills of research active and research inactive participants were applying for research funding and publishing research. Research active participants indicated a reliance on their own personal motivation to maintain their research activity and indicated a need for more protected time for research.

Managers within the health service need to be incentivised to allocate protected work time for research that directly contributes to service provision. Greater collaboration with academic institutions is needed with regard to targeting the research skills development of clinical psychologists, as well as identifying opportunities for collaborative research.

This is the first survey to profile the research activity and skills of clinical psychologists in the Republic of Ireland and provides an evidence base for future research capacity development.

Examines Laughlin Currie's experiences in helping to implement the New Deal, a new monetary system of Roosevelt's administration implemented during the 1930s.

This chapter examines public versus private sector roles in addressing CSR/Sustainability issues in the United States. It provides an historical perspective on the primacy of market-driven corporate practice in the United States and recent moves by the state to “balance” private and public interests through both regulatory and non-regulatory means. A typology of government and business roles, based on “who leads” and “who makes the rules,” illustrates shared governance of CSR/Sustainability in a variety of multisector and public–private partnerships.

Case studies examine how the U.S. government interacts with business and NGOs and its varied roles in the shared governance of sustainability. Examples from field interviews with business leaders in global operator General Electric (Global Business Initiative on Human Rights), apparel maker-and-seller Patagonia (Aquatic “Hitchhikers”), electronics retailer Best Buy (product recycling), IBM (global corporate volunteering), and others illustrate varieties of shared governance between business and the state in operation today.

Depending on “who leads” and “who makes the rules,” there are variations in whether responsible actions by the private sector are regulatory versus voluntary and whether government’s role involves mandating, partnering, facilitating, or endorsing private sector efforts. Successful shared governance depends on business’s “license to cooperate” and the multiple parties’s sharing responsibility for their goals, operations, and results.

There is a substantial literature on multi-business CSR-related networks and on business–NGO partnerships. Less attention has been given to the role of governments in this space, particularly in the United States where, partly for historical reasons, a company’s relationship with and obligations to society have been regarded as discretionary more so than regulatory activity and where government intervention in markets and in the affairs of companies has been sharply resisted, particularly by business interests, and is suspect among the citizenry.

The aim of this paper is to report on development and use of a survey instrument that captures qualitative, process‐related data from local authority officers in New Zealand, from which is derived a rigorous and parsimonious set of critical performance measures.

An instrument was developed utilising performance exemplars promoted by industry‐respected consulting experts. New Zealand local authorities were surveyed and exploratory factor analysis used to identify what the factors represent conceptually. Profile Similarity Indices (PSIs) describe the alignment between expected and actual consultant performances.

A rigorous set of five critical process‐related dimensions of performance and their associated (18) scales were derived, which demonstrate the desired properties of reliability and validity. Interpretation of the Profile Similarity Indices values is provided.

Subjective data on excellent consulting practice sourced from industry‐respected consultants was used rather than justifying reasons for their choice from a theoretical basis. Generalisability of results to other business and industry sectors remains to be tested.

The derived performance measures may be used by practitioners to objectively assess management consultant performance and local authority performance (in specifying the contract). Where performance discrepancies exist, reasons and remedial actions may be determined via consideration of the individual scale items.

There continues to be a lack of research into the practices employed by local authorities when they retain and manage their management consultants; such purchasers often experience difficulty judging what is being offered and what kinds and levels of performance are relevant and achievable. Underperformance may be due to a lack of objective and well‐developed consulting performance standards. The present study examines these gaps.

This article considers strategic transformation and how organisations can learn to become better at strategically transforming themselves over time. Two case studies are considered, Marks & Spencer and Intel, and these provide two contrasting examples of how organisations can either be reactive or proactive in managing strategic transformation. The article argues that in order for strategic transformation to become an art it must become part of the unconscious competence mindset of the organisation. A number of questions/statements are developed which help managers to fine‐tune their strategic transformation skills and these are interlinked and combine to form a strategic transformation framework. Thus, the article intends to be of practical use to managers.

This case invites students to evaluate, based on given materials, the causes, consequences, and potential resolutions of the financial crisis of 2007–2009. The premise of a business professor preparing a slide presentation dramatizes an analysis of the financial crisis. Reviewing his data, much of it in graph form, the professor ponders the central role of banks and the impact of risk management, leverage, and incentives. His main thesis is that the fundamental issue surrounding this crisis was the misjudgment of the risks taken, with the result that risk management failed to do its job of curtailing and managing risk as expected.

Broadly conceptualised, a consultant's work can be evaluated by the deliverables produced and by the process used to achieve those deliverables. This paper seeks to report the use of a survey instrument to assess and compare management consultant process performance and client performance (in specifying the contract), enabling meaningful dialogue between the parties.

A validated instrument, previously developed by the authors, was employed to survey all local and regional authorities in New Zealand regarding the expectations they have of their management consultants and their perceptions of process performance. Congruence of the performance profiles was assessed with the aid of profile similarity indices.

While results for the sector indicate that New Zealand local authorities appear to be generally well satisfied with the levels of service they are receiving from their management consultants, individual authorities are experiencing significant gaps between their expectations and what is being delivered. In addition, misalignments between client expectations and benchmark process performance measures indicate a lack of rigour when specifying contracts.

The research makes use of subjective measures of excellent consulting practice sourced from industry‐respected consultants and authors in the field, rather than attempting to justify their choice from a theoretical basis. Conceptual difficulties with the use of profile similarity indices in alignment research are noted. The generalisability of the benchmark performance standards to consultants operating in other sectors remains to be tested.

Benchmark consultant performance standards provide the basis for local authorities to insist upon internationally recognized and recommended standards of contract delivery. The use of well‐developed process performance measures to assess differences between local authority expectations and perceived consultant performance, and between perceived consultant performance and benchmark expectations, provides the opportunity for local authorities and their consultants to engage in meaningful and objective dialogue. Skilled consultants will benefit from dialogue that should translate into greater respect and understanding of their true worth, and into the setting of contract specifications and pricing that reflect this assessment.

Previous authors have argued the lack of well‐developed performance measures and attendant benchmark performance standards expected of consultants. The present study directly addresses these gaps and focuses on the manner in which management consultants work with public sector clients to produce contract deliverables. Validated benchmark measures are used to detect process performance gaps, providing the opportunity for local authorities and their consultants to engage in meaningful dialogue.

The Manpower Consultative Group for the Hotel and Catering Industry has for the last 18 months shown a serious concern for the critical manpower situation faced by that industry. The Group's Chairman, in a recent statement entitled ‘Manpower weaknesses hamper industry's efficiency and restrict its growth’ drew attention to the achievements of the Group and to a number of important studies due to be reported this year: