Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role played by leadership in divestment decision making and indeed during the corporate restructuring phase for retail organisations. In doing so, the paper aims to contribute to a growing body of research that seeks to develop understanding of the factors leading to retail divestment and the nature of corporate response to divestment.

A multiple case approach is utilised. The cases are selected from a database of international retail divestment activity over a longitudinal period.

The paper demonstrates that divestment can be a response to “failure”, however, support is also provided for the assertion that divestment can be a strategic decision to devote resources more efficiently elsewhere, either at home or abroad. A key finding is the role of leadership and managerial stability in relation to divestment and restructuring at home and abroad.

The themes presented in this paper are developed from observational data. The validity of the themes should be examined further through in‐depth, qualitative case studies of divestment activity. Future research could examine the role of new CEOs both in relation to the divestment itself and during the process of restructuring following divestment.

The role of leadership and managerial stability in divestment and corporate restructuring processes are highlighted. Insights are provided into the organisational response to divestment actions and the implications for further international strategies.

Academic debate on divestment has highlighted a wide range of reasons that lead to retailers divesting international operations and the strategic value of divestment. This paper adds to existing knowledge by examining the role of leadership within the divestment process.

Drawing from original empirical data this paper compares the changing nature of employment relations in the health and private sectors. A key concern is to assess the extent to which the emergence of partnership‐type arrangements between employers and trade unions lays the basis for the “renewal” of the traditional public sector concept of the model employer. Empirically, the paper draws on a survey of trade union representatives from 238 workplaces and a case study of a hospital trust. The data reveal that employment relations in the NHS are more collectivist when compared with the private sector. However, the development of partnership in the NHS is hamstrung by ongoing training and involvement gaps and widespread work intensification.

This paper has a dual role. First, it provides an overview of partnership, with particular reference to the present Labour Government and the shaping of its relations with the institutions of capital and business representation. Second, it provides an introduction to the special issue on “‘Assessing partnership: the prospects for, and challenges of, modernisation” and briefly outlines the papers included in it.

This study aims to understand the experiences of professional paid carers providing community support to people with intellectual disability “at risk of admission”. This study explores factors that were helpful or lacking in terms of the support the carers received from NHS health services during this time.

This study conducted semi-structured interview with eight participants. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.

Three main themes and ten subthemes were identified. The first main theme was “support systems” that were available or lacking for the client and their carers. The second main theme was “training and supervision” available to the carers and their team when the individual they supported needed additional support. The third theme was “change” clients encountered which included changes in the environment as well as changes because of COVID-19 pandemic.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on experiences of carers during specifically high stress periods, such as when the clients they are supporting are at risk of hospital admission.

The article examines the attitudes and experiences of senior workplace trade union representatives, from the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union, against the TUC’s six principles of partnership. The findings suggest some acceptance of the ideological aspects of partnership, such as the need to move away from adversarial cultures and understand the impact of market imperatives and pressures on the firm. The results reveal little support, however, for improvements in job security, transparency and involvement and the quality of working life (the TUC’s so‐called “acid test” of partnership). Against a backdrop of job insecurity and widespread work intensification, the article argues that the material and organisational basis to partnership appears to be undermining various attitudinal changes within the thinking of trade union representatives regarding their roles and relations at work.

Human resource management (HRM) processes are increasingly artificial intelligence (AI)-driven, and HRM supports the general digital transformation of companies' viable competitiveness. This paper points out possible positive and negative effects on HRM, workplaces and workers’ organizations along the HR processes and its potential for competitive advantage in regard to managerial decisions on AI implementation regarding augmentation and automation of work.

A systematic literature review that includes 62 international journals across different disciplines and contains top-tier academic and German practitioner journals was conducted. The literature analysis applies the resource-based view (RBV) as a lens through which to explore AI-driven HRM as a potential source of organizational capabilities.

The analysis shows four ambiguities for AI-driven HRM that might support sustainable company development or might prevent AI application: job design, transparency, performance and data ambiguity. A limited scholarly discussion with very few empirical studies can be stated. To date, research has mainly focused on HRM in general, recruiting and HR analytics in particular.

The four ambiguities' context-specific potential for capability building in firms is indicated, and research avenues are developed.

This paper critically explores AI-driven HRM and structures context-specific potential for capability building along four ambiguities that must be addressed by HRM to strategically contribute to an organization's competitive advantage.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

The equator principles constitute an international voluntary code developed by banks to encourage consideration of environmental and social issues in project financing. Such codes can flexibly bridge the gap between individual companies' sustainability initiatives and mandatory, legal regulation. However, concerns continue to be expressed that the equator principles reporting of banks is not fully satisfactory, so the aim of this paper is to investigate both the nature of the success and the shortcomings of equator principles reporting.

The paper is based on academic literature on motivations for corporate social responsibility and various publications by non‐government organisations and professional accounting and legal organisations, together with analysis of the disclosures made by Barclays and HSBC. In addition, access was gained for semi‐structured interviews with some senior executives/consultants.

While the voluntary equator principles initiative has been remarkably successful in matching banks' strategic motivation, the environmental benefit may primarily be a by‐product of the risk management processes of banks, consistent with enlightened shareholder theory. This does not mean the environmental benefits may not be real but, without more detailed project‐level disclosure and a standardised performance evaluation system, it is difficult to measure the extent to which the equator principles have had a positive effect on the environment.

Further research is needed to gauge how the equator principles impact front‐line decision making. There could usefully be further standardisation of equator principles reporting formats, with more detail about project‐level implementation. With respect to reports of external assurers, it remains an open question as to whether these should be made compulsory, subject to further specification of the independence and competence standards.

The study helps to illuminate the effectiveness of a voluntary code such as the equator principles in the social construction of how enlightened shareholder theory is to be interpreted and implemented. It makes an initial response to recent calls by Bebbington et al. and Adams for further empirical corporate social responsibility research and more direct engagement with organisations.

The chapter presents emerging evidence on the development of the platform economy, paying particular attention to the motivations for entering platform work, the conditions of platform work, and the extent of social protections afforded platform workers. Debate thus far has tended to be highly speculative and lacking in grounded empirical analysis, with policy-makers in particular actively looking to regulate platform work on the basis of its novelty as a form of employment within the wider context of the decline of the “standard employment relationship.” The chapter explores such concerns through an analysis of European Union labor market data and a unique data-set of circa 1,200 online “click workers” across four established platforms. A novel contribution of the analysis is to differentiate between those that only work on platforms (work-dependent platform workers) and those that do such work in addition to another job. The analysis suggests that work-dependent platform workers are more likely to be differentiated by their motivations for doing such work than their experiences of job quality or access to social protections. However, the relationship between platform working and levels of social protection is complex, notably in terms of combined level of social protection and the contractual arrangement of additional job holders. This leaves us to conclude that policy initiatives designed to address gaps in social protections for platform workers would be more appropriately targeted toward problems of insecure work more broadly. Finally, a number of areas for future research are outlined.

The European steel and metal sectors have experienced processes of radical restructuring. Employers within the sector increasingly require employees to have a broader and deeper range of skills, although restructuring has also highlighted the need for workers to gain transferable skills in order to increase their employability. This paper, which draws on research conducted in seven European nations, describes how partnership‐based approaches to learning involving public, private and voluntary sector organisations have emerged in order to meet these needs. It argues that whileit may not be possible to develop a European model for partnership‐based approaches to learning, an examination of a number of particularly innovative and successful partnerships nevertheless facilitates the identification of the constituent elements of good practice with respect to partnership‐based approaches to learning, which may themselves have wider applications.