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The Institute for Local Government is a research and knowledge exchange partnership which was established to facilitate collaboration between some of the North East’s major public sector institutions and its academic community drawn from the region’s Universities.

This chapter presents a summary and reflection on its roles, activities, funding, outputs and outcomes, operational experience, the problems of long-term sustainability and the lessons that can be drawn from this pioneering initiative in the North East throughout the last decade and the implications for the next decade.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the emphases given to the levers of control when monitoring product development (PD) are combined with each other, with the type of PD strategy formation and with the degree of innovativeness experienced by the firm. Moreover, the paper aims at identifying those configurations that are equifinal and superior to others in terms of PD and organizational performance.

Data (n = 468) are collected through a structure written questionnaire and analyzed through cluster analysis. Robustness tests investigate the stability of the results across different cluster method choices.

The paper unravels three configurations: A framing firms cluster, a fatalist firms cluster and a meticulous firms cluster. The first and the third cluster outperform the second cluster in terms of performance.

Limitations of the paper relate to the possible response bias, the measurement of the variables, the subjectivity in cluster method choices and the static and non-causal nature of results. Future studies are called to validate the findings.

Firms with a partially intended and partially emergent PD strategy formation process and high innovativeness should place high emphasis to the PD beliefs and boundary systems. Firms with a prevailing intended PD strategy formation and a medium innovativeness should emphasize diagnostic and interactive control systems for PD.

In contrast to previous studies, this paper addresses the peculiarities of one specific control problem, i.e. the conflicting control demands that management has to address in PD.

The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and human resources management researchers, we aim to contribute to the respective bodies of knowledge to provide both employers and employees with a workable foundation to help with those problems they are confronted with. However, what research on research has consistently demonstrated is that the scientific endeavor possesses existential issues including a substantial lack of (a) solid theory, (b) replicability, (c) reproducibility, (d) proper and generalizable samples, (e) sufficient quality control (i.e., peer review), (f) robust and trustworthy statistical results, (g) availability of research, and (h) sufficient practical implications. In this chapter, we first sing a song of sorrow regarding the current state of the social sciences in general and personnel and human resources management specifically. Then, we investigate potential grievances that might have led to it (i.e., questionable research practices, misplaced incentives), only to end with a verse of hope by outlining an avenue for betterment (i.e., open science and policy changes at multiple levels).

CRUS (the Centre for Research on User Studies) started operations on 5 January 1976 as an independent research institute attached to the University of Sheffield and funded for its first five years by a grant from the British Library. From a purely utilitarian and financial aspect any library and information centre has to justify its existence from a cost‐benefit point of view, and therefore has to be responsive to the information needs of the community it serves. Thus the ‘determination of users' needs is absolutely essential to the management of an information center …. [It] exists only to provide service to user groups, and its monetary value is in terms of the service to the group[s] that it helps’.

The Northfleet Group of Gravesend, Kent — UK market leaders in retail display systems — has appointed Gary B. Pettit to head the company's projects division as major accounts manager. This is a new position within the group which is aimed at the continued expansion and development of the division in serving the company's multiple retail and wholesale outlets. In this capacity, Mr Pettit reports directly to the sales director and leads a team of four managers and a further 16 sales and administrative personnel.