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Introduction to the Metaindustrial Work Culture, Are human professionals in the forefront of the profound global transition now underway from the industrial to the Information Society? Are they cognisant of the driving forces of new technologies, especially microelectronics and genetic engineering? Are they exercising leadership in the creation of the work environments characterised by information processing and performed by knowledge workers? For these questions to be answered in the positive, the respondent must be aware of the emerging metaindustrial work culture. The term “metaindustrial” comes from an AT and T report on the New Industrial Revolution. It describes the ongoing social or second industrial shift away from the traditional manufacturing industries, organisational models and roles and managerial styles. That industrial way of life not only produced its unique approaches to training, development and education, it was a way of life that enacted social legislation and systems of support. It is rapidly disappearing, and the evidence is present in economic downturns, huge unemployment and bankruptcies. It is evident in the occupational trends toward information/ knowledge/education enterprises — 50 per cent of the US work force is already in the information industries, and this is projected to rise to 66 per cent by the year 2000.

Considers the difficulties experienced by banks in implementing integrated asset and liability management. Explains some of the measures needed in the worlds of credit risk and interest risk. Presents a matrix for risk management and encourages training in this area.

The long‐term survival of a business often hinges on its ability to successfully introduce new products into the marketplace. These new products and their successful development can be the lifeblood of a company. This paper aims to examine why product development delays occur in SMEs, the nature of these delays, and what can be done in order to avoid them.

This research is exploratory in nature and provides empirical support to several propositions found in the innovation management literature on the development of new products.

Various reasons for delays in new product development are found, including poor definition of product requirements, technological uncertainties, senior management support, lack of resources, and poor project management. Major concerns raised included management and organisational style, lack of attention to detail, limited support for innovation, lack of strategic thinking, and poor manufacturing capabilities.

The consistent development and introduction of new products that customers value can be an important criterion for business growth and prosperity. Suggestions to help accelerate the NPD process in SMEs are presented, including active and visible senior management commitment, early involvement of functional groups, the introduction of new work methods, early market/technical testing, and effective new product organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore: why the concept of teaching excellence has been uncritically accepted into the lexicon of university management; and how it has been used to co-opt university teaching staff into supporting the myth that teaching quality can be maintained as financial support for teaching has declined.

This paper is conceptual and analytical rather than empirical and a critical management perspective is adopted.

Per capita funding of university teaching has declined steadily. The concept of teaching excellence has been used to distract attention away from discussions about funding and the conditions required to promote good teaching in universities. The construction of teaching excellence as an attribute of individual teachers has co-opted university teachers into supporting the illusion that teaching quality can be maintained, despite falling organisational support and decreased funding.

Teaching in universities can only be improved through changes to the management approach and maintenance of per capita funding, and ultimately democratisation of universities. This will require changes to the regulatory framework, and national policy.

The author concludes that teaching excellence is unhelpful as a concept. Instead the focus of discussion needs to return to ensuring that the necessary conditions for responsive teaching are in place.

Democratise the workplace and management methods; adopt matrix management structures; Rebalance to focus on social benefit and public good.

This paper uncovers tensions, contradictions and missing elements in current policy and concludes with suggestions for change.

This venerable truth has long been enshrined within industrial organisations. Its modern counterpart of “one man, one boss” is a familiar cry whenever managers discuss the design of organisational structures. But the cry may be more of an appeal for a return to old simplicities than an accurate description of organisational relationships. Enough has been written about role conflicts and the effects of multiple performance criteria to cast doubt on all one‐dimensional methods of describing intricate activities. Yet the simple organisation chart lives on as the most common form of expressing the organisation's design.

Logistics can be superimposed upon the conventional functional structure of most companies. This requires effective horizontal integration and co‐ordination of materials and information flows. Accordingly, the organisation structure that is required must straddle conventional vertical relationships. This is best accomplished by a matrix approach to organisational design in pursuit of product/market missions. The patterns of conflict arising if any other approach is taken can normally be seen to result in unsatisfactory performance.

Although corporate portfolio management (CPM) has been a popular tool for strategic management of multi-business portfolios in the private sector since the late 1960s, it has received limited attention in the public sector. Accordingly, empirical research on the use of CMP in government organizations is virtually non-existent. The purpose of this paper is to partially fill that gap in the literature by highlighting and discussing some of the key points that public sector organizations may need to consider when adopting CPM.

Rather than deductively proposing and testing narrowly specified hypotheses, this study aims to answer a broad research question, namely: What are the key points that public sector organizations may need to consider when adopting CMP? Hence, the study adopts the qualitative interpretive research paradigm. The findings are based on empirical research conducted in a large Australian publicly funded research organization. Potential application of CPM was iteratively and incrementally explored with a reference group comprising 15 middle management representatives and several members of the senior leadership group over the course of one year.

Assessment criteria traditionally used in CPM (e.g. growth potential and market share) are generally not applicable in public sector organizations. This paper suggests that government organizations should instead consider past performance and future potential of individual business units, which may be operationalized via capability (a function of human capital and associated resources/infrastructure) and delivery (a function of the demand for, and the impact of, relevant business units). The paper also highlights the importance of organization-wide consultation, evidence-based decision making, and contestability.

From a practical perspective, the paper may assist public sector organizations with adapting and applying CPM. From a theoretical perspective, the paper highlights an important and relatively neglected research problem, and suggests several avenues for future research.

Do you get vague requests about the need to improve teamwork as often as we do? Sometimes these requests come from distraught personnel managers who have identified training needs that fall into the teamwork area but haven't the faintest idea how to set about validating or meeting such needs. At other times the requests come from line managers themselves. Usually they are disappointed with the productiveness of their own workteams and, whilst they cannot quite put their finger on what is specifically wrong, use the expression ‘teamwork’ in an all‐embracing, generic way. There were similar felt needs in ICL's International Marketing Division. As increasing emphasis was placed on profit centres, project management, matrix management and the like, the need for increased teamwork was voiced more and more often. Accordingly, it was decided to do something about teamwork as part of a larger management development programme. What ‘something’ would best do the trick was left to the authors; Paul Whiteley as the in‐company training man trying to help meet management training needs for the marketing side of the operation and Peter Honey as an external consultant with experience in the teamwork area.

This article discusses the relationship between management style within a firm and the procedures used to determine internal wage and salary differentials. At a time when management styles are apparently becoming less authoritarian and paternalistic in favour of greater worker participation there is obviously a danger of firms using payment techniques which are inappropriate to the current management/worker relationship. Some simple models of workers and organization are used to identify four broad styles of management. These styles are then related to the job evaluation and performance rating techniques in common use in British industry today. Some general conclusions are drawn concerning future trends in payment to suit management style.

Studies on total quality management (TQM) implementation among construction enterprises in Nigeria have used few TQM constructs and variables and yielded fragmented results. This study adopts comprehensive TQM constructs and variables for comparison with the previous studies to establish the critical variables for effective TQM practices in Nigeria.

Data collection from a stratified sample of Nigerian construction practitioners with practical or theoretical knowledge of TQM, using web-based questionnaires consisting of twelve validated TQM implementation constructs and 65 variables. 72 home and overseas practicing professionals participated (21% response rate) using nonprobability sampling techniques. Following acceptable Cronbach's alpha reliability values equal to 0.7, the author/s rank-ordered the twelve TQM constructs and 65 TQM variables. Then, they computed the z-scores and the percentiles to identify the TQM critical variables – 75th percentiles and above, contrasted with the threshold normalized values equal to 0.5. Furthermore, Pareto analysis determined the 20% “vital many” responsible for 80% of the problem.

Customer focus, top management commitment and supplier quality management were the top-25% constructs, while employee involvement, statistical process control and design quality management were the bottom-25% constructs. Thirteen TQM critical variables emerged from the top-25% constructs.

Top management to involve employees to be customer-focused and driven toward suppliers' quality management system. Priority should be given to implementing the critical variables advanced in this study.

This study juxtaposes the results of similar studies for consistency to advance the critical success factors.