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This case example is about working in an organisation characterised by conflict and low trust within the top and senior management levels. It sets out the stages of the work that was done, and the resulting, and continuing, positive pay‐offs which have taken place.

Client and consultant in any intervention will have differing needs and expectations of the outcomes of their working association. There seem to be considerable skills demanded on both sides during the process of entering into an “engagement” and lack of care and sensitivity in the early stages can often lead to disappointments, frustrations and unfulfilled (but perhaps undisclosed) expectations. This article looks at one particular consultancy relationship where inadequate attention was focused by the external consultant on these particular issues of the role. In fact, the need to be “of assistance”, “to help” and “to display a competence” with the client resulted in too much attention being placed on a deep diagnosis, and its reflecting back to the client at too early a stage of the engagement. Rather than facilitating the relationship it is suggested that it in some ways it seriously disenabled the client group to accept the diagnosis made in order for effective and collaborative work to proceed.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the conditions associated with serving on boards by investigating the factors that distinguish older volunteers who serve on nonprofit boards from those who only volunteer programmatically.

Surveys of 354 residents of Southeastern North Carolina over age 50. Measures include education, wealth, retirement status, public service motivation (PSM), patterns of residential mobility, secular and religious organization meeting attendance, and volunteer activity in the past year. Data were analyzed using a Heckman probit selection model.

Respondents who have higher levels of education, are retired, or have lived in the community for longer periods are more likely to report board volunteering, but are not any more likely to volunteer programmatically. Those with higher levels of PSM are more likely to report general volunteering, but are not any more likely to volunteer on boards. Two measures reveal divergent findings based on type of volunteering: moving frequently in one’s lifetime and attending weekly religious services are associated with a greater likelihood of programmatic volunteering but a reduced likelihood of serving as a board member.

Limitations include self-reported, cross-sectional data, and a geographically restricted American sample that is older, more educated, and more likely to own a second home than average.

In order to better address board member recruitment, nonprofits should consider extending opportunities through strategies targeting retired community newcomers.

This study contributes an analysis of PSM among nonprofit board members, and identifies factors that distinguish programmatic and board volunteers, in order to better understand the conditions associated with board service.

The chapter provides instruction on how public libraries can improve the services that they provide to community members with print-related disabilities.

A combination of methods was used (interview, survey, document analysis, usability testing, and expert inspection), to investigate the current level of service provided to community members who are blind or low vision by the Baltimore County Public Library, in five areas:

1. Web Accessibility and Maintenance

2. Staff Awareness and Training

3. Physical Environment of the Library

4. Library offerings, including databases, materials, and equipment: what we have now and what we should have

5. Marketing materials: what, how, and where to be more visible

In all five areas, there were important findings about current barriers to accessibility, and suggestions for improvement in the future were made in the chapter.

The chapter details the steps taken by a large public library system, in a challenging budget environment, with changing leadership, to make improvements in the quality of service provided to people who are blind or low vision.

In the past, people with print-related disabilities were often referred to the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. However, over time, the nature of materials acquisitions at public libraries has changed. A large percentage of materials acquired by public libraries is now in digital format, which provides an opportunity for public libraries to start providing services to people with print disabilities.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Invaluable lessons can be culled from failure, which often provides an opportunity for critical review. The author here divulges some of his own experiences.

The purpose of this article is to consider a training and development case study involving external advisors as training consultants in the development of a new management structure in a UK mental handicap unit. This study provided a number of perspectives on the role of training and development consultants in helping “planning for change” activities.

Main line managers do have responsibilities for the training and development, not only of themselves, but of their subordinates and colleagues. Training and personnel professionals, too, have a responsibility, not only for ensuring that they are competent in what they do, but that their principal responsibility is towards improving operational effectiveness rather than that of any methodologies and mystiques of training.

This article continues the work reported in Part I in a previous issue of the journal and refers to a third significant training intervention within a Health District of the National Health Service. Perhaps the most significant feature of this work is the extent to which the ownership of the work moved from the personnel and training specialist to that of the top management group, the District Management Team and how its progress and development reflected the needs and concerns of this top group.