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The paper provides initial findings on the causes and consequences of problematic mid‐career work‐role transitions – self‐reported career mistakes described by individuals in terms of a mismatch between expectations and reality.

This exploratory study uses in‐depth interviews based on critical incident technique (CIT) to elicit accounts of problematic work‐role transitions.

Participants reported mismatches arose because their expectations were based on their prior experience, rather than upon information provided by the organisation during the course of the recruitment process. These mismatches stimulated very active sense making on the part of participants, largely focused on finding ways to make their continuation in the role tolerable.

The present study, which is exploratory in nature, involved a small sample size, and the use of retrospective accounts. The findings are therefore preliminary and may not be representative of mid‐career managers' experience with problematic work role transitions. However, they confirm the relevance of career mistakes to organisations and individuals and indicate a need for further research on the subject.

The study suggested managers moving post in mid‐career bring to their new role a range of expectations based upon prior experience, rather than the recruitment process. Further study is needed, but these findings have significant implications for organisations, in that they suggest recruitment processes must provide information in a manner which might overcome or correct these prior assumptions.

The subject of career mistakes has received little treatment in the organisational side of the careers literature, and yet is of everyday concerns to organisations and individuals.

This paper aims to explore the expectations of relevant stakeholders in the engineering field to better understand the demands of the twenty-first century. As the number of unemployed continues to grow in Malaysia, it is evident that as industries continue to develop, demands and new requirements for skilled workers change over time.

Through face-to-face interviews, the study explored the expectations of accreditation bodies, industry operators and academics in the engineering field.

Three major findings were documented: mismatch of expectations in engineering field across the stakeholders; the expected “must-have-skills” from the perspectives of the stakeholders; and the need to reassess how information transmission is cascaded to all stakeholders and remains relevant to market demand.

It is recognized that the findings from this study may only be relevant to the engineering field and not to the other different disciplines, but the qualitative findings provide some key issues in understanding the gap between relevant stakeholders that may motivate future studies to further extend into the other disciplines.

With this mismatch drawn out clearly, all relevant stakeholders would be able to revisit and revaluate their existing strategy in addressing, cascading crucial information and equipping graduates with analytical skills to gain immediate employment in the market.

A clearer understanding on the expectations and the “must-have-skills” required in the engineering field in the twenty-first century.

To explore potential mismatches between stakeholders' perceptions and expectations of key and technical skills needed for an advanced modern apprentice within the UK.

Using data collected from the automotive sector, the template process is used to establish lecturer, student and employee stakeholder group's expectations of a person taking up employment alongside an advanced modern apprenticeship or as an advanced modern apprentice. Perceptions of the extent to which expectations are met and their relative importance are assessed.

All stakeholders acknowledge that a skills gap exists across key and technical skills. However, whilst students focus on technical skills, lecturers and employees place greatest emphasis on key skills and their ability to transfer them.

Although this research is based on the UK automotive sector, the findings emphasise the importance of key skills and understanding as part of students' learning. Research is needed to establish why students appear to undervalue these and establish whether similar patterns exist in other sectors.

The voluntarist approach to UK vocational education and training has, when combined with the need for further education colleges to be economically viable, resulted in courses that appear attractive but do not always meet the automotive sector's needs. Research is needed to establish whether this is occurring across other sectors.

This template process offers a new technique to explore stakeholders' perceptions and expectations. The findings provide new insights into the mismatches between expectations of the stakeholders in vocational education and training.

It is hard to manage effectively in any organisation since one of the major hurdles is knowing what constitutes effectiveness anyway. It is just as hard to assess the effectiveness of the management control systems used within an organisation. One of the pieces of research currently being undertaken at Durham University Business School has produced an interesting and useful approach towards tackling this problem.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how employers define overqualification and mismatched qualification and whether they are willing to hire applicants whose educational and work experience credentials do not match job requirements.

This paper draws from qualitative interview data from 24 hiring managers across a wide range of US public sector and private industries. Data were analyzed and coded to identify themes related to managers’ perceptions of overqualification, matched, and mismatched qualification, and how these were related to selection decisions. A typology is proposed for categorizing applicant qualification levels and their potential human resource outcomes such as hiring decisions.

Hiring managers report that they are willing to interview and hire individuals whose education or experience exceed a job’s requirements as well as applicants with less than required education, but only if they possess sufficient compensatory experience.

Findings may not apply to industries where minimum educational levels are essential or to small organizations with few opportunities for career advancement.

Given current unemployment and underemployment levels, the findings can inform the job search strategies of job seekers. Overqualified applicants should not refrain from applying to job openings, particularly in organizations with opportunities for advancement and where education is considered an asset. Additionally, applicants should reveal their motivations for pursing positions that are intentional mismatches.

In contrast to previous studies conducted during periods of lower unemployment and underemployment, these data include managers’ perceptions of overqualification in a recession and post-recession job market context and thus are especially relevant to today’s employment context. The proposed typology distinguishes between categorizations of qualified, overqualified, and underqualified, and helps refine studies aimed at selection decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of expectation formation and matching for university student volunteers and their hosts.

This research involved a multi-stage data collection process including interviews with student volunteers, and university and host representatives from six Australian universities. The project team undertook an iterative process of coding and interpretation to identify themes and develop understanding of the phenomenon.

University student volunteering has the potential to fail to meet the expectations of at least one of the parties to the relationship when the expectations of the parties are not clearly articulated. Universities operating volunteer programmes have an important role in facilitating expectation formation and matching, minimising the chances of mismatched expectations.

The study confirms the operation of a psychological contract for university student volunteers and organisations who host them which is consistent with other research in volunteering demonstrating the importance of matching expectations.

The paper identifies the importance of expectation formation and matching for hosts and students, and highlights the role of universities in facilitating matchmaking.

This paper contributes to the growing body of research on the role of the psychological contract in volunteering, in particular in university student volunteering and host organisations.

For many years it has been clear that one of the main barriers to improving managerial performance has been inadequate communication. This is in no way surprising given that in even a small managerial group of, say, 25 managers there are 600 potential two‐way communication channels, and increasingly the size of modern organisations is such that managerial groups in excess of 100 are relatively commonplace. A communication system based on the expectations approach was developed in 1973 capable of handling both the volume of communication and the complexity of communication channels which are used in the managerial groups of large organisations. Since that time over 700 managers in 25 organisations have used the system in a variety of applications.

Using role theory, this paper aims to focus on business-to-business inter-personal relationships and the strain such relationships can have on the individual. How is this strain expressed, and what are the implications for the future of these relationships?

Thirty in-depth interviews were conducted with experienced account managers. The relationship under scrutiny was the inter-personal relationship that exists between the account managers of UK insurance brokers and their business customers.

The study found account managers use a range of resources to support their inter-personal relationships. Where there was a mismatch in the perception of relationship closeness, this did result in role strain for the account managers. In particular, resentment was expressed over time being taken from their working day and their personal life and the impact this had on their work–life balance.

Identification and an understanding of role strain in inter-personal relationships enables firms to provide support, guidance and training to their employees on how best to manage such relationships. Identifying when and in what ways strain can occur enables firms to identify and take steps to avoid relationship disintegration.

This is one of a few papers to provide empirical evidence of the role strain in inter-personal relationship from an individual employee’s perspective. Identification of the personal resources used in inter-personal relationships may prove useful for other researchers working in this under-researched area. In addition, the in-depth interviews highlighted the often overlooked subtleties within relationships and issues that can trigger relationship strain.

Identifies the degree of satisfaction in the early employment experience of general commercial graduates in UK retailing, and examines the level and causes of dissatisfaction from both sides in the employment relationship using a gap analysis model. Concludes that there is a difference between short‐ and long‐term needs. Short‐term needs are more easily satisfied than longer‐term needs. Employers are able to select graduates with high levels of transferable skills; the graduates in turn benefit from early job responsibility and well‐developed training and development programmes. The business need for accelerated performance levels induces a responding desire for rapid career progression and job fulfilment in graduates. A changing environment with resultant organizational restructuring means graduates now find career paths blocked as the needs of the business take precedence in the longer term. This can result in high levels of graduate turnover.

This paper aims to argue that, traditionally, service recovery attempts have paid little attention to customer preferences. Despite attempts to recover the customer, firms generally do not know if the recovery solution is what the customer expects. Hence, the paper seeks to examine whether customer recovery preferences influence customers' evaluation of the recovery attempt in terms of recovery satisfaction and repurchase intentions.

First, a two‐stage qualitative study was conducted. Then the research model was tested empirically on a sample of 431 consumers using a multivariate analysis.

The findings support the argument that customers have distinct recovery preferences. Moreover, customers are satisfied with the service recovery solution only when it matches the most demanding recovery preference. Customers' recovery preferences have a significant impact on their satisfaction with recovery and their repurchase intentions.

First, the model developed is tested on a cross‐sectional sample. Second, the measure of recovery satisfaction and repurchase intentions used here was relatively simple. Third, the study relies on repurchase intentions instead of actual behavioural data.

This research indicates that customers have a preference for how service recovery should be undertaken. Given these distinct recovery preferences, different recovery solutions should be applied to address each preference appropriately.

It is widely accepted in the service recovery literature that customers' perceptions of a service recovery attempt are often different to those of the service provider. However, this research suggests that customer recovery preferences need to be carefully considered given their effect on customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions.