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In this article, we discuss an innovative audience research methodology developed for the AHRC-funded “Beyond the Multiplex: Audiences for Specialised Film in English Regions” project (BtM). The project combines a computational ontology with a mixed-methods approach drawn from both the social sciences and the humanities, enabling research to be conducted both at scale and in depth, producing complex relational analyses of audiences. BtM aims to understand how we might enable a wide range of audiences to participate in a more diverse film culture, and embrace the wealth of films beyond the mainstream in order to optimise the cultural value of engaging with less familiar films. BtM collects data through a three-wave survey of film audience members’ practices, semi-structured interviews and film-elicitation groups with audience members alongside interviews with policy and industry experts, and analyses of key policy and industry documents. Bringing each of these datasets together within our ontology enables us to map relationships between them across a variety of different concerns. For instance, how cultural engagement in general relates to engagement with specialised films; how different audiences access and/or share films across different platforms and venues; how their engagement with those films enables them to make meaning and generate value; and how all of this is shaped by national and regional policy, film industry practices, and the decisions of cultural intermediaries across the fields of film production, distribution and exhibition. Alongside our analyses, the ontology enables us to produce data visualisations and a suite of analytical tools for audience development studies that stakeholders can use, ensuring the research has impact beyond the academy. This paper sets out our methodology for developing the BtM ontology, so that others may adapt it and develop their own ontologies from mixed-methods empirical data in their studies of other knowledge domains.

There is a long line of human resource management and employee relations research that points to the important function that line managers play within organisations. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the level of line manager closest to the employees, the front-line manager (FLM), to understand the role they play in informal voice pathways.

The research project from which these data are drawn is of mixed method design in a multi-site case study organisation. The organisation is a quasi-military, public sector organisation with around 2,000 front-line employees. While this paper focuses primarily on one aspect of data collection, survey results are provided to allow a deeper contextual understanding while the qualitative data progresses the theoretical contribution.

The findings suggest that the FLMs play an important role in informal voice, however, the context of a strong and militant union means that the power dimension is different from previous studies into informal voice that have been conducted in the poorly unionised hospitality sector. In this context, informal voice with the FLM becomes just one pathway for employees to take when raising issues.

The single case study used is an exceptional case, therefore, has limited generalisability, nevertheless it does provide the opportunity to progress the theoretical understanding of voice pathways.

This paper has originality in that the research focus is the role of FLMs in informal voice in an organisation that is strongly unionised and militant. It provides a conceptual development of employee voice pathways that can be further developed and tested in the future.

Exposure to high-trauma work has been associated with negative outcomes for individuals and organisations. Support for these employees can buffer and protect against mental health problems. Frontline managers (FLMs) are well placed to provide for employee support needs but are often not effective in doing so. The purpose of this paper is to identify and understand barriers to provision of four different types of social support as identified by House (1981) by FLMs to employees in a high-trauma workplace.

This qualitative study investigates three Australian ambulance service organisations, including 72 interviews.

Nine barriers to support are identified that can obstruct the provision of optimum employee support. These relate to the FLM themselves, the workplace context and employee-centric factors.

This paper is a single industry case study; further complexity may exist in other high-trauma industries. Future research should consult policy makers to develop strategies to address the barriers to FLM support.

FLMs are critical support persons as they are well placed to provide many employee support needs. Emotional support is the foundation for facilitating all other types of support to employees but results here indicate it is often lacking for workers in high-trauma workplaces for a range of individual and organisational barriers that operate in isolation and combined.

This paper juxtaposes House’s (1981) support framework with study findings to provide a model of the barriers to optimal employee support. This model contributes to a reconceptualisation of the relationship between employee and direct manager that is particularly pertinent for high-trauma contexts.

Existing research has ignored the perspectives of frontline managers (FLMs) in relation to the support they receive. This study aims to understand the extent to which and how other organisational actors support FLMs in their implementation of performance.

This article used a qualitative method (57 semi-structured interviews) in two Singapore public sector organisations to understand the types of support provided to FLMs. The interviewees came from various levels and the hierarchical sampling frame allowed for comparisons to be made across the cases.

The authors found that the HR department, superiors and peers signalled to FLMs the custom and practice of performance management (PM) that led to the FLMs not prioritising their PM responsibilities. Notably, the focus of the FLMs was on meeting operational needs rather than the PM process.

The authors add to the literature by examining the how the support from other organisational actors signalled to FLMs the importance of PM within their work group. This paper also explores how FLMs seek support and the type of support they want in their role.

The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in the degree of innovation in employment relations (ER) between emerging and established firms,

A large national telephone survey (N=1,416) of both emerging (<5 years) and established firms was conducted.

Emerging firms were more casualised, less unionised, and experiencing higher levels of market expansion and unpredictability. Despite these differences, younger firms showed otherwise remarkable similarity to older firms across a range of ER practices, and both categories showed a reliance on business networks, rather formal training, for ER knowledge. While introducing ER changes more rapidly than older (and larger) firms, they were converging towards a suite of ER practices similar to that adopted by older firms. The results suggest that, if anything, established firms may have been engaged in greater innovation in more unusual ER practices.

Only managers were surveyed. The data are cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. As the study was undertaken in only one country, replication in other settings would be desirable.

The results raise major doubts about the notion that new firms represent the cutting edge of innovation, and highlights the degree to which newer firms match or mimic older firms’ ER architecture.

This paper focuses on patterns of film consumption within cultural consumption more broadly to assess trends in consumerism such as eclectic consumption, individualised consumption and omnivorous/univorous consumption and whether economic background and status feature in shaping cultural consumption. We focus on film because it is widely consumed, online and offline, and has many genres that vary in terms of perceived artistic and entertainment value. In broad terms, film is differentiated between mainstream commercially driven film such as Hollywood blockbusters, middlebrow “feel good” movies and independent arthouse and foreign language film. Our empirical statistical analysis shows that film consumers watch a wide range of genres. However, films deemed to hold artistic value such as arthouse and foreign language feature as part of broad and wide-ranging pattern of consumption of film that attracts its own dedicated consumers. Though we found that social and economic factors remain predictors of cultural consumption the overall picture is more complex than a simple direct correspondence and perceptions of other cultural forms also play a role. Those likely to consume arthouse and foreign language film consume other film genres and other cultural forms genres and those who “prefer” arthouse and foreign language film have slightly more constrained socio-economic characteristics. Overall, we find that economic and cultural factors such income, education, and wider consumption of culture are significant in patterns of film consumption.

Existing research on the relationship between human resources management (HRM) and worker reactions to practices rarely explore differences between occupational classes and their receptiveness to HRM initiatives. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using data from a single case organization, the authors examine whether HRM practices apply uniformly across distinct occupational groups, and if there are differing impacts by occupational class on commitment, motivation and satisfaction.

Using occupational identity, the results indicate that different groups of employees have varied perceptions of, and reactions to, the same HRM practices.

The paper adds that human resource practice application may have a tipping point, after which distinct employee groups require different HR architectural configurations.

HRM policy and practice may be better tailored to the different specific needs of diverse occupational groups of workers.

The paper argues that existing theory and practice advocating universal or high potential HRM as a route to positive employee outcomes are potentially flawed.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a labour process theory interpretation of four case studies within the Australian construction industry. In each case study a working time intervention (a shift to a five‐day working week from the industry standard six days) was implemented as an attempt to improve the work‐life balance of employees.

This paper was based on four case studies with mixed methods. Each case study has a variety of data collection methods which include questionnaires, short and long interviews, and focus groups.

It was found that the complex mix of wage‐ and salary‐earning staff within the construction industry, along with labour market pressures, means that changing to a five‐day working week is quite a radical notion within the industry. However, there are some organisations willing to explore opportunities for change with mixed experiences.

The practical implications of this research include understanding the complexity within the Australian construction industry, based around hours of work and pay systems. Decision‐makers within the construction industry must recognize a range of competing pressures that mean that “preferred” managerial styles might not be appropriate.

This paper shows that construction firms must take an active approach to reducing the culture of long working hours. This can only be achieved by addressing issues of project timelines and budgets and assuring that take‐home pay is not reliant on long hours of overtime.