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Building on relational inequality theory, this paper incorporates social capital as a device to trace the flow of resources through relationships originating within and beyond organizations. I draw on a survey of over 1,700 lawyers to evaluate key dynamics of social capital that shape earnings: bridging and bonding, reciprocity exchanges and sponsorship, and boundary maintenance. The findings show social capital lends a lift to law graduates through bridges to professional careers and sponsorship following job entry. Racial minorities, however, suffer a shortfall of personal networks to facilitate job searches, and once having secured jobs, minorities experience social closure practices by clients and colleagues that disadvantage them in their professional work. A sizeable earnings gap remains between racial minority and white lawyers after controlling for human and social capitals, social closure practices, and organizational context. This earnings gap is particularly large among racial minorities with more years of experience and those working in large law firms. The findings demonstrate the importance of identifying the interrelations that connect social network and organizational context to impact social inequality.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how organisational closure can inform strategic foresight.

The authors draw insights from illustrative cases, i.e. Swissair, Sabena and Cameroon Airlines to illustrate their theoretical analysis.

The study shed light on the effects of internal and external factors in precipitating business closures. The authors established that top executives’ hubris, resistance to change and over-reliance on external consultants are some of precursors to organisational closure.

The analysis of this paper provides a range of strategies that organisations can pursue to learn from other firms’ closure and improve their survivability and chances of future success.

Despite a growing body of literature on strategic foresight and organisational closure, the literature has largely developed in isolation and as such the understanding of the relationship between strategic foresight and organisational closure has remained severely limited. The paper integrates these two streams of research to enrich the understanding of how firms can learn from others to improve their strategic foresight.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of organizational grief in understanding employee reactions to redundancy, managing change and personal development in the UK public sector.

In today's UK public sector, learning and managing the realities of redundancy and organizational change is explored using a case study of a civil service/ public sector agency. The authors use the lens of the Kübler‐Ross grief cycle to examine employee reactions to organizational change.

There is no easy way of managing this type of change, and many employees were at different stages of coming to terms with organizational closure and eventual redundancy. Some employees were reacting to change progressively and accepting their new organizational reality, whilst others had not yet reached acceptance. Nevertheless, an important finding has been that a number of staff did appear to be moving on, readjusting and thinking about their future career aspirations and wider life options.

The article uses a unique narrative style to examine common employee emotions and behaviours associated with organizational change in a redundancy and closure situation. It offers unique insight for senior managers in public sector administrations, in both the UK and elsewhere.

In times of organizational change leaders often tell stories that justify publicly the directions in which organizations move. Such stories are always political in nature and often reflect the motives of the storyteller. We observe how leaders in high‐tech organizations use the story of technological determinism in organizational settings as a discursive practice through which they invoke the “inevitability” of technology to justify managerial decisions to the public. Rather than taking ownership of certain actions, managers are able to use this story to claim that certain organizational changes are inevitable, and to eliminate alternative stories. We examine this strategy as it appears in the public discourse produced during two mergers in the high‐tech and telecommunications industries occurring from 1998 to 2002: US West and Qwest, and AOL and TimeWarner. Finally, we demonstrate that the story of technological determinism performs discursive closure around each merger.

Looks at broad approaches to organizational culture and offers a brief review of some recent work on gender and organizational culture. The possibility of seeing culture as a means of closure is explored. Seeks to define and operationalise organizational culture, in order to test the theoretical hypothesis on two case studies, and identify the ways in which aspects of culture acted to close off areas of work to women managers. Describes the constituents of this definition with reference to data from two case studies, and considers examples of the ways in which these different constituents of culture may act as means of closure to women managers in the organizations. Suggests that the approach provides a useful starting point for further research on organizational culture and gender, as well as giving a practical model for practitioners and consultants looking to develop a diversity inclusive culture.

This purpose of this paper it to explore the extent to which female part‐time workers experience occupational mobility in UK service sector firms, particularly promotional opportunities, since the implementation of the Part‐time Workers' Directive in 2000.

The research adopts a qualitative methodology. In‐depth interviews were carried out with 62 women and 12 of their managers in five case study workplaces in the service industry, so as to better understand individuals' perceptions of part‐time work and the processes that shape part‐time working at an organisational level.

The findings are not particularly encouraging in terms of female part‐time workers' perceptions of their opportunities for career progression in four of the five case studies. Distinctions were found between legislation, organisational policies and informal workplace practices. It is argued in this paper that each of these levels is important in understanding patterns of change and continuity in the use and structuring of part‐time work.

The originality of this paper lies in its use of occupational closure to explain the stratification of part‐time workers and this paper has significance and value for debates surrounding the progression and career prospects of non‐standard workers and diversity management more broadly.

This paper aims to explore and analyse how shifting frontiers of control emerge and change the labour process so that restrictions to output become diminished, subsequently affecting organisational performance.

Multiple case study design. Interviews with 104 respondents. Analysis of productivity statistics in order to test for the statistical significance of the closedown effect. Single multiple regression analysis of the comparative strength, of the closedown effect, between cases.

Shifting frontiers of control arise during the closedown process, a control system characterised by markedly unrestricted autonomy for the workers as the management frontiers of control abate. This provides an operative space for informal work practices, innovation and emerging new industrial relations, accounting for the higher levels of output.

A multiple case study of three different manufacturing organisations, with comparably long closedown periods. The authors do not analyse the sustainability of the increase in output or the generalisibility of the closedown effect to other industries.

It is possible to anticipate improved productivity if shifting frontiers of control are rapidly replacing the old. If management abandons the old control mechanisms, previous to the closedown decision, and provides operative space for workers' initiatives and informal leadership during the closedown process, it is possible to expect good performance, enabling a scope for extended closedown periods.

This is the first study that analyses the comparative strength of the closedown effect and how restricted work practices change under the process of closedown.

Through an examination of the everyday organisational and social practices, this paper aims to consider gender performativity and hegemonic masculinity within front office investment management. At the core of this research is the need to understand the interactions between gender, power and patriarchy.

An interpretivist philosophical stance underpins the study. A theory-building approach using 19 semi-structured interviews with investment management employees based in Ireland was undertaken.

The findings highlight a sector in which gender is performed in line with sectoral expectations, which place men in positions of dominance with hegemonic masculinity inherent. The organisational structures and daily interactions are imbued with male norms, which dictate how gender is to be performed, and which places women firmly as “different” and “outsiders”. These mechanisms of inequality are further supported by men’s “blocked reflexivity”.

The findings of this study indicate clear evidence of a “patriarchal dividend”, which is underpinned by the maintenance of closure regimes and gender blindness particularly, among senior male gatekeepers. Such results call for policymakers to go beyond goals of numerical parity and ensure transparency and equality across all aspects of work. A holistic and multifaceted approach to addressing issues of gendered culture and the normalisation of men’s privileged relationship with power positions is needed.

This paper is situated within a relatively under-researched labour market space, that of investment management. The findings conceptualise gender as a social process, thus facilitating traditional assumptions about gender at work as a single entity to be challenged. The results also advance theoretical insights of misogynistic work cultures and hegemonic masculinity through the analysis of gendered behaviours within this traditionally male environment.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that how HRD is undertaken needs careful consideration, since some HRD implementation schemes may actually prevent the acquisition of new knowledge, thereby developing stagnation.

The paper uses qualitative data derived from learning and non‐learning organisations. The data were collected from four companies via open‐ended questionnaires and structured interviews.

The paper demonstrates how strongly shared mental models may affect organisational HRD processes in such a way as to trigger closure to new knowledge and learning. The types of learning and knowledge present in the organisations are found to limit the possibility of radical change.

HRD implementation systems themselves may strengthen mental models, thereby allowing the difficulties to emerge because the learning and knowledge being developed will only support incremental change if any. The potential reversion of the direction of organisational learning is mooted, indicating that new ideas may either not enter the system or be rejected once they are perceived. HRD systems need to be designed to develop and maintain organisational openness.

The danger of HRD exacerbating organisational closure is explained. An alternative role for HRD professionals is outlined, with the new focus being on developing ongoing challenge at all times. The paper concludes that, although properly structured and thoughtfully implemented HRD can be a positive driver for organisational learning, HRD developments need to focus on the type of knowledge being developed as well as the level of learning.