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The topic discussed in this monograph is how to make training more effective by fitting it more closely into the organisational context. Models of training are examined to consider the difference between training an individual and changing the way in which the individual performs in the work context. In order to highlight the ways in which individual and organisational needs can be integrated, the identification of training needs is discussed. To emphasise the essentially cyclical nature of learning, the learning experience is broken down into a sequence of events. Most of these attempts to define effective training imply that it is often an attempt to change the way the organisation functions. In the final section therefore, the problems of using the training department as an agent for change are discussed.

This monograph seeks to supply a contribution to the debate on the major formative factors which have led to current perceptions of the roles which either should be, or are, undertaken by industrial training officers. Any attempt to ascertain these developmental paths must be limited by the relative importance which the interpreter gives to writings and events. To this extent it must be a subjective and selective viewpoint. Whatever our perspective, there is one undoubted fact: there has been a considerable increase in the number of industrial training officers over the last 20 years — and a corresponding increase in training activities. This increase has been more than matched with an outpouring of literature on training and, to a much lesser extent, research into training themes.

Reviews some of the literature on power and influence as it relates to the training and development function. Highlights a number of difficulties that confront the training and development function in using power and influence successfully in organizations. Empirical evidence is presented on how Irish training specialists perceive the power of the training and development function. Concludes that a number of strategies are outlined for use by the training and development function in order to develop power and use it effectively.

In good or bad times, training plays an important part in the development of knowledge and skill in all sectors of the economies around the world. Just as the successful sportsperson must train to keep on winning, so too must any organisation. Whilst the effectiveness of the sportsperson's coach is reflected by success in winning events, it is often more difficult to evaluate the success or effectiveness of the organisational trainer. Many other factors come into play in determining individual and organisational performance — methods of work used; efficient supply of materials; adequate equipment; attitudes of senior management, and of customers; the whims of the market place, government policy and the world economic situation. With so many variables involved it may seem futile to bother to study effectiveness.

What rules, if any, should regulators put in place to provide incentives for timely and efficient investment in next generation fibre access networks (NGA) while, at the same time, preventing monopoly abuse, either by taking monopoly rents from end users or harming downstream competition? This paper aims to focus on these issues.

The findings in this paper are based on review of existing work in the area and on interviews with 25 operators and regulators across the European Union.

Active (bitstream) remedies will be important for preserving competition in the supply of retail, NGA‐based, products. Regulators should specify the price regulation principles, which would apply to operators found to have significant market power (SMP) in NGA supply in advance of any market definition and SMP assessment. Regulators should allow access providers to provide distinct NGA‐based bitstream products to meet the needs of different segments of the end‐user market and to then charge for these products at the wholesale level so as to reflect their value to end users rather than their costs.

This paper is designed to simulate general debate on the best way to regulate NGA

Purpose: We analyze how medical providers use accountability processes or the regulatory means through which individuals hold themselves or others accountable to social norms, to uphold their medical authority. We use the case of trans medicine because in this medical domain, providers often have little to no expertise and few are trained specifically in delivering trans medicine or working with trans patients. As a result, providers experience uncertainty and are left without the typical tools and expertise on which they depend in most other areas of medical decision-making.

Design/methodology/approach: We conducted in-depth interviews with 23 medical providers and observations of transgender healthcare conferences in the United States between 2012 and 2015.

Findings: Our work offers insight into the provider side of patient-provider encounters and medical decision-making in gender minority health. The first accountability strategy providers employed was to invoke the language of evidence as a method to maintain their authority, in spite of the paucity of scientific evidence that undergirds this emergent medical domain. The second strategy was to mandate compliance by holding trans people accountable to the expectation of acquiescing to medical authority.

Originality/value: We contribute to the scholarship on gender minority health by examining how high power actors use accountability processes to restore order in interactions with trans and nonbinary patients. We demonstrate how enforcement to expectations through accountability processes is a plausible, though oft-overlooked, dimension of health inequalities.

The Contingency Outsourcing Relationship (CORE) model originated from the Four Outsourcing Relationship Types (FORT) model and the CORE model is used in the globalized facility management (FM) industry while the FORT model is originally used in the global information technology industry. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the CORE model through the rankings of relationship between a client and a globalized FM service provider from the perspective of the FM service provider in one of the four categories (i.e. in-house, technical expertise, commitment and common goals) and the application of this model with the aid of artificial neural networks (ANNs).

A quantitative methodology using a survey is used to analyze the four types of outsourcing categories. First, the background theory and a set of rules of the CORE is introduced and discussed regarding the proper ways to identify the rankings collected from the survey.

The study reveals that an interesting understanding of the outsourcing categories can be systematically implemented into the FM outsourcing relationships through the methodology of scientific artificial intelligence. FM outsourcing categorization may help to define the appropriate relationship; as either not too aggressive or too passive.

The outcome generated from the ANN can be considered a strong and solid reference to assess and define the existing outsourcing relationships between the stakeholders and the service providers with the goal to assign an outsourcing category to the service provider based on the learnt rules.

The future of higher education for business and management is discussed against the framework providedby the 1959 Gordon‐Howell and Pierson reports, and the 1988 Porter and McKibbin report. In light of the concern for rapid and uncertain environmental change,a model of business school roles in contemporary society ‐ passive provider, participating provider, and pathfinding provider ‐ is presented. Implications forbusiness curricula and faculty are examined. Further attention is given to the needs for greater vertical and horizontal integration of business schools with their external environments. A final caution advises that business schools should seek to respond to future challenges without sacrificing their own identities which are essential to the emergence of true institutional excellence.

Activation policies in most Western countries have discovered the private tool of contract and in a short period of time the contract has penetrated the whole domain. Among the forerunner countries contracts in different forms, collective as well as individual, have become the central steering instrument. The purpose of this article is to shed some light on what this change can and does entail for the individual job seeker on benefit. Job seekers are no longer expected to passive undergo treatment but expected to contribute actively to one's own return into the labour market. The main rationale behind this shift is the idea that working with contracts increases the level of involvement and, therefore improves results over time: results in terms of better motivated clients, more focused policymakers, providers and frontline workers delivering client‐orientated services.

Using qualitative research the article maps the different types of contracts using empirical material from eight countries.

The findings are presented in the form of the practical potentials and pittfalls of contracts for the individual.

A major added value is the multidisciplinary approach used by the authors; the phenomenon of contracts is analysed from a social science and a legal point of view.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the ontological and semantic foundations of consumer-dominant value creation to clarify the extent to which the call for a distinct consumer-dominant logic (CDL) is justified. This paper discusses consumer-driven value creation (value-in-use) across three different marketing logics: product-dominant logic (PDL), service-dominant logic (SDL) and CDL. PDL conceptualises value as created by firms and delivered to consumers through products. SDL frames consumer value as a function of direct provider-consumer interaction, or consumer-driven chains of action indirectly facilitated by the provider. Recently, the research focus has been turning to consumer-dominant value creation. While there is agreement on the significance of this phenomenon, there is disagreement over whether consumer-dominant value creation is an extension of SDL or calls for a distinct CDL.

This is a conceptual paper, which is informed by five cases of consumer dominance. The cases are used to clarify rather than verify the analysis of the ontological and semantic underpinnings of consumer-dominant value creation.

The ontological and semantic analysis demonstrates that PDL and SDL have insufficient explanatory power to accommodate substantial aspects of consumer-dominant value creation. By implication, this supports the call for a distinct CDL.

This paper contributes to the ongoing theoretical debate over the explanatory power of SDL by demonstrating that SDL is unable to accommodate important ontological and semantic aspects of consumer-driven value creation.