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Enduring scholarly interest in the process of strategy-making stems from an abiding assumption that some ways of strategizing are more efficacious than others, and thus lead to higher firm performance in the long run; higher than luck alone would bring. Expressions of interest in and endorsements of the strategy process are abundant in the academic literature. As Pettigrew (1992) points out, Hofer and Schendel's pioneering definition of strategic management is processual in character emphasizing the development and utilization of strategy. Rumelt, Schendel, and Teece (1994) list the policy process question – how does policy process matter? – as a fundamental question of the strategic management field. Porter (1996) expresses preoccupation with the leadership and organizational challenges of managing the process. And, Hamel (1988) exhorts the field to devote as much attention to the conduct of strategy, i.e., the task of strategy making, as they have to its content. For senior managers and leaders, the question of how to make effective strategies stands usually at the top of their agenda. Not surprisingly then, the quest to uncover stable principles of good strategy making has attracted much support and interest over the years.

This paper reports on a year‐long engagement in a sub‐region of South West England with public sector managers, who frequently work in partnership contexts. The purpose of the initiative was to increase the effectiveness of partnership working by exploring common issues and building a shared understanding of how they might be resolved. This was undertaken by holding a series of seminars and forums facilitated by the authors. The findings show that managers who are involved in numerous partnerships value stepping outside of their formal roles to reflect together on their experiences. Participants were able to identify many pertinent issues that affect their practice in partnership contexts and generate important insights. The findings are being used to develop approaches to support partnerships and collaboration in the sub‐region and further afield.

Discussions of symbolic meaning tend to focus on consumer goods and as a result there is relatively little consideration given to the meanings associated with less tangible receptacles such as locations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the symbolic meaning resident in a particular consumption location, namely the Australian pub (public drinking house).

Interviews and observations were used to explore Australians' perceptions of their pubs. Fifty‐two patrons and seven bar tenders were interviewed in 23 pubs across three Australian states (Western Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria).

The men and women interviewed accepted that pubs are still male‐dominated domains. At the same time, they regarded pubs to be iconic of Australian culture. The findings suggest that consumption locations can be replete with numerous symbolic meanings and that it is possible for individuals to perceive contradictory meanings relating to the same location. Obtaining an understanding of individuals' and groups' sense of place can yield a richer interpretation of the possibly contradictory symbolic meanings resident in particular consumption locations.

In recent times there have been growing calls for consumer researchers to include the concept of place attachment in their efforts to better understand the consumption process. This paper draws together the theoretical areas of symbolic meaning, self‐concept, and place attachment to provide insight into the consumption dynamics occurring every day in Australian pubs.

The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the double edges faced by individuals who have international and multicultural experiences. The implication is that these individuals encounter acculturation challenges, and also gain from their multiculturality. The authors adopt Berry’s (2011) integration and multiculturalism framework to analyze the experiences and challenges that multi-culturals face. This paper suggests ways to glean the silver lining within organizations to help manage and master multicultural experiences in the workplace to benefit both individuals and organizations.

The authors used empirical materials from expatriates who have worked across multiple cultural contexts. Based on these the authors present three examples to illustrate how expatriates and multicultural individuals place themselves in situations where they experience contact and challenges associated with adopting multiple cultures. The authors then analyze these examples to show how the experiences involve psychological-level integration challenges for Multi- and n-culturals.

The three multicultural expatriate examples suggest that individuals with international and multicultural experiences who are successful at managing their experiences develop cognitive and behavioral complexity. However, these individuals also face continuous acculturation including cognitive and ethno-cultural identity conflicts such as, rejection from multiple cultural perspectives because they continually cross-multiple cultural microcosms. Suggestions are presented to help maintain one’s sense of self-worth and minimizing ethno-cultural conflicts.

Notwithstanding the value of analyzing the examples of expatriate acculturation experiences, the limitation to the examples is that it is limited to the experience of three individuals. However, the examples were effective in raising points to discuss relevant challenges and/or the double-edged reality faced by boundary spanners, multi-, and n-culturals.

The paper presents possible ways multi- and n-culturals navigate through their multiculturalism, including suggestions to help individuals who struggle with their multiculturalism through mentoring.

The paper highlights the challenges of acculturation and suggests ways that individuals can overcome these challenges. It further suggests how organizations can take advantage of such individuals by utilizing existing personnel within the organization.

The paper is one of the few that acknowledge multiculturalism is highly challenging even for successful multi-culturals and n-culturals. Currently the literature is scant concerning how individuals can manage and master multicultural experiences in the workplace. The paper suggests a number of useful strategies for individuals and organizations to manage the challenges.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

This study aims to examine the ability of the social influence heuristics framework to capture skillful and creative social media influencer (SMI) marketing in long-form video content on YouTube for influencer-owned brands and products.

The theoretical lens was a framework of seven evidence-based social influence heuristics (reciprocity, social proof, consistency, scarcity, liking, authority and unity). For the methodological lens, a qualitative case study approach was applied to a purposeful sample of 6 SMIs and 15 videos on YouTube.

The evidence shows that self-promotional influencer marketing in long-form video content is relatable to all seven heuristics and shows signs of high elaboration, innovativeness and skillfulness.

The study reveals that a heuristic-based account of self-promotional influencer marketing in long-form video content can greatly contribute to the understanding of how various well-established marketing concepts (e.g. source attractivity) might be expressed in real-world communications and behaviors. Based on this improved, in-depth understanding, current research efforts, such as experimental studies using one video with a more or less arbitrary influencer and pre-post measure, are advised to explore research questions via designs that account for the observed subtle and complex nature of real-world influencer marketing in long-form video content.

This structured account of skillful and creative marketing can be used as educational and instructive material for influencer marketing practitioners to enhance their creativity, for consumers to increase their marketing literacy and for policymakers to rethink policies for influencer marketing.

Prior research has created a body of knowledge on influencer marketing. However, a conceptual disconnect has hampered the advancement of the field. The social influence heuristics framework is a highly functional conceptual bridge that links the qualitative and quantitative evidence and will advance the understanding of influencer marketing more effectively.

Organisational change, as a general topic, has been extensively researched since the 1950s, as evidenced by the proliferation of papers in the last five decades. As a research topic within operations management, it offers fascinating insights into the way manufacturing organisations function and adapt in reality. This paper evaluates what has worked, and what has not been effective, within a UK‐based manufacturing company, tracking multiple change initiatives over several years across two company sites. The core research focused on the implementation of change initiatives based on common constructs, such as planned change, as defined by management writers and consultants. From the research it emerged that a realistic interpretation of the change process had to take into account multiple and varied forces, such as: customers and suppliers; the economic environment; national and international legislation; the history of the organisation; etc. The research underpinning this paper enabled an identification of the specific influences on changes in the organisation and the way these interacted over time. A model of organisational change, developed from the research, is presented. The contribution of this paper lies mainly in deepening operations managers’ understanding of organisational change. It also uncovers the underlying rationales that steer change initiatives (planned or emergent) and identifies the key influences on organisational change. It provides and renews the necessary vocabulary, allowing managers to understand better and act on the multiple dimensions of organisational change. Furthermore, the provision of key learning points through a number of management “guidelines”, provides specific advice on how to effect sustainable change within organisations.

There can be no doubt that the small and medium sized enterprise (SME) plays a pivotal role in most if not all economies, and that social policy makers have an interest in ensuring the viability of this sector of the economy, which plays a crucial role in the contract culture of national and international competitiveness. Quite apart from the essential symbiosis between the large multinationals and public limited companies and this sector, the sustainability of unemployment benefit payouts would be jeopardised should the sector experience a significant downturn. There are already worldwide concerns about the ability to continue to finance state pensions at anything like the present scale, and any loss of viability of the SME sector will simply exacerbate this situation. There are also useful reciprocations to be achieved by comparisons across sectors, including in significant areas such as internal control (Vinten, Lane, Hayes, 1996). The recent flurry of activity has included initiatives of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales 1996) and the information needs of owners (Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales 1996a), an Auditing Practices Board (1996) Practice Note, and a Department of Trade and Industry Consultation Document (DTI 1996).

INTRODUCTION Companies operating in international markets have been told that innovation lies at the heart of success and that they should establish early warning systems to help them see the signals of change (Porter, 1990). At the global level, technological developments and competitive conditions have been seen as ‘increasing pressure on firms to co‐operate along and between value‐added chains’ (Dunning, 1993). However, does this apply only to multinational enterprises competing in world markets? In the early 1990s many small firms in London were also under pressure; they were often in industries characterized by significant technical changes, to which managers had responded by introducing technical developments into their own firms. They had often been severely constrained in their attempts to achieve their business objectives by difficult competitive conditions, notably the poor growth of market demand and the increasing intensity of competition. Of course, businesses everywhere have always faced changes in their competitive environments and it is the responsibility of management to make appropriate responses to these changes. However, firms vary in their ability to identify and understand the competitive environment and in their ability to mobilize and manage the resources needed for a successful response (Pettigrew and Whipp, 1993).

Within the literature of global mindset there has been much discussion of antecedents. Few attempts have been made, however, to analyze the outcomes of a global mindset. Our chapter undertakes a thematic analysis of global mindset antecedents and outcomes in the 1994–2013 literature. Adopting an inductive approach and borrowing methods from international business and managerial cognition studies, we map, assess, and categorize 42 empirical and 10 theoretical studies thematically. We focus on the antecedents and outcomes at individual, group, and organizational levels. We conceptualize corporate global mindset as a multidimensional construct that incorporates global mindset at the individual level and is dependent on a robust communications infrastructure strategy for its cultivation throughout the organization. Our study categorizes antecedents and outcomes by level and identifies the gaps in global mindset outcomes and firm performance for future researchers to address.