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A review of the emerging scholarly literature on positive organizational scholarship indicates a need to pursue cognitive, emotional and motivational mechanisms which translate into positive states and outcomes in organizations. Responding to this, this paper aims to test a mediation model linking resilience and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) through subjective well-being (SWB) components (i.e. life satisfaction and affect balance) and organizational commitment (OC) components.

Data were collected from 345 employees working in the Indian manufacturing industry. The study used structural equation modeling using AMOS to conduct bootstrapped mediation analyses.

Results showed that SWB and OC components mediated the resilience-OCB relationship. Results offered strong support for the role of affect balance (high positive and low negative affect) and affective commitment in mediating the influence of resilience on OCB.

The study not only tested the applicability of resilience in an organizational context to predict coveted positive outcomes but also identified the underlying mechanism as how psychological resource capacities like resilience contribute to OCBs.

This paper seeks to argue that sociology is in need of reconstruction on a theoretical and conceptual foundation of cybernetics, specifically, managerial cybernetics and to show how this hitherto unsuccessful task might be brought about.

The approach is one of a rigorous and deep querying of the reasons for the lack of successful fit heretofore between sociology and cybernetics. By taking a critical, historical and philosophical approach to the development of sciences it opens possibilities for the reconstruction of sociology as a “new science” based on the foundation of cybernetics, specifically the managerial cybernetics of Stafford Beer.

The work argues that the appropriate conceptual foundation for the social sciences is the realm of communication and control, ideas that were given a rigorous formulation in cybernetics, information theory and systems thinking since the 1940s. Many people have seen the prima facie appropriateness of these ideas for the study of human society and numerous attempts have been made to apply them. Almost, all of these efforts have been failures, at least from a sociological point of view. The paper suggests that the problem with all such previous attempts is that they consisted of too direct an application of cybernetics to sociology, entailing a metaphoric reduction that threatened the intellectual integrity of the discipline. Work in the history of sciences suggests that, whereas deep theoretical, foundational work may well be achieved for a realm in the abstract, so to speak, it is when attempts are made to apply these results to more phenomenal domains, to which in principle they are deemed appropriate and relevant, that problems of an apparent “lack of fit” arise. It has been found that a group of intermediating concepts is necessary to draw the two domains together in a workable fit. This process has been called “finalization of science”.

Of immediate value is the reconstruction of sociology as a cybernetically informed science of society that actually delivers theoretical, analytical, research and practical results.

The paper represents a highly original synthesis drawn from the history and philosophy of science development to yield immediate and useful results.

Owner‐managers of small businesses invariably cite word of mouth recommendations as the principal way in which they attract new customers. Marketing theory is under‐developed in this field with little empirical evidence about the recommending behaviour of small business customers and referral groups. The case study of an independent health club reported here illustrates how these processes can be researched and the results used to influence word of mouth recommendations. The owner‐manager of the club carried out some basic research on his customer base in order to identify the types of members who were most active in recommending the club, and the stimuli that led to recommendations being made. A key finding was that newer members were more likely to recommend than those who had been members for some time, contradicting the implications of relationship marketing theories that long standing customers generate most recommendations. Membership more than doubled following a number of activities designed to increase recommending behaviour. The most important stimuli to recommendations were believed to be involvement with the club, incentives and experiential factors. The case study indicates that word of mouth strategies benefit from research to find out which customers are recommending the business, what they are recommending about the business and what prompts them to do so.

To establish the concept of identity as the bridging concept of cybernetics and sociology.

The approach is a pincers movement. On the one hand, it is argued that there has been a move towards an identity society; identity is a foundational concept for an understanding of contemporary society. On the other hand, the paper argues that in the work of Beer, identity became the key to his proposal that the VSM is the optimal form of variety management in a social system. The study is based on an extension and application of Finalizierungstheorie to the problem.

Identity is the key concept for the articulation of cybernetics and sociology. There has been a singular failure to apply cybernetic ideas to sociological materials in a manner that has met with the approval and satisfaction of the sociological community. Beer's formulation of the identity phenomenon and its extrapolation in the social sphere proposes a solution to this long‐standing problem.

The approach allows for a broad ranging multi‐level research programme in sociological cybernetics to be formulated and pursued in a manner congenial to the accumulation of a substantial knowledge base ranging from micro‐ to macro‐issues.

This paper presents a unique synthesis of cybernetics and sociology building on and extending the work of Beer in the field of managerial cybernetics.

This article aims to cover the experience of working with the new framework/criteria for specialist neuro‐rehabilitation services to meet the needs of patients with rare or complex conditions to achieve eligibility for a level 1 status.

Royal Leamington Spa Rehabilitation Hospital is currently collecting the full UK Rehabilitation Outcomes Collaborative (UKROC) dataset for all in‐patient episodes. A number of tools for measuring rehabilitation needs were gathered by the multi‐disciplinary team (i.e. costing of the service including staffing, building, equipments, etc.), and a range of clinical measures including needs: (the rehabilitation complexity scale); inputs: the Northwick Park nursing and therapy dependency scales (NPDS, NPTDA); and outcomes: the UK functional assessment measure (UK FIM+FAM) which are collated on the national UKROC database.

These measures have been used to assess the level of a patient's complex needs and to help formulate bandings, which are being used to inform national tariffs. A number of advantages and disadvantages have been acknowledged from the introduction of the new criteria and have been addressed in this viewpoint. As the current trend for services is to be paid (payment by results) depending on activity and outcome, it is essential to provide good outcome data to monitor performance and justify the units' effectiveness.

This paper outlines the authors' journey to achieve specialist commissioning and highlights the importance of monitoring and measuring the units' performance to reflect the continuous needs of the NHS and patients.

Reports research into how the organisational learning process can be routinised. Three sets of enabling routines and four sets of defensive routines are identified which are core to facilitating and challenging the learning process. A field‐tested prototype methodology is reported which supports the introduction of a strategy for organisational learning and change by practitioners within companies. In this way the abstract notions of organisational learning, corporate regeneration and change can be made operational.