Search results

International attention is increasingly turning to the challenge of creating age-friendly environments. This study aims to examine the application of asset-based approaches in undertaking community development projects with older people. The paper intends to share the learning that may be useful when designing community development projects for older people in the future.

This study followed a multiple project case study design, with a focus on project delivery practices. It was undertaken as a co-production exercise involving university researchers and trained older volunteer community researchers (CRs). Over 18–24 months of qualitative research was conducted in relation to six area-based urban projects between 2018 and 2020.

There were five leading themes as follows: mapping and building on assets in highly localised settings; creating governance and direction through steering groups; developing activities with diverse groups of older people; reaching isolated and lonely older people; building local capacity to embed sustainability.

The effectiveness of assets-based approaches in promoting age-friendly agendas appears to be contingent on the values, skills, capacity and resourcing of delivery agencies, alongside wider public sector investment in communities. Diversity and inequalities amongst older people need to be taken into account and community development that specifically focuses on older people needs to be balanced with the whole population and intergenerational practice.

This paper provides an empirical account of the practical application of assets practices specifically in the context of the age-friendly community agenda. The co-production method brings together insights from academic and volunteer older CRs.

Post-pandemic renewal has to be much more radical. In this chapter we develop a considered response to reimagining the public sector with a focus on Liverpool City Region, its local economy and local government. By drawing on wider ideas of new municipalism, new narratives of how to make local economies more social through public investment, accountability and democratic governance can be made. The local scale offers the frame through which this can be examined as we make the case for new municipalism in the Liverpool City Region.

As scholar-activists we have been involved in responding to the continuous austerity imposed on local government. We research and debate the social and economic problems faced in the Liverpool City Region and present some of our findings here. In our work, through an organisation known as ‘Beacon’ – a grass roots movement agitating for new municipalism – we make the case for new policy initiatives and seek to demonstrate a need for a different type of public sector reform through local government.

In the context of the ‘levelling up’ agenda of the UK government, there remains concern across the city region about how local government can function given the ongoing austerity imposed from the centre. We have a public sector that has faced disinvestment in communities for over a decade and because of this, we reimagine public sector renewal by advocating for a new municipalism based on strategies of economic and political innovation that can lead to greater levels of democracy, accountability, wealth creation and distribution. We show examples outside of the UK, such as in the US and Spain, where embryonic forms of new municipalism are evident.

Our work sets out a roadmap to achieve a new municipalist agenda in the Liverpool City Region through an activist movement, Beacon. We bring together ideas and practices that are often underway elsewhere that have real political and economic impacts. In articulating the need for renewal, not only must we critically reflect on underpinning problems but seek to campaign for the change we advocate. The challenge we face is one of coordination and scale.

The term “workplace bullying” migrated to the UK from Scandinavian countries in the early 1990s as an interpretation of persistent, offensive, abusive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour, abuse of power or unfair penal sanctions which makes the recipient feel upset, threatened, humiliated or vulnerable, undermines their self‐confidence and which may cause them to suffer stress. This article traces the emergence of workplace bullying in UK media presentations, trade union publications, self‐help literature and academic discussions. An analysis is offered of whether workplace bullying should be considered a new problem, or instead whether it might be viewed as a new interpretation for an existing problem. I draw from qualitative interviews with bullied men and women to discuss how workers are deploying the concept of workplace bullying. My analysis demonstrates that “workplace bullying” supplies a helpful interpretation for a range of unfair practices, but that the current emphasis on persistent and/or harmful experiences should be problematised.

In spite of the recession and its attendant threats to workforce size and union power, a well‐organised union can still influence management and company plans. Though management still have a range of policy options, the point of trade union resistance is to force management into accepting options more favourable to workforce interests. A case study outlining a type of factory‐based union organisation which has survived the recession through successfully contesting managerial decisions, draws the conclusion that the central element of such activity's success is that it must be moulded to a broader, less insular, more political view of trade union activity. The evidence supports the argument that steward organisations have largely maintained their position of the 1970s. Union membership and support remains a crucial issue in maintaining union power, and shop stewards must continue to re‐examine ways of involving and informing their members.

Analyses the special difficulties encountered by an undercover worker researching unconventional behaviour in the workplace. Posits that the problems of such behaviour cannot be solved without accepting that it is meaningful to the actors. Reports qualitative participant‐observer research in the entertainments industry, in the course of which 451 cases of unconventional practices were collected and analysed with respect to: forms of behaviour, styles (modus operandi – covert and overt) and motives and meanings. Presents a three‐dimensional model and offers recommendations in the form of guidelines for management on how to deal with these practices effectively.

Although scholars have considered the success factors of process improvement (PI) projects, limited research has considered the factors that influence failure. The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of PI project failure by systematically reviewing the research on generic project failure, and developing research propositions and future research directions specifically for PI projects.

A systematic literature review protocol resulted in a total of 97 research papers that are reviewed for contributions on project failure.

An inductive category formation process resulted in three categories of findings. The first category are the causes for project failure, the second category is about relatedness between failure factors and the third category is on failure mitigation strategies. For each category, propositions for future research on PI projects specifically are developed. Additional future research directions proposed lay in better understanding PI project failure as it unfolds (i.e. process studies vs cross-sectional), understanding PI project failure from a theoretical perspective and better understanding of PI project failure antecedents.

This paper takes a multi-disciplinary and project type approach, synthesizes the existing knowledge and reflects upon the developments in the field of research. Propositions and a framework for future research on PI project failure are presented.

A substantial proportion of people “in debt” are in employment. Increasingly, employers can be required by the courts to recover debts for creditors from employees via the attachment of earnings process. However, there are claims that the process has a range of negative consequences for both employers and employees, including costs, lowered motivation, and changes in the recruitment and retention of labour. Presents data from a recent study of the attachment of earnings process which assess the validity of a number of these claims. Draws attention to the differential perceptions of the significance of attachment on the part of employers and employees and the consequences of this for managing attachment within employing organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of line managers in managing attendance at work in the lean regime of grocery retailing. The increasing competitiveness within the sector, coupled with the sophisticated control systems in place put pressure on managers to keep labour costs low. Attendance, therefore, becomes a critical factor, particularly as staffing levels become leaner. Taking this into account, it is necessary to understand the parameters of the line managers’ role in managing attendance, especially within the lean food retail market and the antagonistic terrain of the supermarket shop floor. The paper discusses the impact of lean retailing on line managers’ authority and provides a fresh sociological analysis regarding their role in managing attendance, offering insights into managerial practices on the UK supermarket shop floor.

The paper draws on qualitative research evidence from two case study grocery retail organizations in the UK. It reports on 44 semi-structured interviews and provides a multi-level analysis aiming to understand the different perspectives on the problem examined.

The paper reveals the existence of a centralized absence management policy and highlights the greater involvement of line managers in this procedure. Line managers though were subjected to forces of bureaucratic control, intensification and degradation of their work. Despite having an active role within the attendance management process and high responsibility for the implementation of rules and procedures handed down by head office, they had limited authority over the process. Line managers perceived the latter as routine and a box-ticking exercise and had developed coping tactics to deal with the control from above.

This paper provides practical and theoretical considerations over the role of line management in the labour process, investigating their role in managing attendance at work within the lean terrain of food retailing. This research contributes to the ongoing academic discussions related to the devolvement of HR responsibilities to the line, highlighting the great involvement of line managers in the absence policy. It also provides a sociological perspective over line managers’ authority and discretion in managing attendance, revealing that they were subjected to direct and bureaucratic control within their role in attendance management. However, the research reveals that line managers were not passive in the face of direct control from above and had developed tactics to cope with the monotony and the repetition of this process, attempting to somehow escape the top-down control they were subjected to.

‘FOG in Channel: Continent isolated!’ Those were once the headlines in a national newspaper which thus succinctly, although with unintentional irony, expressed the British sense of complacency. Making allowance for an element of exaggeration, the incident contained enough truth to make its point. The new alignments of industry and commerce which are now taking place mean that this country cannot afford to retain even a vestige of such an attitude.

Introduction Consider a hi‐fi loudspeaker manufacturing company acquired on the brink of insolvency by an American multinational. The new owners discover with growing concern that the product range is obsolete, that manufacturing facilities are totally inadequate and that there is a complete absence of any real management substance or structure. They decide on the need to relocate urgently so as to provide continuity of supply at the very high — a market about to shrink at a rate unprecedented in its history.