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During the past 25 years, many researchers and scholars have suggested that schools and school organizations often operate with a structural looseness much different from that of the rational bureaucracy. Coupling and linkage are two metaphors which have been developed to describe the intricacies of life in schools and school organizations. Briefly reviews some of the developments of the linkage metaphor, the relationships between coupling and linkage, and illustrates how the linkage metaphor might be useful in developing greater understanding of change processes in schools and school organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of employee empowerment, and the implications for management control systems (MCS), as the style of management changes from a hierarchical, top‐down, style to a more lateral, bottom‐up, orientation, in which workers assume greater responsibility for situated decision‐making and self‐monitoring.

A longitudinal, multiple method, case study explores how empowerment is both understood and applied by management and workers. Simons “Levers of Control” framework is employed as a sensitising device to understand the implications for MCS.

The transformation strategy is largely successful in changing the long‐standing, bureaucratic, public‐sector culture, to a more devolved style in which challenge and participation is encouraged, although actual adoption patterns are uneven and developments are not always linear. By the end of the study period, there is a move back towards centralised control but, significantly, the study is able to confirm Simons' argument that the use of an appropriate mix of levers in a “loose‐tight” manner can still promote empowered working.

The field work consists of a single case, albeit this is a large company with a number of autonomous units and, over time, each developed its own style of management control. At times, it is difficult to establish clear linkages between the empowerment initiative, operational management, actual performance and the MCS due to numerous contextual factors, hence the longitudinal nature of the project.

Whilst practitioner literature has made copious exhortations to empower workers, there is little empirical work on the practical application of empowerment, or the implications for MCS in the longer term. This paper finds that empowerment can, despite some academic reservations, have an honest purpose and indeed outlive its otherwise faddish tendencies.

This paper deals with the management of complex environmental turbulence and organizational change in English local government. Research has been conducted to assess the perceptions of the strategic élites, chief executives and chief officers, to these change processes. However, no work had been undertaken to assess the extent of support and ownership amongst non‐élite actors, the middle managers and street‐level operatives, in English local authorities towards these élite change strategies. This paper identifies that different management styles do impact upon the roles of these non‐élites in a number of distinct ways. It provides evidence that one of the management styles is more appropriate than the others identified in the paper in terms of effecting successful change management.

A British company has developed a two‐camera system which can be used on‐line to find the precise width of steel strip. The system can be calibrated away from the hostile environment associated with steel works in which the unit will operate without special protection, apart from watercooling.

Intra‐organizational coordination is studied almost exclusively using a case approach, with the implementation of one specific coordinating method and evaluation of the effects of that method. By contrast, this study explores the daily use of five coordinating strategies in 30 Swedish schools. Furthermore, the relationships between coordinating strategies and co‐ordination problems in the schools and burnout among teachers are investigated. The most important coordinating strategy was “professional consideration”, followed by “striving for goals”. “Mutual adjustment” was perceived as important to a few, and hardly any teachers judged “following routines” and “following the boss” as important. The results showed that “striving for goals” was related to less frequent coordination problems and lower levels of burnout than was “professional consideration”.

Neo-liberal “reform” has in many countries shifted services across the boundary between the public and private sector. This policy re-opens the question of what structural and managerial differences, if any, differences of ownership make to healthcare providers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the connections between ownership, organisational structure and managerial regime within an elaboration of Donabedian’s reasoning about organisational structures. Using new data from England, it considers: how do the internal managerial regimes of differently owned healthcare providers differ, or not? In what respects did any such differences arise from differences in ownership or for other reasons?

An observational systematic qualitative comparison of differently owned providers was the strongest feasible research design. The authors systematically compared a maximum variety (by ownership) sample of community health services; out-of-hours primary care; and hospital planned orthopaedics and ophthalmology providers (n=12 cases). The framework of comparison was the ownership theory mentioned above.

The connection between ownership (on the one hand) and organisation structures and managerial regimes (on the other) differed at different organisational levels. Top-level governance structures diverged by organisational ownership and objectives among the case-study organisations. All the case-study organisations irrespective of ownership had hierarchical, bureaucratic structures and managerial regimes for coordinating everyday service production, but to differing extents. In doctor-owned organisations, the doctors’, but not other occupations’, work was controlled and coordinated in a more-or-less democratic, self-governing ways.

This study was empirically limited to just one sector in one country, although within that sector the case-study organisations were typical of their kinds. It focussed on formal structures, omitting to varying extents other technologies of power and the differences in care processes and patient experiences within differently owned organisations.

Type of ownership does appear, overall, to make a difference to at least some important aspects of an organisation’s governance structures and managerial regime. For the broader field of health organisational research, these findings highlight the importance of the owners’ agency in explaining organisational change. The findings also call into question the practice of copying managerial techniques (and “fads”) across the public–private boundary.

Ownership does make important differences to healthcare providers’ top-level governance structures and accountabilities and to work coordination activity, but with different patterns at different organisational levels. These findings have implications for understanding the legitimacy, governance and accountability of healthcare organisations, the distribution and use power within them, and system-wide policy interventions, for instance to improve care coordination and for the correspondingly required foci of healthcare organisational research.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

Why are excellent communication departments actually outstanding? The purpose of this paper is to address this question from a multidisciplinary perspective and identify two different strands of the excellence debate, one from general management and the other from public relations and communication management. Insights from both perspectives are combined in a new approach – the comparative excellence framework (CEF). This framework has been applied in two studies among 3,691 communication departments across Europe. Characteristics of excellence identified in this empirical exercise are described. The results are then matched with insights from the excellence literature to test the plausibility of the new approach.

A literature survey has been used to identify current excellence approaches and to build the comparative framework. In the empirical part, two subsequent editions of an annual online survey of communication professionals across Europe were used to test the approach. Excellent departments were identified across four dimensions: advisory influence, executive influence, success and competence. Approximately one-fifth of each sample was identified as excellent.

The study shows that excellent communication departments are not simply better at communication; they are different. The characteristics identified are in line with popular organizational excellence models from management theory. Excellent departments employ different people (more experienced, with higher positions and in more strategic roles); they partner and collaborate more closely with the executive board and other departments in the organization; they base their work on different processes with more listening and research; and they produce more products at the strategic level, like overall communication and messaging strategies. There is also a strong congruence with excellence theory in communication management.

The CEF uses a limited number of variables to distinguish excellent from other communication departments. This is typical for excellence approaches based on benchmarking and self-assessments. It helps to apply such approaches in practice. The empirical testing is based on data collected on one continent (Europe). Further research should employ data from other regions of the world and test whether results vary.

In its pragmatic simplicity, the CEF is a viable tool for practitioners for the assessment of communication department and for establishing a quality control system. It can also guide the development of training and education in communication management.

The paper demonstrates that communication management research fits into a larger stream of research in the field of quality management.

Course delegate, Ray, is in a difficult situation on his company training course. He has fallen out with a number of people and is learning one or two things he hadn't faced up to before from the experience. This last article in the series is written from the point of view of the trainee; the authors David Allner and John Teire of Simulon find that conventional reporting of Experiential Training programmes does more for the writer than for the reader. It is based on work they have been doing with Leyland Cars.