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The ‘conflictual’ explanation of union decline (centring around the extent and nature of management opposition to unions) has been well documented in the US literature in recent years. This perspective has been taken a stage further in a recent study (involving some cross‐country analysis of changes in the level of union density in the years 1973–85) which concluded that those countries where union density levels had fallen were characterised by management with an above incentive and/or ability to resist unions.

This study of a sample of firms based in a region of Scotland, examines the characteristics of organizations that are early adopters of management development methods. The survey results show that organizations that are early adopters of one or more of four fashionable management development techniques—open learning, computer‐assisted learning, action learning and outdoor management training—are also characterized by a sophisticated approach to human resource development and the use of other ‘high performance’ HRM practices. Such findings are consistent with the literature on innovation that points to rational‐technical factors influencing the decision‐making process of early adopter organizations in contrast to institutional factors such as social conformity that are more important in influencing late adopter organizations. However, the data also point to the limitations of using an early‐late stage adoption framework for the diffusion of techniques such as those used in management development.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Increasingly public sector industrial relations have become the central concern of governments, practitioners and academics. The main purpose of this monograph is to review key developments in public sector industrial relations, particularly during the period of the Thatcher Government. The emphasis is on the public services, especially local government, the NHS and the civil service. In the first section we review trends in public sector employment (particularly in the light of Government policy to reduce it), wages (in a context of cash limits), and strikes and other forms of industrial action. In the second part we move from “outcomes” to consider recent developments in the structure, organisation and policy of the “actors” in public sector industrial relations. In particular, we examine union organisation, developments in personnel management, bargaining structure, wage determination machinery and procedures, dispute resolution and privatisation initiatives. Developments in these areas are set in the context of the traditional features which distinguish public sector industrial relations from other spheres. In many of the areas under consideration, trends and developments set in train by the post‐1979 Conservative Government are still in the process of being worked out. Overall public sector employment has fallen, but with considerable variation around the average. National wage disputes, with considerable numbers of working days lost, have characterised the public sector since 1979, but the frequency of industrial conflict should not be exaggerated. There are moves to decentralise union and management structures, but the consequences of this have yet to be realised. Pay, however, remains problematic for government, employing authorities and unions. Since 1981–2, public sector settlements have generally been below the rate of inflation, but above the cash limit. The ad hoc policy of determining public sector pay by a mixture of review bodies, measures of comparability and market forces has created an overall picture of confusion. Establishing a fair and rational system of public sector pay remains a key task for any future government.

In a recent article in this journal Geoffrey Stuttard argued that the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 which provide for union appointed safety representatives have important implications for extending industrial democracy. The essence of this line of argument is that the subject area of workplace health and safety, which has for so long been dominated by unilateral management decision making at the individual workplace and a framework of common and statute law that has taken a highly “paternalistic” attitude towards the issue of employee and union involvement, is to become at least an area of extensive joint discussion, and possible one of joint decision making.

The general opinion in Britain at present is that the unions are not facing significant changes in management attitudes towards the institution of unionism. This view has been devised from surveys of relatively large‐sized plants in the manufacturing sector, an area of traditionally high levels of unionisation. It is argued that researchers in the UK may be looking in the wrong place or for the wrong signs in drawing this conclusion. Researchers may have been looking for substantial changes in management‐union relations rather than less obvious changes in terms of the power of existing institutions or of sustained opposition to new recognition agreements. Material relating to voluntary conciliation claims for recognition between 1976 and 1985 is examined, which shows a halving in the number of claims. Three recent studies in new towns all point to the high percentage of non‐union firms. A fall in union density can occur due to external contingencies, even in the absence of explicit management strategies of opposition to union organisation.

The reasons which influence any individual to choose one union over another in a situation where both have recruited members and obtained bargaining rights are investigated in a questionnaire‐based study conducted in three Scottish psychiatric establishments. Two views of why an individual nurse joins the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) as opposed to the Confederation of Health Service Employees (COHSE) or the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) or vice versa are given. In the first view the key influences are seen to be the personal values that individuals bring into the workplace. The second view stresses the influence of the historical patterns of organisations in the different parts of the nursing service.

In 1967 Aslib Research and Development Department published a note describing experimental work on computer‐aided typesetting, and announcing that further research was planned. The proposed programme of work was carried out by the authors of the present paper, during their sojourns as members of the Department. The results are here reported.

Addresses the question: will investment in HRD through company‐based programmes of lifelong learning pay dividends to companies in terms of knowledge transfer from courses and more positive psychological contracts? Develops a model of the relationship between HRD investment, the content of psychological contracts and key consequences such as satisfaction, continuance commitment and knowledge transfer. This model is tested empirically using data from a survey of a cohort of participants in a major Scottish electronics company. The results show that the programme paid off in terms of more positive psychological contracts and knowledge transfer. However, contrary to other research, the nature of the transfer climate (e.g. manager support, career and salary advancement, etc.) was not seen to be important in affecting knowledge transfer. This latter finding has important implications for HR policies in knowledge creating companies.

The controls and queues of the past eleven years have confirmed and consolidated, I think, the conservatism of the British housewife in the matter of buying food. Butter is just national butter. Margarine is what the Minister of Food dictates. Cooking fat is—well, just cooking fat. Those who succumbed to the official boosting of whalemeat, snoek and brisling mostly wish that they had not. Those who were adventurous enough to spend 5s. or 6s. on cans of imported food labelled —apparently with the Minister's approval—with the words “ Sausages in brine ”, discovered that they had about 11 ounces of sausages in a pint or more of salt water. Could anything be more destructive of willingness to try something new? I am led to make these banal observations by what is happening in this country in the matter of quick‐frosted foods. There is now a National Association of wholesale distributors of these products, which is resolved to try to overcome, by suitable propaganda, the sales‐resistance of the British housewife; and, as a mere looker‐on, I wish them well. Close to my house, in a London suburb, I notice that quick‐frosted fruits and vegetables are on sale at the shops of a dairy firm, a grocer, a provision dealer and a fruiterer (all these are multiple shops), and also at a health food store. Some of the largest firms, including the Unilever mammoth, are now in this business, which is operated on a colossal scale in the United States. It would be boring to give many figures, but I learn that on January 1st, 1949, the stocks of these frozen foods in American warehouses, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, were as under: —