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This paper explores student and graduate internships. The roles and motivation of the intern and the academic, employer and professional associations that sponsor internships are considered. An examination of the “Career Starts” Program created by the Public Service Commission of the Province of Nova Scotia, in Canada serves as a case study to consider the application of internships, practical issues and objectives associated with such a program, and the experience of individual interns. This case is interesting, as a “collective agreement” element currently limits intern access to full time employment within the government. The impact of this limitation is contrasted with conventional programs established as a “recruitment pool”. Internships are seen as a critical component of individual development and for succession planning for professional and management staff, as well as development of specialized skills. Internships are seen as providing a bridge between academic preparation, and full participation in work or a professional association that provides benefits to the intern, the academic institutions and employers or professional bodies.

Learning within organisations tends to be organisationally driven, subject oriented and focused on content acquisition. Formal courses reflecting traditional student/teacher roles tend to be the norm. Adult learning theory suggests adult learners are self‐directing, problem centred and bring a variety of experience to the learning situation. These characteristics provide a foundation for an alternative approach to both learning in groups and the management of individual learning within the organisational context. The strategic approach to learner centred development is suggested as a method of facilitating and supporting individual development and integrating organisationally‐driven learning needs into an individual learning strategy. Recommendations relative to learning within the public service are included.

This paper aims to report on themes of root cause of injury emerging from a qualitative study of investigations into serious workplace injuries undertaken by the Nova Scotia Department of Labour and Workforce Development, Occupational Health and Safety Division.

The study used systems‐based safety management as a theoretical lens and a qualitative grounded theory approach to inductively identify patterns and themes in the root cause of injury. Investigations were purposefully selected and analyzed through document review supplemented by interviews.

A number of themes of root cause of injury emerge from the data reflecting a lack of commitment to safety within the organization and a lack of positive safety leadership by management. Workplace culture is identified as a reflection of beliefs and assumptions of managers which impacts safety behaviour. A trend toward identifying the victim as a cause is also addressed.

Data are limited to investigations of serious injuries reported to the enforcement agency, thus focusing on negative experiences. The identification of root cause of injury may not always be the focus of the investigation, and the nature of acute serious injury limits the industry sectors represented. A need for further investigation across other industry sectors and inclusion of chronic injury is indicated.

These themes represent a cross sectoral perspective and can be used to guide development of prevention and intervention programs, corporate priorities and public policy.

The paper reports on a study of patterns in the root cause of workplace injuries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore unintentional learning through an examination of the practical implications of it as experienced in the field of occupational health and safety, and the role of government in addressing those implications by way of learning at the level of culture change. The paper examines various learning models and assumptions and challenges the application of these assumptions in the workplace as evidenced in the field of occupational health and safety. The paper posits that a large body of “unintentional” learning exists within the workplace which is not the result of conscious decisions and lacks critical reflection on the possible outcomes. These learnings may have negative consequences that are at odds with stated or intended policy. It suggests actions which can be taken to identify and mitigate unintentional learnings and their outcomes.

The development of small firms tends to follow certain growth patterns usually referred to as business growth models. This paper reports on the conceptualisation of a “problem‐based phenomenological life cycle model”, which delineates the growth pattern of micro and small manufacturing firms in Cyprus. The empirically validated model offers guidance to small business managers, financiers and advisers as to the challenges and growth complexities accompanying the transitions taking place in small businesses as they develop along their organisational life cycle. Enhanced understanding of the barriers to the development of small business contributes to the better design of policy initiatives that seek to foster the survival, sustainable growth and prosperity of small enterprises.

Adapting a concept from the biological sciences, organizational researchers have proposed a life cycle of organizational development from birth to death. Several distinct models have been postulated, ranging from three to ten stages. This paper proposes a five‐stage model and tests it empirically to assess the specific stage of the life cycle of any organization. Results of a twenty‐item scale that captures managers' perceptions of their firms' position in the life cycle are discussed. Knowledge of an organization's present position or stage of development can aid top managers in understanding the relationships between organizational life cycle, competitive strategy, and performance.

Presents an approach to work‐based learning within organizations which is necessary to maintain congruence between modern approaches to management and learning. As traditional approaches to management give way to a recognition of the value of employee participation and empowerment, so also the approach to employee learning must shift. Organizations must focus on a learning partnership between the learner and the organization which enables the learner to take responsibility for their own learning. The organization must seek to facilitate learning, rather than cause it, in the context of continuous learning. Presents an approach to operationalizing empowered learning in an organization. Part Two will examine a case study on implementing empowered learning.

This paper responds to the need for more investigation into the "conceptual underpinnings of sponsorships" (Gardner & Shuman, 1988, p.44) by investigating the spectrum of opportunities that are available to small firms - whether as sports donors or as bona fide sponsors - through the prism of small business Stages of Development theory. A multiple case study approach is employed to explore the nature of sponsorship activities being undertaken by small enterprises and to contribute to the advancement of the authors' 'philanthropy-sponsorship' continuum.

This research makes two contributions. First, it presents the classifications of 'patronage' versus 'semistrong sponsorship' versus 'fully functioning sponsorship' relationships, based on the nature of the expected benefits. Second, it evaluates the small business/sports property interface from the perspective of small business phases of development and proposes a framework for linking the small firm to sports sponsorship outcomes.

Three basic approaches to retail institutional change can be discerned in the last 30 years. The first contends that institutional evolution is a function of developments in the socio‐economic environment. The second argues that change occurs in a cyclical fashion. The third considers inter‐institutional conflict to be the mainspring of retail change. None of those approaches is found to be entirely satisfactory, and a series of combination theories has been posited. It is argued that regional institutional change is the result of environmental forces and a cycle‐like sequence of inter‐institutional conflict.

The winter 1991 issue of Reference Services Review featured an annotated bibliography of literature on Christopher Columbus from 1970 to 1989. That literature covered such topics as Columbus' ancestry, heraldry, and the locations of both his American landfall and burial site. This annotated checklist focuses mainly on Columbus' legacy, on works that offer a dissenting point of view from most previous writings about Columbus (and on works that react to the dissenters), on material written by Native American and other non‐European authors, and on materials published by small and noncommercial presses.