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This series of papers aims to explore the transition from higher education into work. It reports on research undertaken over a period of two years and which sought to track a number of young graduates as they completed their studies and embarked upon career of choice.

The approach adopted is defined and discussed as one of “common sense”. Alongside the notion of “common sense” the paper deploys two further concepts, “convention” and “faith” necessary to complete a rudimentary methodological framework. The narratives which are at the heart of the papers are built in such a way as to contain not only the most significant substantive issues raised by the graduates themselves but also the tone of voice specific to each.

Five cases are presented; the stories of five of the graduates over the course of one year. Story lines that speak of learning about the job, learning about the organisation and learning about self are identified. An uneven journey into a workplace community is evident. “Fragmentation” and “cohesion” are the constructs developed to reflect the conflicting dynamics that formed the lived experience of the transitional journeys experienced by each graduate.

Whilst the longitudinal perspective adopted overcomes some of the major difficulties inherent in studies which simply use “snap shot” data, the natural limits of the “common sense” approach restrict theoretical development. Practically speaking, however, the papers identify issues for reflection for those within higher education and the workplace concerned with developing practical interventions in the areas of graduate employability, reflective practice and initial/continuous professional development.

The series of papers offers an alternative to orthodox studies within the broader context of graduate skills and graduate employment. The papers set this debate in a more illuminating context.

The theoretical linkages are with dynamic nature of PESTEL analysis, Porter’s five forces, resource-based view of the firm and characteristics of an entrepreneur.

The names of the institutions and individuals involved have been disguised. However, the material facts of the case are authentic.

This case discusses strategy in the context of a crisis situation in a small business. JTH Inc. was a computer subcontract manufacturing (SCM) firm serving the New England region of the USA. The influx of international competition (mainly from China) due to recession led to significant challenges for JTH and the SCM industry. JTH was struggling and the situation was further complicated by the founder’s (Robert Maxwell) personal and emotional situation. Robert had to decide whether to keep the business running, close it down, merge with/be acquired by a competitor, innovate the business model or do something else.

This case is designed to target undergraduate students of Strategic Management; it may also include Entrepreneurship students. It should most probably be taught in the first half of the course after concepts such as PESTEL, Porter and resource-based view of the firm have been taught.

This paper describes the benefits and requirements of robot tool changers and the selection criteria. In particular, expands on the design of the ATI quick‐change tool changer and provides examples of industrial applications.

In the spring of 1982, I published an article in Reference Services Review on marketing libraries and information services. The article covered available literature on that topic from 1970 through part of 1981, the time period immediately following Kotler and Levy's significant and frequently cited article in the January 1969 issue of the Journal of Marketing, which was first to suggest the idea of marketing nonprofit organizations. The article published here is intended to update the earlier work in RSR and will cover the literature of marketing public, academic, special, and school libraries from 1982 to the present.

Dr Cottle's paper was delivered at a meeting of the Reference, Special and Information Section's Western Group at Salisbury on 20 October 1977 to mark the centenary of the Library Association

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ideals and activities of the nineteenth century Welsh industrialist and reformer Robert Owen (1771‐1858), and how they informed modern human resource development (HRD) concepts and practices and provided evidence of Owen as a HRD pioneer.

Historiography provided a method to understand how historical figures, and the context in which they lived and worked, inform contemporary research and practice.

Contextual factors of economics, politics and societal demands and the influences of Owen's early life, his immersion within the British factory system and the creation of the New Lanark mill village, Owen's great work experiment, revealed a strong impact on his thinking and actions. Thematic findings included: managing people and profit, education and training, pioneering workplace innovations, and the failure of the New Harmony, Indiana community. Themes provided unique historical evidence that education and development of workers, and the creation of humane work and community environments are linked across time and contexts to modern concepts of human resource development and thus supported Owen as a HRD pioneer.

Understanding the ideals and workplace experiments and contextual influences on a historical figure such as Robert Owen illustrate how modern concepts of workforce training and education, diversity, equality and justice and social responsibility originated and the importance of contexts on their development and success.

Contexts of economics, politics and societal demands greatly influence organizations and the creation of humane workplaces that nurture human potential.

The study brings history and historiography as a research method to the forefront of HRD research and practice. The study provides the beginnings of a collective historical memory that can contribute to HRD defining itself and establishing its identity as a discipline.

The widespread family businesses play an important role in the national economy of developed countries in Europe and North America, or of developing countries in East Asia. However, family business succession is a worldwide difficult problem. The innovative family business succession practices of Robert Bosch GmbH, the German family company which has a history of 130 years (1886-2016), basically follow the trend of evolving from family businesses to social enterprises after further socialization. However, it has its own innovation and uniqueness which is worthy of reference by Chinese family businesses.

The objective of this research is to develop and describe a conceptual framework of corporate ethics in total quality management (TQM).

The research is based on a summarised in‐depth and longitudinal case illustration. The summarised case describes corporate ethics in an intra‐corporate relationship.

TQM requires human resources and failing to care for them will affect accordingly the success of TQM. The case description illustrates the evolution of management versus employee expectations and perceptions of corporate ethics. It has an emphasis on the human resources of a company that strives towards TQM. As the quality of corporate ethics decreases the outcome of TQM is also affected (i.e. directly or indirectly). The case is initialised in an atmosphere of management and employee optimism and positivism of corporate ethics, which is a requisite from both parties in order to ensure prosperous TQM. The successive change towards pessimism and negativism of corporate ethics in the intra‐corporate relationship concludes the in‐depth case description.

Four parameters of corporate ethics are used to incorporate corporate ethics into TQM, namely management versus employee expectations and perceptions. Internal corporate quality management should always be regarded as dependent upon the achieved equilibrium between management and employee perceptions. It is also dependent upon the derived equilibrium between management and employee previous expectations.

An important insight of this research is that TQM requires the continuous attention to the management versus employee expectations and perceptions inherent in corporate ethics of internal business operations. Furthermore, corporate ethics is complementary to business ethics.

The case description has shown that TQM may be running well and accomplishing the hard goals. However, TQM is not only about figures, profits and costs. It is also a business approach that should penetrate all activities inside and outside that are related to the company, including the soft issues.

A story that Robert told in class during this research exposes the tension of simultaneously studying literacy and identity when submission and control are also processes at work in the story. There are two pieces of this story. In the first part of the story, Robert relates the narrative. The second part consists of the details of the story he told. Both pieces can be used to illustrate different elements of the tension between studying literacy and identity as a single construct labeled literate identity. In addition to suggesting a metaphor for literacy and identity, Robert's story navigates the constructs of submission and control that Wong (2008) discusses in terms of the aesthetic of motivation. The tension between submission and control when coupled with an exploration of literacy and identity has implications for the notions of resistance to literacy in the field of boys' literacy as well as the being and doing of literacy for the boys in this study.Our class began with the students congratulating Robert on his storytelling. When I inquired further, I found out that Robert had started to tell the legend of Cupid and Psyche in a previous class, but he had run out of time. The rest of the students expressed interest in hearing the story, either for the first time, or to know the end. Initially, his telling ebbed and flowed. He apologized for his lack of fluency and explained he was trying to provide us the parts of the story we would find the most interesting. Eventually he settled into a rhythm and finished 50 minutes later. (Reconstructed field note, December 2009)

IN an address delivered recently before the members of the Library Assistants' Association, Mr. R. T. L. Parr, a Local Government Auditor, revived the suggestion that Public Libraries should be merged in the Education Authority. At first sight the suggestion seems reasonable. Public Libraries are a part and an important part, of the educational machinery of the country; a fact that the public are slow to acknowledge, if one can judge from the meagreness of the funds placed at the disposal of library authorities. Past efforts to increase generally the limited library rate of one penny in the pound have failed signally, while the unlimited general education rate has been rising steadily, without any great protests being made by rate‐payers. Why not, then, adopt Mr. Parr's suggestion, and drop all efforts to promote the new Libraries Bill, and instead favour an Education Bill, in which the necessary reforms for public libraries could be inserted? If this could be done without public libraries being placed under the control of the Board of Education, well and good, but, if not, it is advisable to pause and consider. For many years librarians have been endeavouring to organize their profession, and there is a great danger in the individuality of librarianship being swallowed up in general education. The work of the librarian is quite distinct from that of the teacher, and unless the librarian preserves his individuality he is lost. If public libraries are ever placed under the control of the Government, librarians would be well advised to see that they are specially administered on a professional basis, and not run by educationalists to whom the technique of librarianship is a thing unknown. An example of an attempt to combine librarianship with education is dealt with in the succeeding note. Apart from the idea of placing public libraries under the control of the Board of Education, a state of affairs that we do not recommend, librarians would do well to adopt Mr. Parr's hints, and talk more of the educational value of libraries, for it is in this direction that most influence can be brought to bear upon public thought.