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This paper aims to investigate the mechanisms for managing coordinated benchmarking projects and the outcomes achieved from such coordination. While there have been many independent benchmarking studies comparing the practices and performance of public sector organisations, there has been little research on initiatives that involve coordinating multiple benchmarking projects within public sector organisations or report on the practices implemented and results from benchmarking projects. This research will be of interest to centralised authorities wishing to encourage and assist multiple organisations in undertaking benchmarking projects.

The study adopts a case study methodology. Data were collected on the coordinating mechanisms and the experiences of the individual organisations over a one-year period.

The findings show successful results (financial and non-financial) across all 13 benchmarking projects, thus indicating the success of a coordinated approach to managing multiple projects. The study concluded by recommending a six-stage process for coordinating multiple benchmarking projects.

This research gives new insights into the application and benefits from benchmarking because of the open access the research team had to the “Dubai We Learn” initiative. To the authors’ knowledge the research was unique in being able to report accurately on the outcome of 13 benchmarking projects with all projects using the TRADE benchmarking methodology.

This study aims to describe and evaluate the impact of a participatory age-management intervention on the knowledge, awareness and engagement of line managers and their HR partners from six health-care organizations in Sweden.

The learning workshops consisted of lectures, discussions, feedback and exchange of experiences with colleagues and invited experts. A total of 19 participants were interviewed six months after the final workshop, and qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze the transcribed interviews.

The intervention design produced promising results in improving line managers’ and HR partners’ knowledge and increasing awareness and engagement. On some occasions, the participants also initiated changes in organizational policies and practices. However, the intervention primarily became a personal learning experience as participants lacked resources and mandates to initiate change in their daily work. To stimulate engagement and change at the organizational level, the authors believe that an intervention must receive support from higher managers, be anchored at the workplace and be aligned with the organization’s goals; moreover, participants must be provided with sufficient resources and mandates to coordinate the implementation of age-management strategies.

Prolonged working life policies and skill shortages are affecting organizations and societies, and for many employers, there are strong reasons for developing strategies to attract, recruit and retain older workers.

This study offers lessons and guidance for future workplace interventions to attract, recruit and retain older workers.

The twofold aim of this theory-building article is to raise questions about the ability of queer cinema to transform market culture and ideologies around gender and sexuality. First, the authors examine how the very capitalization of queer signifiers may compromise the dominant order from within. Second, the authors address how brands possibly can draw on these signifiers to project authenticity.

Through visual methods of film criticism and the semiotic analysis of three films (Moonlight, Call Me By Your Name and Portrait of a Lady on Fire), the authors outline some profound narrative tensions addressed by movie makers seeking to give an authentic voice to queer lives.

Brands can tap into these narrative attempts at “seeing the invisible” to signify authenticity. False sublation, i.e. the “catch-22” of commodifying the queer imaginaries one seeks to represent, follows from a Marcusean analysis.

In more practical terms, “seeing the invisible” is proposed as a cultural branding technique. To be felicitous, one has to circumvent three narrative traditions: pathologization, rationalization and trivialization.

In contrast to Marcuse's pessimist view emphasizing its affirmative aspects, the authors conclude that such commodification in the long term may have transformative effects on the dominant ideology. This is because even if something is banished to the realm of imagination, e.g. through aesthetic semblance, it can still be enacted in real life.

This study investigates theoretical relationships among personality characteristics, preferences for different types of rewards and the propensity to choose a job in auditing by management-related higher education students. Specifically, the authors consider motivation, locus of control (internal and external) and self-efficacy (SE) as personality characteristics and financial, extrinsic, support and intrinsic as types of rewards.

Data were collected through a questionnaire targeted at management-related higher education students in Portugal. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.

The full sample results show that different types of motivation, locus of control and SE are related to different reward preferences. The authors also find a positive association between a preference for extrinsic rewards and the propensity to choose a job in auditing. Moreover, when the authors consider the role of working experience in the model, the authors find that the reward preferences that drive the choice of an auditing job differ according to that experience.

This study enriches the literature by assessing preferences for different types of rewards, considering multiple personality characteristics and a comprehensive set of rewards. Furthermore, the authors identify the reward preferences that drive the choice of an auditing career. This knowledge empowers auditing firms to devise recruitment strategies that resonate with candidates’ preferences, which boosts the capacity of these companies to attract new auditors.