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The authors aim to review a five‐year multi‐study research programme on the role of public dialogue in the social and cultural sustainability of biotechnology developments in New Zealand.

The authors conducted a critical review of all the published research products from a five‐year government‐funded study of the cultural and social aspects of sustainable biotechnology in New Zealand.

The review research highlights how New Zealand Government policies on biotechnology, which motivated the research programme, were fore‐grounded on economic progress and competitive positioning. Thus, debate on sustainable biotechnology issues became cast in economic and technical terms, while public dialogue became seen as diversionary and unsubstantiated. The analysis concludes that the programme was ineffective in influencing government policy and fell victim to the very problem of science governance that its purpose was designed to address.

The research develops implications regarding the ability of government‐funded sustainability research to influence policy.

The review focuses on the purpose, content, outcomes, and context of the research programme and identifies a number of key themes that arose from the programme that are useful for other sustainability policy researchers. The reviewers conclude that this case demonstrates that the marketization of the public sphere depoliticises the social and cultural construction of the nation's future.

The purpose of the study is to inquire into and to provide an integrated framework of academics’ and practitioners’ conversations on corporate brand alignment.

A systematic literature review (with no time restrictions) was used to identify relevant journal publications from the years 2000 to 2013. Based on the retrieved articles, the Hegelian dialectic triad of “thesis, antithesis and synthesis” was used to inquire into conventional thinking on corporate brand management (i.e. through corporate brand alignment).

The final sample of 59 articles brought to light a theory of corporate brand alignment, its recent contradictions and critiques and scholars’ attempts to unify them into an integrated framework. Three main perspectives emerged, suggesting that corporate brand could be managed through aligned (i.e. thesis), separated (i.e. antithesis) or mixed approaches (i.e. synthesis).

This research considers only English peer-reviewed journal articles retrieved from the EBSCO and WOS databases.

This work proposes a contingency approach to corporate brand management, suggesting that there is no single best way of managing a corporate brand: aligned, separated and mixed approaches can be equally successful. Despite the choice of model (which arises from the analysis of the corporate brand meanings, stakeholders and contexts), three transversal corporate brand management imperatives emerged: the delivery of the corporate brand promise, the co-construction of corporate brand meanings and the recognition of the dynamic nature of corporate brands.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate identity, corporate marketing and the pursuit of corporate objectives, particularly those objectives that require action at a societal level.

The research is based on a literature review and an holistic, multiple method case study, drawing on e‐mail newsletters, interviews, web sites, media articles and organizational documents.

Corporate identity may serve as a constraint on behaviour that limits strategic and tactical options. It may also constitute a strategic resource that enables action. The seven distinctive characteristics of front organizations identified in the paper enable them to overcome some of the constraints experienced by other organizational types in pursuing corporate objectives requiring action at a societal level.

Future research directions include: analysis and theory development in relation to the design and marketing of a “packaged present” CI; the expansion of this analysis to other types of temporary organizations; and further exploration of the implications of temporality for corporate marketing.

Deploying an “active” definition of corporate identity can take practitioners beyond the audit‐based approach, with its focus on understanding “what the organization is”, to a strategic approach to corporate marketing focused on the temporal question “what does the organization wish to become?”

This paper begins to address two significant gaps in the corporate marketing and corporate identity literatures: the first in relation to corporate identity and temporality; and the second in relation to temporary organizations, particularly front organizations. The paper identifies seven distinctive characteristics of front organizations, which provide the basis for future research.

Ambiguity has become a central concept in strategic communication research in recent years. This paper addresses three central deficits in the research to date. First, clarity-focused approaches and ambiguity-focused approaches are in opposition to each other, resulting in an exaggeration of the advantages and opportunities of the respective favored perspective and affording the opposing position little justification at best. Second, research on strategic ambiguity is by and large limited to the organizational perspective and has little interest in societal change. Third, there has been barely any research into concrete practices of strategic ambiguity and these practices have never been systematized.

The research questions will be answered on the basis of the “Theory of Social Systems” (TSS) by Niklas Luhmann, which can be attributed to the “Communication Constitutes Organization” (CCO) perspective. This perspective seems appropriate because the important concepts of communication and decision making play a central role in the TSS.

Strategic communication oscillates between clarity and ambiguity in order to defuse the dilemma and paradox. The re-entry of the distinction is a second-order observation and, thus, reveals the blind spots of clarity- and ambiguity-focused approaches. On this basis, a systematic approach is developed that encompasses various different dimensions of strategic clarity and ambiguity.

The paper focuses on the oscillation between strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity, making clear that the aim is not simply to substitute a new dominance of ambiguity for the clarity that has dominated textbooks thus far. Instead, it is a matter of reflective management of the distinction between strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity. The systematization of the practices of strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity can ultimately be used as a toolbox for the concrete application of strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity.

Overcoming the dualism of clarity-focused and ambiguity-focused approaches makes it possible, first, to explore the situational use of strategic clarity and strategic ambiguity. Second, the societal theoretical perspective shows the way in which organizations respond with strategic ambiguity to the increase in social contradictions without, however, being able to abandon strategic clarity. Third, using the systematic approach to the dimensions presented here, these practices can be described and examined in context.

Concerns about the overuse, misuse and potential abuse of restrictive interventions used to manage people who may exhibit behaviour described as challenging led to revised guidance in England. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implementation of this guidance in organisations providing services for people with learning disabilities.

A survey collected data from professionals, on leadership, data use, staff issues and post-incident review.

Most senior leaders were seen as acting on the guidance. Data collected were regarded as generally accurate, but less than half of the managers were seen as likely to respond to consistently high or increasing use of restrictive practices. Frontline staff and managers were seen as very significant for reducing restrictive practices. Uncertainty was shown regarding the goals and activities needed to provide post-incident review.

This exploratory survey may be useful for organisations wanting to audit their implementation of government policy and/or for research on a wider scale to indicate how well societies are implementing policy to reduce restrictive practices. Further research on the survey’s validity and reliability is required.

Further action is needed to encourage all organisations to implement best practice and government policy. This survey showed that some organisations appear to be committed to and potentially achieving reductions in restrictive practices.

This paper describes the first survey designed to evaluate organisational efforts to implement an important policy initiative.

The Teaching Excellence Framework was explicitly introduced as a mechanism to ‘enhance teaching’ in universities. This chapter suggests, however, that the highly complex ‘black box’ methodology used to calculate TEF outcomes effectively blunts its purpose as a policy lever. As a result, TEF appears to function primarily as performative policy act, merely gesturing towards a concern with social mobility. Informed by the data and metrics driven Deliverology approach to public management, I suggest the opacity of the TEF's assessment approach enables policymakers to distance themselves from and sidestep the wicked problems raised by the complicated contexts of contemporary higher education learning and teaching. At the same time, however, I argue that the very indeterminacy through which the framework achieves this sleight of hand creates a space in which engaged teaching practitioners can push through a more progressive approach to inclusive success.

The purpose of this paper, from a work‐based learning practitioner perspective, is to present an insight into some of the challenges, benefits and impacts associated with workforce development and employer responsive provision (ERP). The focus is learning, which is designed to meet an organization's needs and intended for groups of learners to develop their skills, whilst bringing tangible benefits to their organization.

Focusing upon experiences of managing an employer engagement, action research project, which worked with over 40, small and medium‐sized enterprises and more recently working with three major corporate organisations, this paper provides a personal perspective of engaging with organizations. It draws upon primary data from personal experiences and action research of working with employers and learners, and secondary data, such as the Higher Education Impact Study (2008) and the Higher Education Regional Development Agency's Skills for Growth report (2009). After setting the context, this paper will consider ERP and its challenges, in terms of organizational needs meeting academic tradition. This is supported with case study anecdotes, before a consideration of the impacts and benefits of ERP from an organizational perspective.

This paper provides insights into effective ERP and the elements needed to support its success. With probable continued growth in ERP, it is imperative that HEIs with ERP strategies understand the associated challenges and benefits. It suggests that in order to promote sustainable ERP activity, HEIs will need to consider a more strategic approach concerning the staff engaging in ERP activities.

From a work‐based learning practitioner perspective, this paper presents an insight into some of the challenges, benefits and impacts associated with workforce development and employer responsive provision (ERP).

This paper draws together current thinking on ERP with practice‐based application and understanding in order to inform and develop practice. It offers practical insights and experiences which build upon various bodies of literature to present identified elements necessary for successful engagement with employers. As the literature around ERP at present is fairly small, this paper offers a valuable insight into successful practice, building usable models for people working in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and expand the role of strategic ambiguity (SA) in the field of organizational communication. It treats the triple bottom line (TBL) as indicative of an emerging coalition. This coalition brings together three loosely coupled discourse communities each attempting to advance the notion of green business, corporate social responsibility and sustainability.

This case directs attention to how SA and equivocation built into TBL aids three loosely networked discourse communities – formulated around “profits”, “people” and “planet” – emerge, coalesce and diffuse despite being rooted in imprecise and loosely formulated measures.

The findings indicate that despite its imprecision, lack of specificity and operational indices the TBL provides its members with the belief that they are far better off joining the coalition than going it alone. TBL's openness to multiple interpretations enables each of the discourse communities in the emerging network to expect to win concessions from others and to protect its values from encroachment.

This treatment of TBL suggests that SA can be expanded beyond an intra‐organizational focus to one encompassing emergent coalitions. The expanded notion of SA helps explain the stickiness of knowledge transfer in the early stage of coalition formation and the propensity of critics to view new imprecise but inspiring ideas like TBL as nothing but a fad or passing enthusiasm.

The purpose of the chapter is to develop and substantiate the necessity for delegating authorities in the process of decision making in modern business systems, as well as conditions, principles, and criteria of successful delegation in view of the applied approach. The methodology of the chapter is based on the method of analysis of causal connections, which is used for determining the necessity and essence of delegation, evaluating and comparison of the possible concepts and means of its implementation in the process of decision making, and studying the managers' opinions for determining the problems of delegation. This allows determining the conditions and criteria of successful delegation and developing an optimal set of principles that allow for effective implementation of the process of delegating authorities. As a result, the authors determine conditions and limitations that determine the possibility of delegating authorities in the process of decision making and offer criteria of successfulness of the process: preliminary task setting, interest and readiness of employees, briefing, written form of delegating authorities for complex and responsible tasks, accessibility of any necessary information, support from manager, and controllability of the process and result. The concepts of delegation are studied, and priority of its new model is established. Based on this, 11 principles of successful delegation were formulated: determination of goal, certainty, parity of rights and responsibility, adequate support, motivation of effective solutions, participation, “finite character,” structural limitations, complex nature of tasks, succession, and vision of perspective.

Complexities of the process of delegation in the process of decision making in business systems are described – their knowledge helps developing own styles of delegation and improving it.