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The Question Master for this session was Miss Mildred Couldrey. The Panel of Experts included Mr. D. V. Arnold (I.C.I., Ltd., Paints Division), Miss Ruth Jacobs (Department of Scientific and Industrial Research), Miss Barbara Kyle (Royal Institute of International Affairs), Mr. F. A. Sharr (Manchester Public Libraries), and Mr. E. N. Simons (Edgar Allen & Co., Ltd.).

This paper considers the valuation in 1982 of the freehold interest in an industrial estate. The freeholder has granted a ground lease to a developer who has over a period of years constructed and let a number of factory and warehouse units. The ground rent is geared to a percentage of the rack rents on review every seven years. The majority of the occupation leases of the units on the estate are on a five‐yearly rent review basis with one unit on a three yearly rent review basis.

This paper seeks to explore the processes and channels through which valuable knowledge from outside the firm reaches those employees who can exploit that knowledge for innovative purposes. It seeks to identify the specific talents exhibited by the key individuals involved in facilitating these important knowledge flows. It also aims to detail the interventions which management can adopt to harness knowledge flow talents.

The methodology used was a single case study of a medical devices R&D group, incorporating social network analysis and semi‐structured interviews.

It was found that it is now rare for a single individual to possess all the talents necessary to effectively acquire and disseminate external knowledge. Owing to the prevalence of information and communication technologies, a small number of uniquely skilled individuals specialize in acquiring valuable external knowledge, while an altogether different set of individuals specialize in disseminating that knowledge internally.

There is a dearth of literature in the knowledge management field directed towards understanding how the unique talents of those employees who are integral components of knowledge networks can be harnessed. Building on concepts of talent management and the technological gatekeeper, the specific talents exhibited by these individuals are explored. Then some organizational level interventions are pointed up, which can facilitate knowledge‐intensive organizations in fully exploiting their resources to maximize innovative capabilities.

This paper explores the role of training in small, medium and large organisations, then goes onto examine the plethora of complications that arise when a company with a large number of products in a large number of countries addresses the problem of marketing training. At the one extreme such a company can opt for a centralised system of modular training, or at the other extreme it can decide to delegate the task to the management of decentralised units. A hybrid system is also explored whereby training is structured around a “cluster” of units or activities or regions. Few organisations have given sufficient thought to this question of training across national boundaries, with the result that training is often undertaken in a haphazard way.

This paper aims to contribute to the discourse on the role and efficacy of the newly emerging health and well being boards which are established within the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It also aims to propose the importance of high functioning relationships underpinning clear but flexible local design.

The paper is based on the reflections of the chair of the shadow Health and Well Being Board in Bath and North East Somerset and the chief executive of one of the local provider organisations. They share a commitment to effective joint working and see the workings of health and well being boards epitomising the functionality of local interagency working. This is explored through a case study of the development of the Health and Well Being Board in Bath and North East Somerset.

The paper proposes the importance of high functioning relationships that can transcend structures and suggests that health and well being boards be considered as system orchestrators creating space for the challenge and creativity that creates “good enough” solutions to complex issues.

The paper contributes to the active discourse on how best to establish and develop effective health and well being boards and aims to create value through shared learning and experience.

This paper considers the association between instruction style and student academic performance, and draws from recent laboratory research where accounting student performance was found to be closely associated with the effect of instructor behaviour upon student task motivation and deep learning. Drawing upon emergent motivation theory, we discuss the proposition that appropriate instructor behaviours, through their positive effect upon student task motivation, anxiety and emergent confidence, can induce an upward performance shift, or interrupt a downward shift. A performance spiral model is modelled whereby students carry with them the learning responses from repeated good (or poor) performance into subsequent task settings, with corresponding accentuated effects upon anxiety and motivation.

Workplace spirituality (WPS) has emerged as a key concept in management literature but has, thus far, remained inadequately explored in research studies. The purpose of this paper is to draw WPS upon the organizational support theory and WPS literature to develop and test a model. The role of WPS and its moderating effect is examined in its relationship with perceived organizational support (POS), career satisfaction (CS) and turnover intentions (TIs).

Using a survey research design, data were collected from 314 respondents to test the proposed model. Serial mediation was tested using the two dimensions of WPS (meaningful work (MW) and sense of community (SC)) as mediators between POS and CS. For moderation, these two dimensions of WPS were used to test the variables of POS and TI.

This study found that the relationship between POS and CS is sequentially mediated by the two dimensions of WPS, namely, MW and SC, while WPS is found to enhance CS among employees, it has been found to significantly reduce their TIs by moderating the relationship between POS and TI. Thus, employee TIs are found to be lower when the relationship between POS and MW is stronger.

The findings of this study will help managers develop strategies and formulate effective interventions that would improve the CS of employees and reduce their intentions to quit, leading to desirable individual and organizational outcomes.

WPS is a relatively new construct both at the workplace and in academia and to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study which has examined the role of WPS in the relationship between POS, CS and TIs. By examining how organizational support has a significant influence on the employee in shaping positive work attitudes, the study will contribute to the existing knowledge and address questions hitherto unexplored. The findings of this research will thus have direct implications for the practitioner as well as the manager.

During a construction crisis, traditional contracts are inflexible, restrictive and counter‐productive. Consequently, project participants tend to opt out of contract procedures which, in turn, leads to a disjointed organization and a loss of managerial control. To avoid this problem, drafters of traditional construction contracts need to embrace the principles that underlie contemporary crisis management thinking. However, the construction industry culture is likely to represent a barrier to the successful implementation of more managerially astute contracts such as the Engineering and Construction Contract. As an intermediate step, emergency procedures are suggested. These could be easily incorporated into the existing traditional forms of contract, providing temporary flexibility during a crisis, while at the same time, affording an element of managerial control.

Internet2 research will lead to new technologies that will launch the Internet into another wave of unprecedented growth with enhanced interactivity and greater amounts of information delivered via richer communication. As a result, Web‐based retailers must begin to rethink the design of their sites, the amount of information to provide, and the degree of media richness to deliver. Based on a large sample of managers, this study examines media richness theory in the context of simple and complex products. The findings suggest that, overall, Internet users have more positive attitudes and higher levels of satisfaction with regard to rich sites than to lean sites, although the results for simple product sites were inconclusive. The study discusses the impact of the results for both simple and complex products and details the development of a new experimental instrument to measure user attitudes and satisfaction.