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Much of the research on the theory and practice of organisational transformation has been conducted in private sector organisations. The public sector, particularly in Britain, has by contrast received scant attention. This paper contributes towards remedying this gap by reporting on research conducted into organisational transformation within one British local authority. This research considers how the whole organisation of the local authority developed and changed over a 13 year period (1974–1987). It also provides detailed case studies of change in the areas of housing decentralisation and community development.

Building on the concept of “impact literacy” established in a previous paper from Bayley and Phipps, here we extend the principles of impact literacy in light of further insights into sector practice. More specifically, we focus on three additions needed in response to the sector-wide growth of impact: (1) differential levels of impact literacy; (2) institutional impact literacy and environment for impact; and (3) issues of ethics and values in research impact. This paper invites the sector to consider the relevance of all dimensions in establishing, maintaining and strengthening impact within the research landscape. We explore implications for individual professional development, institutional capacity building and ethical collaboration to maximise societal benefit.

This article from the NHS Clinical Governance Support Team (NCGST) outlines the development of quality concerns since the NHS was founded in 1948. It traces the development of clinical governance as a means of achieving continuous quality improvement and describes what the implementation of clinical governance means for patients and professionals. It analyses features of the cultural shift necessary to underpin quality improvement initiatives and describes with practical examples the constituents of the culture necessary for successful clinical governance. Future articles in this series will address other issues around clinical governance and will explain the model being followed by delegates to the NCGST’s Clinical Governance Development Programme as they implement clinical governance “on the ground”.

When managers are faced with making a decision about what to do in a particular situation, do they base that decision on findings from research? This research paper seeks to report on qualitative and quantitative research which examined school principals' perceptions of barriers to the use of research.

To facilitate a comparison the qualitative and quantitative study was conducted simultaneously in two countries, i.e. England and Israel, using individual and group interviews, and the Barriers Scale survey instrument.

The results of tests indicated that factors associated with the research itself (e.g. relevance and access), were significant barriers to research use for principals from both countries (compared with factors associated with the setting, the presentation of research, and the individual).

The authors acknowledge some limitations with respect to equivalence across cultures, particularly functional and contextual (e.g. political) equivalence.

The paper concludes that multiple strategies would be required to address a number of issues related to the dissemination of research and ways of addressing the gap between the aims of researchers, and the needs and expectations of practitioners.

The topic is timely, and a comparative approach is particularly useful in any social area, especially in public school management.