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In this paper, the author sought to explain how to convey company culture in the modern world of work.

The author draws upon 10+ years in the HR and recruitment field as well as recent collaborative projects with LEGO and NHS Professionals that directly link to the topic.

Research shows that candidate experience was a critical key performance indicator for everyone involved in the projects. Providing guidance videos for applicants, clearly signposting points of contact, ensuring consistency across processes and providing clear and concise communication, the employers were able to show that their business cares about the people it works with, even during a global health crisis.

Readers will gain valuable insight based on the author’s personal experience and expertise and may apply these lessons to drive company culture and bolster retention in their own organisations.

Describes how the Co‐operative Bank introduced a Total Quality programme, its achievements, the lessons learnt and the problems encountered.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Washington State school district financial reporting and budget reporting meet the information needs of school board directors charged with governance.

Washington State school board directors were surveyed and asked to rank information items’ usefulness in carrying out their governance role. School district annual reports, budgets and websites were examined to determine whether the identified information was reported and easily transparent to those charged with governance and the public.

Directors rank information on strategic oversight, budget planning and student outcomes as more useful, consistent with the strategic role of new public management. Follow-on analysis of district annual financial reports, budgets and websites reveal that the availability of the information ranked useful by directors is limited. The findings suggest an information gap exists between directors’ information needs and school district reporting. Annual reports and budgets, when provided, often provide typical financial statements and variance data, respectively, rather than reporting on mission-aligned performance measures. The main consequence of the information gap may be compromised decision-making effectiveness.

By directly asking those charged with governance what information they identify as useful and then examining whether the information is reported in the annual report, budget or website, the study links user information needs to information transparency.

This paper explores the implications of using Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs as a “paradigm case” of transformational leadership by comparing the practical metadiscourse of remembrances published at the time of his passing to the theoretical metadiscourse of transformational leadership. The authors report the frequency of transformational leadership characteristics that appeared in characterizations of Jobs in the months after his passing in October 2011. Results show that people do remember Jobs as a leader, and as one who possessed three key personal characteristics of a transformational leader: creative, passionate, and visionary. People also remembered Jobs as an innovator, which is not typically associated with transformational leadership but which does reflect the discourse of the consumer electronics industries upon which he had an impact. However, the results also show that two important interpersonal characteristics of a transformational leader were absent in the remembrance discourse: empowering and interactive. The authors discuss the implications of the two missing terms for pedagogy and theorizing, including how problematizing Jobs as a paradigm case might lead to fruitful discussions about the importance of a transformational leader’s engagement with followers.

The mathematical science approach to the study of social affairs has been much debated not least among scholars of international relations. Wight (2002, p. 37) reviews the current debate – discussing the views of Michael Nicholson and Steve Smith quite extensively – and comments:all of this adds up to a very confused picture in terms of the philosophy of science. IR has struggled to incorporate an increasingly diverse set of positions into its theoretical landscape. In general, the discipline has attempted to maintain an unsophisticated and outdated two-category framework based on the science/anti-science issue.…Currently there are three continuums that the discipline seems to consider line up in opposition to each other. The first of these is the explaining/understanding divide (Hollis & Smith, 1990). The second is the positivism/post-positivism divide (Lapid, 1989; Sylvester, 1993). The third is Keohane's distinction between rationalism and reflectivism (Keohane, 1989). The newly emerging constructivism claims ‘the middle ground’ in between. (Adler, 1997; Price & Reus-Smit, 1998; Wendt, 1999)

On a recent study tour of quality companies in the USA, the most impressive speaker of the week was not Roger Milliken of Milliken or Fred Smith of Federal Express, both legends in corporate America, but Vera. Vera works in Administration at Pacific Bell and her story, delivered without slides or notes, held the 30 visitors transfixed. Vera had seen management initiatives come and go and was very underwhelmed by them. ‘So when TQM came along I thought another of those, huh’.

Examines the three essential factors vital to success in transforming culture: clarity of purpose, leadership, and a planned change process. Considers organization culture is a way of describing the behaviours which predominate in the business. Suggests three ingredients to make a difference. Concludes that a change in management approach is responsible for turning businesses around. Contends that not all significant culture changes have arisen from crises but that some companies are undergoing major transformation from a position of strength because they want to stay ahead.

The Fred Meyer Charitable Trust, Division of Library and Information Resources for the Northwest, has funded five research projects that will demonstrate the potential of various techniques and new technologies to facilitate communications and resource sharing in the Northwest. The experience and information derived from these projects will be of value to all libraries and information centers, not just those conducting the research. The techniques and technologies being evaluated include: simultaneous remote searching, which uses inexpensive terminals and modems; a mini‐computer‐based union list and resource sharing network (INFONET); networks using facsimile machines; networks that transmit documents that have been optically scanned into bit‐map image files; and use of optical character recognition equipment to capture ASCII machine‐readable information that can be broadcast by television stations to user‐sites. Contributors of reports are: Verl Anderson, Linda Brander, Millard F. Johnson, Jr., Bruce Morton, and Steve Smith. Summary observations are provided by Joseph R. Matthews.

What is total quality management? How much will it cost? Where does an organisation begin? Justifying the start of a TQM programme can be one of the most difficult steps for a company to take. The following 10 points should help provide the answers.

Reports on the experience of Mid‐Staffordshire Health Authority as the first health authority in the UK to be registered under British Standard 5750 for quality management. Discusses the process and obstacles to achieving certification.