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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the productivity performance at the firm level from the perspective of manufacturing capability development at the process level. Moreover, it reveals how alignment of manufacturing capabilities with market requirements has influenced a firm’s productivity over a period that includes the 2008 global recession.

A conceptual framework was derived from established theories and employed as part of a case study design encompassing a multiple methods research approach. The case of a UK SME was selected to reflect some of the issues associated with the wider productivity stagnation experienced by the UK economy in recent years.

The firm’s manufacturing strategy had become incrementally misaligned with market requirements due to external changes in its business environment. The complex relationships between capabilities such as quality, speed and cost were characterised. Realigning the firm’s manufacturing strategy to regain productivity performance required a range of prioritised actions including capital investment and changes in management practices concerning bottom-up process improvement and regular, top-down strategy review.

The findings of the case study cannot be generalised and the outcomes are specific to just one firm. However, the approach lends itself to replication, particularly within SMEs.

Prior studies have focussed on capability development at higher levels of abstraction. The study operationalized established theoretical perspectives at the firm level to derive context-based outcomes that can be used to improve manufacturing strategy alignment and productivity. Furthermore, the study contributes empirical evidence from the SME sector to the ongoing debate regarding the UK’s productivity puzzle.

The purpose of this paper is to explore who small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owner–managers consider as key stakeholders for their business for helping increase productivity and the nature of the stakeholders' impact.

The study uses the Lego Serious Play methodology and narrative analysis in a focus group setting.

The analysis revealed a narrow depth of field of productivity stakeholders and identified critical narratives, involving close stakeholders which could constrain productivity. Lack of information on current and/or future productivity states, and a social brake due to the potential impact on employees are two at the forefront of owner–manager perspectives. The study also identified the importance of internal and external champions to improve productivity and re-enforced the significance of skills gaps, the role of Further Education providers and other infrastructure assets.

The purposiveness sample of the single focus group setting results in a lack of generalizability, but provides potential for replication and transposability based on the generic type of stakeholders discussed. The work highlights the potential to further enhance the constituent attributes of stakeholder salience.

There is a potential for different network agents to increase their collaboration to create a more coherent narrative for individual productivity investment opportunities and for policy makers to consider how to leverage this.

The findings suggest that the implications of deskilling and job loss are major factors to be considered in the policy discourse. SMEs are less likely to pursue productivity improvements in a low growth setting because of their local social implications.

The study is innovative in using Lego to elucidate narratives in relation to both stakeholder identification and their contributions to productivity improvement impact in a UK SME context. The study introduces an innovative stakeholder orbital map and further develops the stakeholder salience concept; both useful for the future conceptual and empirical work.

Three years on from the Brexit vote, while it remains a central topic for debate in the media, there has been limited discussion about the human resource (HR) implications. The purpose of this paper is to provide theoretical evaluation and informed discussion, distilled into four interconnected propositions, on how employee resourcing as a HR practice may be impacted following actual Brexit decisions.

Drawing on the employee resourcing literature, the paper adopts a discursive approach which examines how the UK’s decision to exit the European Union will affect HR practice. The paper draws comparison with the global recession since 2008, a similarly unprecedented development in its discussion of employee resourcing practices and draws parallels which may help to inform the future of HR practices in the UK, because of Brexit.

This paper offers a set of propositions; the flow of talent into the UK may become more restricted and reinvigorate the “war for talent” that followed the effects of the global financial crisis on the UK. To attract and retain workers in relatively lower-skilled roles, employers may be faced with a need to re-skill such roles and adopt more flexible working arrangements. Finally, to meet skilled employment requirements, removal of restrictions to recruit from within the European Economic Area may trigger increased global migration of skilled workers.

This paper contributes to the discussions regarding the implications of Brexit for HR practice by offering propositions to shape future research agendas.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss significant changes in the concept and practice of employment relations over the last 50 years. It does so from both public policy and management perspectives and highlights the continued failure to align these two perspectives.

The paper draws on the author’s research as an adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and his previous experience as a civil servant in the Employment Department. A range of published sources are relied on, including quantitative, survey based and qualitative, case-study and other evidence.

The over-riding need to tackle inflation led governments in the 1960s and 1970s to make repeated attempts to build a stronger legal framework around collective bargaining, and to intensifying incomes policies which brought governments into frequent conflict with the trade unions. This was followed by incremental reform of trade union legislation under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, to which there has subsequently been no serious challenge. The question is posed whether the author is nearing the end of the road for trade union voice in the UK, or whether there is scope for a “new deal” under which trade unions can join with other key stakeholders in making a positive contribution towards economic regeneration. Looking forward, the paper discusses shifts in trade union approaches to industrial action and major challenges for employers, including managing individual conflict and employee voice.

The paper suggests that the ambiguity of the term “employee relations” means the author needs to ask what are the specific challenges facing employee relations practitioners today. Employee relations managers are undertaking a wide range of jobs. Their current focus on employee relations reflects a shift from the defensive attitudes that characterised the earlier part of the period to a more positive one. The paper concludes by arguing the case for a national forum bringing together employers, trade unions and other key stakeholders to advise government on workplace issues.

This paper aims to take a critical view of the concepts of the Learning Organisation and Organisational Learning (LO/OL) and respond to two questions about their current state: are existing perspectives on LO/OL still fit for purpose? What are the possibilities for an alternative paradigm of LO/OL?

The paper critically reviews the literature of LO/OL and uses the concept of problematisation together with some guiding principles from ancient wisdoms to articulate an alternative paradigm.

Two waves of LO/OL are identified. A first wave rests on a series of assumptions that have shaped a predominant understanding of LO/OL, including the suppositions that all learning is good; that those organisations adopting LO/OL strategies are engaged in useful work and in pursuing socially valuable ends; and that neo-liberal beliefs favouring market-based solutions are the most appropriate response to organisational problems. A more reflexive approach to LO/OL has challenged these predominant views, and although it has had little impact on practice, it paves the way for a possible second wave perspective. With the help of a theoretical excursion of Taoism and Buddhism, the authors portray a possible picture of a new paradigm for LO/OL.

Whilst existing critical accounts have problematised the mainstream assumptions of LO/OL, they have not clearly indicated any different perspectives. Drawing upon ancient wisdom, the paper identifies some guiding principles for an alternative LO/OL paradigm and discourse.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the historical foundation of the efficiency wage theory and examine its conceptual framework against other wage theories, in relation to conventional practices in human resource management.

Following a description of various wage theories, a conceptual analysis maps the evolutionary process of efficiency wage theory.

The concept of efficiency being applied to wages appears to evolve from Smith. The difference between the classical and the institutionalists’ perspectives appears to be the meaning ascribed to efficiency. Clark seemed to be the first one to examine the relationship between labor and productivity. Webb expanded the meaning of efficiency and demonstrated the relationship with productivity. Institutional and behavioral theorists further developed and advocated for efficiency wages. A synthesis of recent empirical studies provides support for the theory, which challenges conventional human resource management wage practices.

The findings solidify the usefulness of efficiency wage theory not only as a motivational management tool but also as a source for social and economic well-being.

The contribution of this historical account is that it synthesizes the root and development of efficiency wages theory. It also highlights the social context of the theory and provides an interface between economic and management perspectives.

The modern concept of labor hoarding emerged in early 1960s, and soon became a standard part of mainstream economists’ explanation of the working of labor markets. The concept represents the convergence of three important elements: an empirical finding that labor productivity was procyclical; a framing of this finding as a “puzzle” or anomaly for the basic neoclassical theory of the firm, and a proposed resolution of the puzzle based on optimizing behavior of the firm in the presence of costs of hiring, firing, and training workers. This paper recounts the history of each of these elements, and how they were woven together into the labor hoarding concept. Each history involves people associated with various research traditions and motivated by an array of questions, many of which were unrelated to the questions that the modern labor hoarding concept was ultimately created to address.