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The second in a series of four articles that seek to answer questions about where and where not action learning is most applicable. Aims to identify the kinds of people who benefit most from action learning and the most appropriate times in their lives to undertake an action learning programme. The authors reflect on their own experience as action learning participants and set advisers to identify those who have got most and least out of action learning. Concludes that action learning has worked best with people who are willing and able to take action, are skilled at reflection and want to take responsibility for their own learning. Such people are likely to be mature adults who want to learn about themselves, as well as the world they inhabit, with a view to changing both themselves and their worlds.

A few years ago, at an SSRC‐sponsored conference on the management function in industrial relations, a contributor analysing the industrial relations of six separate establishments, one of which was a merchant bank, was asked, “Do Merchant Banks have industrial relations?” The same question could be asked of universities, and the answer given today would be fundamentally different than if the question had been posed 20 or even ten years ago. Following the extrapolation of the Robbins principle, universities in the late 1960s and 1970s went through an un‐paralleled explosion with jobs, promotions and salaries (the latter subject to moral pressure) all in the ascendancy. The renunciation of Robbins has reversed these trends and, as all students of German industrial relations know, growth equates with good and recession with bad industrial relations (taking for the moment the superficial media definitions). In the case of universities it has been not so much the change to bad industrial relations as the emergence of industrial relations itself.

Attempts to raise some of the sometimes unconsidered factors involved in partnership work that may hamper success. Aims, by examining one company’s approach and proposing a few ideas, to stimulate further thoughts and hopefully initiate discussion about the way forward. Particularly important is the need for co‐ordination at national level. The process of matching national needs to those of individual organizations to enable a more strategic approach is the key issue.

Further education in Britain is beginning a period of severe economic restraint, with colleges being obliged to operate on static or even falling levels of finance and staffing. Libraries in FE are, naturally, subject to these same pressures: the effect of inflation on book‐funds needs no underlining. Librarians in many colleges are trying to provide a college service with dwindling resources—in real terms—without lowering standards. Whatever the designation of the librarian in charge (tutor librarian, college librarian etc,) his main task must be to maximise benefits from the given level of resources allocated to the library. This paper aims to describe very briefly some of the management techniques which may be helpful to, but often ignored by the typical librarian in charge of 1 or 2 clerical assistants, and, at the most, a professionally qualified deputy.

The distinction between formality and informality has been a topic central for many scholarly fields. Without rejecting the usefulness of this distinction, the authors argued that instead of analyzing an empirical situation in terms of what is formal and what is informal, it could sometimes be fruitful to focus on what is stable and what is fluid.

This paper reports the results of review and analysis of secondary sources on the distinction between formality and informality, followed by a conceptualization of an alternative distinction between fluidity and stability. This conceptualization was inspired by a science and technology studies (STS) understanding of relations, and was assessed through applying it to a case of patient organizations’ participation in patient councils in Russia.

Stability and fluidity do not map neatly into formality and informality; rather, the stability and fluidity cut across these categories. The authors propose a view of both stability and fluidity as kinds of relations between elements of the societal fabric. The distinction proposed here could be especially fruitful when applied to analyses of (1) complex bureaucracies where formal requirements are extensive and potentially in conflict with each other and (2) oppressive situations where significant power imbalances exist.

Instead of providing yet another line of demarcation between formality and informality, this paper proposes a shift in attention to what is stable and what is fluid. This novel distinction can help not only in discerning how things actually work but also in bringing to the fore hitherto unnoticed forms of creativity, responsiveness and inclusion.

Over the past thirty years or so, a body, albeit a somewhat disarticulated body, of evidence on the work of managers has accumulated. The field of study which has given rise to this evidence is, from time to time, subject to ‘internal’ criticisms by some of its own practitioners (Luthans and Davis 1980, Marples 1967, Mintzberg 1973, Stewart 1983) whose main contention, predictably, is that the studies do not, methodologically or analytically, always live up to their self‐imposed project. The studies in short are upbraided for what they have imperfectly done. In an earlier paper (Hales 1986) I sought to extend and add to these criticisms of studies of managers' work. I argued that the studies fail to distinguish, within the vague term ‘managerial work’, between: first, ‘management’ as a process and ‘managers’ as a particular category of agents; second, managerial work as a totality and managerial jobs as clusters of that (and other) work; third, what managers are required to do (role definition) and what they actually do (role performance) and fourth, the outputs and purpose of managerial work (managerial tasks and responsibilities) versus the inputs and practice of managerial work (managers' behaviour and activities). These ambiguities are, I suggested, symptomatic of a rather narrow empiricist approach and failure adequately to theorise the ‘management’ which managers are, apparently, doing. In this way, I wanted to arrive at, rather than merely assert, the proposition that the activities of managers cannot be adequately understood without setting them, empirically and theoretically, in a wider context.

Discusses the situation of Catholic aided schools following the 1988 Education Reform Act with emphasis on school governing bodies. Governors need training, information and guidance on school management plans and devolved budgets, new flexibilities in staff salaries, teacher appraisal and morale, buying in inspection. Further classification of new grant maintained status may be needed. A proper balance must be found between education authorities, governors, Church, parents and teachers that best suits individual community needs.

Focuses on conflicts within organizations which express themselves in aggression, whether this be in the interaction between superior and employee or between colleagues, the consequences deriving from them, and the solutions to be found, taking into a broader consideration both the victim, the organization and what each can and should achieve.

This paper examines the nature of property advice in fragmented local property investment markets using, as an exemplar, the retail sector in The Potteries conurbation. The views of major actors within the process, obtained from in‐depth interviews, are discussed and placed in context alongside the unique fragmentation to be found in The Potteries conurbation. The approaches to market analysis and understanding of locational decision making by local and national property agents are compared and contrasted. Evidence is found for the use of objective and detailed data gathering and modelling as well as the more traditional market empathy or “feel”. The potential role of a GIS for handling the information is also covered. The conclusion is that, while a GIS would improve awareness, knowledge and understanding of the retail locations vary and that this only strengthens the need for local experts.

The paper's principal focus of analysis is an equalities framework introduced into the UK National Health Service in April 2000. This framework, called “The Vital Connection” is first contextualised against the background of long standing concerns and debates relating to equal opportunities within the NHS. In going on to examine the framework document the paper conducts a rhetorical analysis of the document which this paper treats as a piece of instrumental discourse. In doing this, the intent of the paper is an examination of how the rhetoric of the document attempts to generate support and identification in attempting to move equal opportunities further up the managerial agenda.