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An updated version of the original (1985) text, the book covers all aspects of marketing and selling bank services: the role of marketing; behaviour of customers; intelligence, planning and organisation; product decisions; promotion decisions; place decisions; price decisions; achieving sales. Application questions help to focus the readers' minds on key issues affecting practice.

Consists of a series of nine articles under the same title. Each article provides a different slant on the hiring process. Outlines the legal position when hiring employees and concentrates on providing a framework for managers. Covers areas including job analysis and descriptions, where to advertise and recruit, selection criteria, the interview, testing, negotiating the offer of employment and references. Briefly describes trends in employment practices and ways to minimize potential litigation through best practice.

The purpose of this paper is to provide small business and entrepreneurship researchers with insights to help them undertake life story interviewing, in order that this can subsequently advance understanding within the field.

The authors describe, and reflect upon, the use of a life story interview approach that formed part of the data collection process for a research study into dynamic capabilities in micro-organisations.

The life story interview approach the authors utilised can generate benefits for both the purposes of the research study and the interviewee. Nevertheless, “unexpected lack of time” and “owner-managerial control”, two common contextual factors within micro-organisations, are factors that may raise challenges for successfully undertaking life story interviewing in such organisations. Ultimately the interviewer needs to respond to such challenges by making “stick or twist” decisions with regard to the interview format being used.

The authors provide an example of an interview approach that researchers can use for future research within the field of small business and entrepreneurship. The authors also prepare interviewers for challenges they may experience within the field and the potential need for them to make “stick or twist” decisions.

The authors explicate a specific life story interview approach which is new to the field of small business and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the authors highlight potential complexities in undertaking this interview approach within micro-organisations. Prior work within the field has tended to give little consideration to challenges of undertaking life story interviews.

This paper aims to adopt the mutuality perspective from the field of human resource management (HRM) to examine family firms, specifically human resource (HR) practices that are likely to be found in Thai family firms.

The cross-case analysis of three successful unreformed or authoritarian family firms in Thailand draws on semistructured interviews with top managers and/or HR managers as well as the employees of each family firm, field visits to each firm and a review of archival documents and Web-based resources.

This paper proposes that the recruitment of employees via alternative or substream recruitment channels (especially the recruitment of current employees’ relatives or family members), paternalistic employee relations practices and the management of aging employees, specifically with regard to the absence of retirement age, the facilitation of financial planning, reduced workload, the appointment of mentors/advisors and the encouragement of aging employees to transfer knowledge to younger generations tend to be found across Thai family firms, especially the unreformed or authoritarian type. These HR practices are implemented across family firms because they help to manage high levels of debt that have accumulated over many years so that employees attain financial literacy before retirement and to foster and maintain positive relationships between managers and employees across firms. These positive relationships thus foster the retention of capable and loyal, aging employees who have been developed within the firm and who have worked with the firm for a long time (so-called Look-Mor), leading to the maintenance of tacit knowledge and experience within firms and the alleviation of the problem of labor shortage. Theoretically, this paper proposes that a family-like corporate culture typically found in family firms serves as the antecedent to the adoption and implementation of those HR practices (so-called culture determinism). In particular, the fit between corporate culture and HR practices is likely to foster the strong commitment among employees to firms and the feelings of job security among these employees (so-called commitment match in the mutuality of the employment relationship).

An important limitation of this study concerns its methodology. Because this study is based on the case studies of only three unreformed or authoritarian family firms located in Thailand, the findings in this paper only propose substream or alternative HR practices that are likely to be found across Thai family firms; therefore, generalization to all other types of family firms and all other family firms across countries is not possible. Examining whether the HR practices proposed in this paper are uniquely found across family firms should be the subject of future research. Another limitation of this study is that it does not include firms located in other industries, such as the health-care industry and the hotel and restaurant industry. Future research could explore the HR practices implemented by family firms in these industries. Moreover, quantitative studies using large samples of family firms across industries might be useful in deepening the understanding of the HR practices implemented in family firms from the mutuality perspective on HRM.

This paper has practical implications for top managers and/or HR managers across firms not only in Thailand but also in other countries. First, top managers and/or HR managers across family firms, especially those of the unreformed or authoritarian type, should implement the HR practices proposed in this paper that are aligned well with a family-like corporate culture found in family firms to foster the strong commitment among employees to firms and the feeling of job security among these employees. Second, other types of firms (e.g. publicly owned corporations and multinational corporations) that do not have a family-like corporate culture may have to adapt some of these HR practices to their corporate culture and workplace atmosphere within their firms. Third, to manage and retain high-quality aging employees within firms, top managers and HR managers across various types of firms should implement some of the HR practices for managing aging employees proposed in this paper so that the firms can retain invaluable aging employees over time.

This paper provides social/policy implications for the government and/or relevant public agencies of Thailand and of several other emerging market economies. These governments should encourage the firms located in their countries to implement some of the HR practices proposed in this paper to maintain and support knowledgeable and skillful aging employees in their firms.

This paper contributes to the two main bodies of literature on HRM and family business in the following ways. First, most previous studies on HRM have focused on the mainstream HR practices used in large firms while neglecting the alternative or substream HR practices used in family firms. Additionally, relatively little research has specifically examined the mutuality perspective with regard to HRM. Thus, this paper extends the literature on HRM and family business settings regarding HR practices that are likely to be found across Thai family firms, corporate culture as an antecedent of the adoption and implementation of those HR practices, and the fit between corporate culture and HR practices with respect to mutuality in the employment relationship. Moreover, the literature on HRM has typically overlooked the underresearched country of Thailand; most studies in this area have primarily focused on developed countries or other emerging market economies, including China and India. The findings of this paper provide an in-depth analysis of HR practices that are likely to be found in family firms located in the emerging market economy of Thailand according to the mutuality perspective with regard to HRM.

This paper aims to examine the design and implementation of age-related human resource (HR) practices across organizations located in the institutional contexts of the under-researched emerging market economy of Thailand.

A cross-case analysis of five organizations is conducted across industries. The empirical evidence in this paper draws on semistructured interviews and focus groups with older workers of each organization, semistructured interviews with top managers and/or HR managers of each organization, field visits to each organization located in Bangkok and other provinces in Thailand and a review of archival documents and Web-based resources.

This paper proposes that firms design and implement various age-related HR practices, including the extension of the retirement age, financial planning facilitation, the bundling of maintenance and the bundling of utilization, to ensure that older workers in their firms maintain their current level of functioning to cope with the problem of skill shortage in the Thai labor market, have sufficient savings after retirement to respond to the “productivist informal security” welfare state regime and return to previous levels of functioning after facing losses in their careers.

Due to the fact that this research is based on case studies of age-related HR practices in five firms across industries in Thailand, the findings may not be generalizable to all other firms across countries. Rather, the aim of this paper is to enrich the discussion regarding the design and implementation of age-related HR practices in organizations. Another limitation of this research is that it does not include firms located in several industries, such as the financial services industry and the education industry. Future research may explore age-related HR practices in organizations located in these industries. Moreover, quantitative studies using large samples of firms across industries might also be useful for fostering an in-depth understanding of the design and implementation of age-related HR practices in organizations.

This paper provides practical implications for top managers and/or HR managers of firms in Thailand and other emerging market economies. That said, these top managers and/or HR managers can implement age-related HR practices to respond to the problem of skill shortage in the labor market, ensure that older workers have sufficient savings after retirement and help older workers return to previous levels of functioning after facing deterioration in health conditions and/or losses in their careers.

This paper provides policy implications for the government and/or relevant public agencies of Thailand and other emerging market economies that still face a severe skill shortage problem. Older workers who possess tacit knowledge and valuable experience and are still healthy can be considered excellent alternates for firms to help alleviate the skill shortage problem in the labor market. However, firms should implement age-related HR practices to retain this group of employees overtime.

This paper contributes to the literature on comparative institutionalism and human resource management, specifically regarding age-related HR practices, in the following ways. First, this paper examines how firms design and implement age-related HR practices to respond to the country’s macro-level institutions. Additionally, in this paper, the author triangulates the findings from older workers with those from employers to ensure that actual HR practices perceived by older workers are in line with HR practices perceived by top managers and/or HR managers. Moreover, the literature on age-related HR practices has likely overlooked emerging market economies, including the under-researched country of Thailand, because most studies in this area have focused on developed economies. Therefore, the findings in this paper provide an in-depth analysis of the design and implementation of age-related HR practices across firms located in the emerging market economy of Thailand to respond to the national institutional context.

The aims of this study are to review the literature examining the arguments for and against the telephonic qualitative research interviews, to develop criteria for assessing when the use of the telephone is suitable in qualitative research and if suitable to offer detailed strategies for the effective use of this data collection instrument.

The study is a thematic analysis of the literature, informed by the researchers’ experiences using the telephone, computer-based audio and face-to-face interviews for an accounting research project involving 50 semi-structured interviews with managers.

The study identifies five criteria to determine the suitability of using the telephone in qualitative research interviews. In addition, the study offers a set of detailed strategies on what to do before, during and after a telephonic qualitative research interview.

The study can assist qualitative researchers in deciding when to use the telephone and how to use it effectively.

The study builds on the limited prior research and provides a more complete list of strategies on the effective use of the telephone in qualitative social sciences research. These strategies are a synthesis of existing studies and observations drawn from the author's study, which examines the work of organisational managers. In comparison, prior studies have been based on research projects that explored sensitive personal issues and emotive experiences not always related to managerial work.

Purpose – This paper reflects on how does the mode, in which we ask questions, affect the responses? It explores the differences between the responses to the same questions obtained through two different modes – depth interviews and self-administered questionnaires (SAQs).

Approach – This paper is based on a series of serendipitous but enlightening insights that were obtained while conducting research that sought to examine the drivers of corporate environmentalism in firms based in Eastern and Western economies. The methodology adopted in the research project involved conducting depth interviews with senior-most managers in business organizations in India (Eastern) and New Zealand (Western). The insights that form the basis for this paper were gained when some managers treated the list of questions in the interview guide as a structured open-ended questionnaire and sent back detailed written responses.

Findings – This paper reports that the written responses obtained through SAQs in this project were different both in form and content; they were staid, reserved, clichéd and aimed at being politically correct. In contrast the responses to the same question asked in the interviews were open and candid admissions. Interview responses stood up to the triangulation tests, while the written responses did not. These differences were particularly evident in the eastern context.

Research implications – While both SAQs and interviews are prone to social desirability bias, this paper suggests that there is a greater opportunity to reduce social desirability bias in interviews. This is especially true if a trained interviewer can convince the participants of the credibility, importance and legitimacy of the study.

Originality/value – This paper contributes in two important ways:1.It addresses the issue of how responses to the same question differ across SAQs and depth interviews in strategy and management research.2.It also examines whether this effect differs across Eastern and Western organizational contexts.

Elite interviewing is a well-established area of interview research methods. Nevertheless, the actual casting of an “elite” has been generally conducted in a prima facie or broad manner. A consideration of entrepreneurs and owner-managers as “elites” has been less profiled and received less attention, therefore the paper views the entrepreneurs and owner-managers as constituting a form of “local elite” within given and varying sectorial, regional and community boundaries. The authors argue that a consideration of entrepreneurs as “local elites” and transferring knowledge from an elite interviewing perspective may strongly support scholarly research in the entrepreneurship field.

The study conducts a comprehensive narrative literature review of elite interviewing literature and transfers key methodological insights to the entrepreneurship field. The methodological contribution based on literature is complemented by experiences and observations from an extensive inductive interview study with over 30 entrepreneurs of German manufacturing Small and Medium-sized Entities (SMEs) and are used to reflect on, and refine, interview research approaches with entrepreneurs.

The reflections and discussions in this paper provide valuable insights for other researchers conducting research in entrepreneurship domains regarding the power dynamics of negotiating access, procedural issues of interviews and thereby enhancing the quality of data.

The contribution to knowledge is mainly of a methodological nature. While the paper takes a novel act of recasting elite interviewing in the SME and entrepreneurship context, the paper methodologically contributes to the entrepreneurship and elite interview literature thereby facilitating higher quality interviews.

This article describes the test of a method for consulting frail older people about the quality of social services and their unmet needs. The method, home interviews by senior social services managers, was prompted by advice from older social services clients about how best to obtain their views. Results of the interview programme are presented, together with benefits arising specifically from using managers as interviewers and discussion of future application of this approach.

Sustainable return to work remains challenging for workers returning after long-term sick leave due to common mental disorders (CMDs): stress, anxiety and depression. Line managers play a significant role in supporting returned workers. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the supportive behaviors of line managers in supporting returned workers.

The authors conducted a longitudinal study with up to three semi-structured interviews with 20 line managers with experience managing returned workers. In these interviews, the authors asked questions about the supportive behaviors line managers enacted to support workers and the role of the context. The authors conducted reflexive thematic analysis.

The analyses revealed five key strategies, including managing workload, flexible working time arrangements, location of work, mental health check-ups and long-term support. The interviewed line managers reported their own lived experiences and that being aware of the limitations of their role, together with training and support from senior management and human resources (HR), enabled them to provide appropriate support.

The five strategies and the barriers and facilitators to implementing these may enable HR to develop policies and procedures to support line managers, including training of line managers.

This is the first study in the UK on line managers’ behaviors to support workers who have returned to work after a period of long-term sickness absence due to CMDs. The identification of such behaviors is paramount to developing organizational policies and practices. The question, however, remains whether employees see these behaviors as effective.