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Reports on the experience of production team leaders and their line managers on the quality of training and development of the former. The setting was the UK plant of a US‐based global organization competing in the telecommunications technology sector. Team leaders’ and line managers’ views were complemented with data from personnel records. The findings suggested that team leaders’ development was perceived to be inadequate in both the technical and leadership domains. Team leaders perceived deficiencies in their technical training and competence; and line managers viewed that team leaders lacked managerial and leadership skills. The analysis of personnel records corroborated those views as it suggested that existing training and development structures were not being properly implemented or designed. This situation can impact unit performance. Suggestions regarding rectification of such situations are made.

The distinction between network theories and theories of networks is particularly salient in studying social status because social status is both a consequence and an antecedent of network ties. Status is a consequence of network ties because it is conferred by interdependent acts of deference connecting a sender and a recipient. Status is also an antecedent of network ties because it affects individual preferences for social interaction which produce distinct forms of preferential attachment. A new generation of stochastic actor oriented models (SAOM) for social networks is now available that may help to integrate network theories and theories of networks.

This study aims to review the auditor-client relationship (ACR) literature spanning 1976 to 2019 to provide future research directions.

The study analysed 140 articles from the Web of Science database, authored by 259 scholars across 28 countries and published in 47 journals. It identified three major research streams to understand the ACR dynamics: auditor tenure, ACR attributes and auditor-client negotiation.

Three major findings emerged based on this review. First, few studies examine auditor-client negotiation relative to other streams; thus, it offers scope for further research. Second, given that various fields have used diverse frameworks as theoretical underpinnings in prior studies, continuing this trend can better portray ACR from multiple perspectives. Finally, despite strong international regulations on ACR aspects such as auditor independence, tenure and rotation, implementation in several countries warrants special considerations, specifically on legal enforcement and investor protection, given diverse cultures and country-level institutional environments.

This study contributes to the synthesis of existing and emerging research streams and provides future research suggestions.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Alvin Hansen and John Williams’ Fiscal Policy Seminar at Harvard University is widely regarded as a key mechanism for the spread of Keynesianism in the United States. An original and regular participant, Richard A. Musgrave was invited to prepare remarks for the fiftieth anniversary of the seminar in 1988. These were never published, though a copy was filed with Musgrave’s papers at Princeton University. Their reproduction here is important for several reasons. First, it is one of the last reminiscences of the original participants. Second, the remarks make an important contribution to our understanding of the Harvard School of macro-fiscal policy. Third, the remarks provide interesting insights into Musgrave’s views on national economic policymaking as well as the intersection between theory and practice. The reminiscence demonstrates the importance of the seminar in shifting Musgrave’s research focus and moving him to a more pragmatic approach to public finance.

The aim of this paper is to explore interactions between change and stability during the implementation of a specific change initiative (ISO 9000). It attempts to develop a theoretical framework on change and stability management in small firms.

This research uses a process approach based on retrospective comparative case study methodology. Data collection in the six companies lasted over a year. This gives the opportunity to contrast failed change initiatives against successful ones.

Two models emerged from this approach; they support the notion that change and stability could be complementary during the different phases of the change initiative the authors analyzed. The findings show that total absence of stability variables in the change initiative could have negative effect on results.

The research is based on a multiple case study approach, which limits the generalizability of the findings.

This is one of the first studies that applies and empirically tests the change and stability relation in small firms.

This paper addresses some of the future challenges that the vote to leave the European Union (EU) may have on the UK’s constitutional framework. The potential abolition of the Human Rights Act 1998 and its replacement with a Bill of Rights is examined in relation to the interpretation of freedom of expression. More specifically, this is analysed in relation to the often conflicting freedoms to express homophobic views and to freely express one’s sexual identity. With EU law protecting many of the recently won rights favouring lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality, the purpose of this paper is to underline the potential dangers should this layer of international scrutiny be lost and highlight where more improvements for equality are still needed.

This paper offers a critical reflection on the recent political and judicial rhetoric which has accompanied the issues of LGBT social and legal equality. Recent judgements from domestic and European courts are analysed to identify how any potential re-interpretation of freedom of expression may affect the LGBT community.

While the UK has made welcome strides in improving the legal equality of the LGBT community, it is argued that the potential loss of judicial scrutiny from the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice may have negative consequences. An examination of recent judicial and political discourse demonstrates that homophobic expression – or at least tacit acceptance of it – still permeates throughout these institutional spheres.

The paper highlights how the subtleties of constitutional changes following Brexit may threaten the current progression of LGBT rights in the UK and proposes that a commitment to freedom of expression must give greater recognition to the right to express sexual identity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of physical preparation for bushfire among Victorian residents in established high risk bushfire locations, and to assess whether these levels of preparation changed over time.

Data were analysed from a telephone survey among Victorian residents (n=614-629) living in high risk bushfire locations over a three-year period (2012-2014). The survey measured residents’ bushfire awareness, knowledge, planning, preparation and engagement with bushfire services. This paper focusses on the extent to which respondents undertook physical preparatory bushfire activities over the three-year period using: first, principal components analysis to generate a single preparation variable by identifying a smaller number of uncorrelated variables (or principal components) from a larger set of data, second, analysis of variance to assess differences in preparation scores between years, and third, Tukey’s honest significant difference test to confirm where the differences occurred between groups.

Results indicated only moderate levels of physical preparation for bushfires amongst respondents. The activities that respondents rated the lowest were: “having protective covers for windows” and “having firefighting equipment to protect the house”. A significant difference in total preparation scores over time was observed, F(2, 1,715)=6.159, p<0.005, with lower scores in 2012 compared with 2013 and 2014 scores.

This study found some marginal improvements in levels of physical bushfire preparation from 2012 to 2014. However, the results indicate only moderate levels of preparation overall, despite respondents living in established high risk locations.

This study provides evidence for the current levels of preparedness in high risk bushfire communities, and emphasises the need for future initiatives to focus on specific bushfire preparation activities but also to consider the broader range of interventions that are likely to contribute to desired safety outcomes.

Informal learning networks are critical to response to calls for practitioners to reskill and upskill in off-site construction projects. With the transition to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, social media-enabled online knowledge communities play an increasingly important role in acquiring and disseminating off-site construction knowledge. Proximity has been identified as a key factor in facilitating interactive learning, yet which type of proximity is effective in promoting online and offline knowledge exchange remains unclear. This study takes a relational view to explore the proximity-related antecedents of online and offline learning networks in off-site construction projects, while also examining the subtle differences in the networks' structural patterns.

Five types of proximity (physical, organizational, social, cognitive and personal) between projects members are conceptualized in the theoretical model. Drawing on social foci theory and homophily theory, the research hypotheses are proposed. To test these hypotheses, empirical case studies were conducted on two off-site construction projects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Valid relational data provided by 99 and 145 project members were collected using semi-structured interviews and sociometric questionnaires. Subsequently, multivariate exponential random graph models were developed.

The results show a discrepancy arise in the structural patterns between online and offline learning networks. Offline learning is found to be more strongly influenced by proximity factors than online learning. Specifically, physical, organizational and social proximity are found to be significant predictors of offline knowledge exchange. Cognitive proximity has a negative relationship with offline knowledge exchange but is positively related to online knowledge exchange. Regarding personal proximity, the study found that the homophily effect of hierarchical status merely emerges in offline learning networks. Online knowledge communities amplify the receiver effect of tenure. Furthermore, there appears to be a complementary relationship between online and offline learning networks.

Proximity offers a novel relational perspective for understanding the formation of knowledge exchange connections. This study enriches the literature on informal learning within project teams by revealing how different types of proximity shape learning networks across different channels in off-site construction projects.