How does your company ensure the effectiveness of its research and development (R&D)? There is, of course, no easy or foolproof way. US firm Westinghouse believes that assessment by the businesses of R&D’s performance against ambitious, quantifiable and mutually set objectives is crucial. But...

Federal Express has been involved in the customer‐satisfaction process for some 20 years. The company believes that the key to customer satisfaction is satisfying employees. Chris Hargett, manager of marketing research at Federal Express Corporation, describes how the company involves...

The number of companies attempting to benchmark the activities of their human‐resource department ‐ that is, to compare it with different organizations considered to be the best in their class ‐ is growing. Discusses best practice in the area of people management, based on a benchmarking...

Investigates whether sabbaticals are a costly and unnecessary perk or a worthwhile investment in the company’s workforce.

In the Anglo‐Saxon world, “to manage” often means “to make do” or “to get by ”, rather than “to be in charge of” or “to exercise control over”. This is commonly seen in the management of training and development, which too often takes the form of a piecemeal response to...

Argues that many performance improvement programmes can be evaluated in the light of expected gains in customer retention, which in turn will improve profits. Customer service transactions involve people who are supported by computers. Therefore, a performance improvement strategy will consider...

The role of managerial cognitive processes has so far been largely neglected within strategy research which examines organizational decline and recovery. Proposes that heuristics used by managers such as: availability, representativeness, adjustment and anchoring may contribute to the declining...