Management and organisation literature often characterises managing in Africa as 'the challenge of' and rarely do scholars look to the continent for novel ideas, inspiration, best practice, or theoretical insights. Yet, in the last five years or so, the African organisational landscape has...

This paper analyses an establishment‐based data set of voluntary quits. Exit interview data identifies two discrete types of quitters, viz. those who quit to accept alternative jobs offering superior terms and conditions of employment and those who quit for other reasons and without having...

This article discusses approaches to work flexibility and the use of core and peripheral workers in the hotel industry. It argues that hotel companies have traditionally neglected building a core workforce and resorted to using “peripheral” workers in key operative jobs. It distinguishes...

Post‐industrial predictions of a rapid growth in new technology homeworking have gained widespread currency to become part of the conventional wisdom. However the evidence, including primary research material, suggests that the claims for new technology homeworking, both regarding its extent...

The management practices of three organisations in the computer industry, one North American, one Japanese and one British owned are described. Although operating in similar marketplaces, markedly different management styles and practices were apparent, with the British company showing much less...

Despite over 20 years of academic hype, international human resource management (IHRM) literature has been only partly successful in its original claim to offer a universal panacea for complexities of managing people that can transcend national, cultural and economic divides. This paper provides...

Notes that the present human resource literature on absence pays relatively little attention to the management of genuine injury and illness. Seeks to partially address this lacuna in the literature through the findings of an exploratory study of the arrangements used to facilitate the return to...

Examines the role of the personnel function in the selection of doctors. Reveals a “clerk of works” role, marginal to the decision‐making process. Considers the implications of such a role for effective and fair selection practice. Develops a model of “weak” personnel management which...

Evaluates the levels of strategic “integration” of human resource management (HRM) into the corporate strategy and “devolvement” of responsibility for HRM to line managers in the UK manufacturing sector. Summarises, initially, some of the primary theoretical debates existing in the HRM...

Suggestions for improvements in service quality in hospitality operations frequently advocate the use of empowerment as a strategy for the management of employees. Analysis of employer initiatives that claim to empower employees needs to distinguish those initiatives labelled empowerment and...