This article explores the use of `company culture' as a means of management control. It reports on research conducted in a consultancy that aimed to secure loyalty from its employees through a conscious policy of organised `play' at company socials. Employees were given a certain amount of...

Using a single case study approach this paper provides empirical evidence about managerial practices in a small, non‐unionised firm which represents many of the features characteristic of the black‐hole of “no unions and no HRM”. The efficacy of recent union organising strategies is...