Best Value was introduced as a local government policy in 1997, after the election of a New Labour administration. The policy was designed to reconfigure service delivery by local government, with local authorities assuming the role of enablers rather than service providers. In order to help...

Purpose – This paper seeks to discuss how an environmental change for an organisation can be a catalyst for the take‐up of intellectual capital (IC). In particular, it uses Laughlin's “colonizing” model of organisational change to understand the catalyst for change, being an ageing...

Purpose – This teaching case seeks to explain the main aspects of Acciona's sustainability strategy and the process of transformation of the company after the new CEO took office in 2004. It also aims to present some possible difficulties of maintaining such strategies in the new economic and...

Purpose – Focuses on the strategic role that human‐resource management should play to help to ensure organizational success. Design/methodology/approach – Warns managers against abdicating responsibility for leading their people, and HR specialists against empire building. Highlights how...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons why the concept of a “strategic early warning system” (SEWS) has not been widely introduced and why it fails to be implemented successfully in German corporations. The aim of such systems is to detect changes in an...

Outlines some ideas to help companies create a culture which supports middle management development. Ideas are based on research findings among privatized companies and other academic research. Presents a number of recommendations to encourage organizations to re‐evaluate the role of their...

Against a backdrop of increasing globalisation, deregulation, and the rapid pace of technological innovation, the primary task of management today is the leadership of organisational change. Seeks to examine the role of leadership in managing the challenge of deliberate large‐scale change and...

This paper presents a case study of how, over the last six years a large, a traditional corporation simultaneously created new service markets and established a dominant position in the competitive information and communication technology field in Japan. The corporation accepted a new...

This paper reviews a number of theoretical issues dealing with the strategic management process in fast‐evolving, uncertain environments and examines the fit between theory and practice by means of two case studies, two successful dot.com incumbents from the first generation of Internet...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of UK fashion retailer New Look and focuses on the impact of private equity on corporate governance, employment and leverage after the public‐to‐private conversion in 2003. Design/methodology/approach – This study follows a...