Summary In recent years, corporate and governmental agency declarations of a commitment to, and exploitation of, 'innovation' has been pervasive and powerful. In this paper we show how executives rearrange such a dominant societal thematic in order to control their organization in a manner which...

While many of the factors which help explain the rate and scale of innovative technology adoption have been identified, one important variable (the influence of insider, practitioner-developed versus commercial, externally-developed technology) has been under-explored. Focusing on healthcare in...

This article reports on a study of shopfloor `coping' behaviour in an engineering company which had launched a major `World Class Manufacturing' (WCM) initiative. The article unpacks the meaning of WCM and shows how its impact varied markedly between different manufacturing cells. More...

The dominant political-economic narrative of our time is that, under conditions of global competition with low-wage economies able to undercut even efficient western firms, the only viable and sustainable route to competitiveness is to trade on high value-added goods and services and that these...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the findings arising from a three year research project which investigated a major system-wide change in the design of the NHS in England. The radical policy change was enshrined in statute in 2012 and it dismantled existing health authorities in...

This paper investigates the reasons for and implications of the recent merger between three of the largest unions in the retail finance sector, creating UNIFI. Recent union mergers have been explained by environmental changes adversely affecting membership and finances. These prompt leaders to...