Describes a recent management development programme for the managers of a business school. Steve Johnson explains how the programme made him into a “learning manager”. He outlines how the programme contributed to some recent success stories.

Examines how a systemic model of managing career development was developed to improve a messy problem at Nationwide Building Society. The approach adopted was to apply soft systems methodology. Presents the model and then examines actions to improve the situations.

Examines the use of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) in the analysis and improvement of a “messy” HRM problem in Nationwide Building Society (NBS). Describes SSM in outline and relates it to a case study application of the methodology in the area of career management and career counselling. At...

Purpose: Scrutiny of staff turnover in large organisations is traditionally reactive, involving benchmarking against peers at institution level. Not being an outlier tempts the inference that turnover is “satisfactory”. However, individual departments exhibiting varied, counterbalancing...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report on a research project, using intervention research (IR), which aims to identify how a higher education institution could develop process improvement (PI) capability. Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a practice perspectives of...