Reviews the business process re‐engineering (BPR) vision of radical business process change, focusing on the use of information technology to facilitate a shift away from linear/sequential work organization towards parallel processing and multidisciplinary teamworking. Highlights BPR′s...

Critical and prescriptive evaluation of human resource management (HRM) tells us little about the direction in which its practice and rationale purport to push management. Contends that the prevailing course of HRM ventures to make management more entrepreneurial. Distinguishes between the...

Recently a more cynical attitude to workplace stress reduction programmes has been emerging. If these programmes are accepted as beneficial then what has gone wrong? Attempts to answer this question and to search for reasons why stress intervention programmes have failed to realize their...

Until recently most evaluations of EAPs have been qualitative. In the US there has been a move towards insisting on hard data, i.e. cost‐benefit ratios. The nature of EAPs makes identification of a clear outcome oriented model of intervention difficult if not impossible. Discusses different...

Explores several important issues associated with continuing professional development (CPD). Notes the importance of ensuring that CPD is driven by the needs of the business, and also considers the issue of whether CPD should be compulsory or voluntary. Presents the results of a survey targeted...

Addresses the latest vogue in managerial theory – business process re‐engineering (BPR). Locates BPR within other recent challenges to traditional modes of organizing work, and subjects it to some critical scrutiny in order to provide some markers for further work. Examines BPR in terms of...

Starts from the premisses that stress at work is a significant and costly problem, and that the challenge for companies is to manage work stress in order to reduce health‐care costs and improve productivity. Suggests that this challenge can be met by greater collaboration among company...

Comprises Part II of a two‐part exploration of the consequences of variability in the design of appraisal schemes. While Part I was descriptive, Part II suggests prescriptions to help scheme designers to devise proposals which are commensurate with appraisees′ worries, arguments and...

Returns to a case study of a newspaper company introducing HRM presented five years earlier in this journal. Looks at all the editorial offices of the company and examines the extent to which the company has succeeded in implementing HRM and what this has meant for a key section of its...

Highlights that although the idea that competences are underlying sustainable competitive advanta ges is central, there has been no thorough investigation into the very nature of competences in the strategic management literature. Uses theories on the sociology of knowledge to advance the...