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This paper reports on the transfer of Japanese supervisory practices to their Great Britain-based Japanese transplants and to the Great Britain-based emulators. To this end the paper is divided into three further sections. The first section briefly reviewing the state-of-the-debate on Japanization: was it a 'straw man' debate, is it yesterday's news or does it still retain some saliency? The second section will provide a context for the study of supervisory systems and the third will provide the results of a recent empirical study, before conclusions are drawn.

In response to growing consensus among scientists and governments to act fast to avoid dangerous impacts of climate change, many industries have started to prepare for a carbon-constrained world. However, this response is far from being uniform. Often action is predicated on economic, technological, organizational and institutional drivers and barriers, which vary between countries and across industrial sectors. In order to understand the effectiveness of industry response, it is therefore important to analyse corporate response across different sectors in different countries. Focusing on the nine most energy-intensive and greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting industrial sectors, this paper compares corporate responses to climate change in Pakistan and the UK. By analysing the divergence of strategies adopted by industries across different sectors in two countries, the paper examines the key factors influencing corporate adoption and implementation of GHG reduction and energy-efficiency strategies in Pakistan and the UK. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of an in-depth study in seven UK manufacturing plants in six major industrial sectors: electronics, process, engineering (capital), engineering (consumer), household goods and food. The paper explores the issues that companies face in implementing flexible labour strategies and how these can be overcome. The companies investigated implemented different flexible labour strategies. We find that successful implementation of the strategies depends market drivers of flexibility (e.g. demand uncertainty and demand variability). We find that the choice of which strategy to implement was found to be largely independent of the industrial sector. We identify key challenges to implementation and a number of key factors for the successful implementation of the strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work described in this paper is part of a large, Government-funded investigation into the usage of statistical methods of quality control (SQC) in British manufacturing industry. This paper reports the results of an investigation of fifteen firms which claimed in earlier work to be successful users of SQC. It is shown that six of the companies were in fact not regularly using recognized SQC techniques. Some general conclusions are drawn from the activities of these, and the remaining nine companies which were examined in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the advantages and challenges of an organisation that links industrial needs with academic research. The successful UK Research Centre for NDE (RCNDE) was established in 2003 as a partnership between various large industrial users of NDE, the UK Government university funding body (EPSRC) and six leading UK universities. During the 1980s and 1990s, industrial organisations reduced the size of or closed their NDE research laboratories and concentrated on shorter-term development activities to further their core businesses. At this time, the links between industry and universities regarding NDE were often weak; industrial needs were seen as immediate whilst academic timescales too protracted. The result was poor delivery and/or understanding of academic output and a correspondingly slow uptake of new research ideas. During the 1990s, major industrial users of NDE and universities began to develop bilateral arrangements to overcome the barriers to effective cooperation. Recognising the wide range of industries with a need for high-quality NDE research, discussions instigated by the UK Government in 2001-2 led to the creation of RCNDE in April 2003. Since that time, industrial and university involvement has steadily grown and the success of the partnership led to a second phase of public funding between 2008-2014. The core membership now includes 16 major industrial companies and six universities, with a growing number of other universities and companies also participating. From its inception, RCNDE has emphasised the importance of exploiting the research outcomes and a system based on Technology Readiness Levels is now being used to facilitate the technology transfer process. This approach helps all parties to understand the full range of activities which need to be achieved before new research can be translated into commercial products or processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the situation in early 1993 at the end of the consultation period and before negotiations between the Construction Industry Council and the Health and Safety Executive commenced. These have led to the great majority of the Council's recommendations being accepted. In June 1992 the Council of the European Communities adopted the Directive 'The minimum safety and health requirements at temporary or mobile construction sites'. This is to be transposed into UK law by new Regulations made under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The Directive and the Regulations set out to improve coordination of health and safety matters throughout construction, from inception to completion and beyond. New duties will be imposed on clients, designers, on planning supervisors (in fact a coordinator) and on principal contractors. Whilst professionals support the Health and Safety Commission's aims, there is great concern about the practicality of the proposed arrangements and the liability they will create. This paper sets the scene, states the Health and Safety Commission's proposals and the Construction Industry Council's recommendations to make them more practical and cost-effective and indicates ways in which academies might tackle interesting and relevant issues including options for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the overseas marketing performance of British industry during 1870-1914. Unfortunately there is no detailed empirical study of the composition and pattern of British trade on a market by market, product by product, basis in the 40 years before 1914. However, an insignificant chi-square test on the changing shares of British exports by continent throws doubt that British trade with Europe and North America declined, while rising with Asia, Australia and Africa. Similar statistical tests did not support the hypothesis that in the years before 1914 British exports shifted from the U.S. and German markets to the safe markets of India and Australia, or that exports shifted from industrial to non-industrial markets. Many of the British consular reports contain familiar indictments of commercial performance overseas. The lack of attention to marketing methods and techniques marks a serious omission in the debate on entrepreneurial failure. The traditional picture of the British industrialist employing amateurish marketing techniques and outdated selling institutions is misleading.

This paper reports on a study to examine the information systems (IS) issues perceived as important by Hong Kong (HK) business and IS managers and identity whether these differ greatly from findings in the United Kingdom (UK). In order to do so the study replicates the research study reported in 1994 in the UK by Galliers et al, compares findings and then extends the study by case study analysis. The results suggest that there are variations on perceived issues of importance which can be attributed to cultural contexts but these are less significant than the differences found between managers in different industries. The results of the case studies suggest that several firms which are highly dependent upon Information Technology (IT) have very different concerns and approaches from the "run-of-the- mill" organisations either in HK or UK. This suggests that IS strategy and issues affecting IS effectiveness vary not so much because of culture but in relation to the nature of an industry and its dependence on IT The conclusion of this study, therefore, is to suggest that rather than address problem issues identified "collectively", companies must seek to study problems related to their specific industry environment. This also implies a direction for future research studies of this nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any management discourse, such as Total Quality Management (TQM), has power effects that can transform individuals into subjects who secure some sense of their own identity through participating either as managers or employees in the practices it embraces. The central argument of this paper, how- ever, is that despite these power effects, TQM is not nearly as effective or rational in controlling employees as its gurus exhort or its critics fear. These arguments are explored empirically through a case study of a major UK retail bank. In particular we illustrate how power and identity relations can intervene to undermine feedback to employees and prevent the upward flow of information to management necessary to ensure that TQM operates effectively. These dynamics are seen to reflect the cost conscious and short-term profit demands endemic within British industry Just as these `bottom line' considerations have limited the effectiveness of management innovations in the past, they have also created problems for the TQM programme in our case study here. No doubt this will continue to be the case with future management innovations not least because organisational life is always `messy', given its political character. In the form of both career competition and opportunities for resistance to the totalising demands of TQM this paper provides further evidence of the political obstacles to effective innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of studies have considered the motivation of managers to follow a merger strategy. However, as far as we are aware none has looked at the influence of competition regulation on merger motives using stock market data and event study techniques. Data drawn from 63 merger cases in the UK between 1989 and 2003 are examined for the stock market's perceptions of what motivated managers to pursue their initial merger bid. The findings suggest that the Synergy and Hubris dominate as motivations for mergers and that, unintentionally, competition policy may help to reduce the number of mergers motivated by Managerialism. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the interrelationship between technological progress and the formation of industry-specific skills by analysing the evolution of the video-game industry in three countries: Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. We argue that the cross-sectoral transfer of skills occurs differently depending on national contexts, such as the social legitimacy and strength of preexisting industries, the socioeconomic status of entrepreneurs or pioneer firms in an emerging industry, and the sociocultural cohesiveness between the preexisting and emerging industries. Each country draws on a different set of creative resources, which results in a unique trajectory. Whereas Japan's video-game industry emerged out of corporate sponsorships in arcades, toys, and consumer electronics industries and drew skills from the comic book and animated-film sectors, the video-game industry in the United States evolved from arcades and personal computers. In the United Kingdom the video-game industry developed bottom-up, through a process of skills formation in the youth culture of `bedroom coders' that nurtured self-taught programmers in their teens throughout the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article evaluates the implications of the increase in number of non-executive directors (NED) on the boards of listed firms in Great Britain. The objective of this paper is to present evidence on some of the costs and benefits associated with recent increases in the use of NEDs. Until recently, however, the boards of large British companies were typically dominated by senior managers selected from within the organization. As a result, the arms-length relationship implied in the board's monitoring role was severely compromised, leading to doubts over its ability to independently appraise management. Recent policy documents have begun to stress the importance of active boards staffed by high calibre NEDs for effective corporate governance. With arguments both for and against a move towards greater NED representation on British boards, the precise impact of the recent changes remains an open question. The author concludes that the results of this study do not support the claim that the recent changes in board composition merely reflect a box ticking exercise that has had little to do with improving board quality.

This paper is concerned with the interfirm mobility of managers in British industry. Its aim is both to provide much-needed documentation of the mobility of these managers and to clarify in relation to this occupational group certain explanatory propositions put forward by theorists of interorganizational mobility. Data were derived from a national sample of managers in manufacturing and nonmanufacturing sectors of industry. The analysis introduces both variables related to individual managers, such as age, education and specialization, and variables related to context, such as size of organization and type of technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently there has been a proliferation of neologisms to describe the Japanese model of management and its diffusion to other countries - for example, Toyotaism, and Japanization. Some have argued that such terms can be used to describe the direction in which, at least, British industry or work organization has been heading. This paper reviews some of this 'Japanization' literature and shows that there is a good deal of confusion and lack of precision in the terms being used. Rather than necessarily abandoning all such terms, the author makes a case for retaining both Toyotaism and Japanization but also for clearly differentiating between them. His starting point is that Toyotaism should be limited to the just-in-time management method (JIT) and that this is a model even in Japan. This should be separated, conceptually, from the context in which it has thus far been successfully embodied, namely Japanese employment and supplier relations. The term Japanization can then be used to refer to the evolution and diffusion of Japanese-style employment and inter-firm relations. The author then (a) draws out some of the implications of these conceptions, including the point that the diffusion of fiT in Japan itself has been under- researched and misunderstood, and (b) assesses through the case of the car industry, the extent to which Toyotaism and Japanization apply to recent developments in British industry. Whilst developing JIT has become important to managements, there is little evidence of any serious attempts, with the exception of the Japanese Nissan (U.K.), to change systems of supervision, training, assessment and payment along the lines which the author suggests are central to the Japanese systems. He concludes that it seems premature to talk of a Japanization of work systems and that there is a need to acknowledge the limited nature of the concepts of both Toyotaism and Japanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information research and development in management. Papers in this product range management theme covered virtually the whole product life cycle and the products in question varied from marine technology through to food An interesting paper which compared practices from the U.S., Japan, Great Britain, amongst others concerned the impact of generic products on grocery retailing. Several of the papers in development in IR and personnel theme reflected the turbulent times for IR and personnel specialists Offerings varied from thought-provoking position statements such as one given by Alan Arthurs which examined the reasons for, and the likely outcomes of, harmonization or single status policies within British industry, to detailed studies, e.g., on the employment relationship of managerial and professional staff, Greg Bamber and Ed Snape Changing relationships, particularly between different groups of employees, were raised in most of the seven projects described under this theme. Two of the projects were involved in helping the personnel function to restructure for more effective operation.

Reviews development of marketing planning literature and the success of its prescriptive advice, based on an empirical study of marketing planning practices. The authors call for a change of perspective, from the present state of concentrating almost exclusively on the "medicine" rather than on the "patient". Stresses the need to recognise that there is a symbiotic relationship between the patient and the cure. The stages of development of a company are outlined, together with the role of "culture carriers". One of the main results of the actions of culture carriers is that they can determine the level of acceptance of marketing planning--four levels are identified and illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key change for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people in the European Union has been the prohibition by the Employment Equality Directive (2000) of discrimination in employment on grounds of sexual orientation. This article focuses on the UK, which in 2003 introduced legislation making it unlawful to discriminate on these grounds. It explores the factors encouraging ‘good practice’ in sexual orientation equality work. It considers progress within the public services that have ‘pioneered’ sexual orientation equalities work, drawing on the views of LGB employees, management and trade union stakeholders. The recent legislation is considered to have provided a major impetus for change; however, an emerging ‘business case’ within the public service modernisation agenda is considered to have provided both opportunities and barriers to progress. A challenge for HR practitioners is getting organisational commitment to sexual orientation work, which is still perceived within organisations as a ‘sensitive’ area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan is perceived in most advanced countries as the world leader in the introduction and exploitation of new management practices, particularly in the area of manufacturing. In an attempt to match Japan's economic progress other countries are seeking to introduce many of the systems which are believed to be the basis of Japanese success. In this article, certain aspects of a UK manufacturing company which had adopted a number of practices following studies undertaken in Japan, is compared with a Japanese owned company located in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of Bank of England in promoting industrial diversification in Great Britain. During the 1930s the Bank of England embarked on an unprecedented episode of intervention in British industry. The bulk of its efforts focused upon schemes to reorganize ailing traditional industries such as textiles, iron and steel, and shipping and ship-building. But it also became involved, through its role in the creation of the Special Areas Reconstruction Association Ltd. (S.A.R.A.), in efforts to promote industrial diversification in the depressed areas where declining industries were concentrated. Examination of the Bank's handling of the S.A.R.A. programme illustrates how experiences with rationalization schemes for the older industries influenced and limited diversification efforts, and how traditional attitudes toward bank-industry-relations manifested themselves in the context of a new economic problem. The Bank's involvement in diversification measures was influenced heavily by its internationalist orientation.

This article discusses the impact of managerial innovation on the rise of the large scale company in interwar Britain. In the first section the importance of the managerial factor is discussed and evidence of contemporary concern about management failings is adduced. The two subsequent sections describe developments in technical and accounting aids to management and the method of organizational decentralization adopted in one of the largest and most merger-intensive firms of the period. Finally the record of a wider range of firms, including some which had pushed the managerial barriers to expansion to their limits, is examined and is found to throw light on the impact of the managerial constraint on the pattern and limits of company growth. This is not to say that mergers remove the barriers to the growth of firms. Indeed the historical evidence suggests that large mergers are significantly constrained by managerial factors. The managerial strains of merger growth are a function of two measurable variables, the number of firms involved and the rate of growth implied for the core firm.

How and to what extent exporters perform these tasks in the late 1980s is not clear. Many of the issues have been examined but most of the researchers were conducted some ten or more years ago. The exporting environment has continued to evolve, however, and fresh findings are required. The purpose of this article is to contribute insights from an exploratory study of how British companies currently manage their overseas distributors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major organisational restructuring has been a notable characteristic of companies in the 1970s. This has not only been a US phenomenon. In the UK, for example, two-thirds of the top 100 companies implemented major structural re-organisations in this period. However, despite this increasing frequency, senior managers have been curiously slow to specify and control the shape of their organisations. In Britain, managements have overwhelmingly turned to a handful of US consultancies (with McKinsey being by far the most important) to prescribe their structures. Such outside prescriptions have had only a mixed success record and many companies have been surprised and disappointed by the new organisational problems created and by the limited impact of the new structures on market performance. This article examines the relationship between organisational structure and market performance. It reviews the reasons for the increasing rate of structural changes and the major ways in which they have been evolving. It looks in some detail at how the organisation of marketing activities in particular have been changing. Finally, it attempts to identify for top managers responsible for determining organisational structure the key principles governing how such structures shape market performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Commitment model à la Walton has been a key element in conceptions of human resource management (HRM). Is there though any evidence of its application to production workers? Drawing on the HRM literature the authors first develop some measures of practices which might be thought to contribute to high commitment management (HCM). Having acquired data on the extent to which organizations adopt these practices the authors then, using latent variable analysis, assess whether there is a common structure underlying it which represents some kind of HCM-type approach to labour. In so doing they develop a construct to measure HCM relevant to manual workers. Basing the analysis on data from a representative sample of manufacturing plants in the UK, they conclude that HCM is being practised, albeit to a very varying degree. The research also reveals a growth in the use of HCM practices between 1986 and 1990, and that this has been mainly in practices already popular in 1986; hence the increased use of HCM has been more in plants for whom it was relatively insignificant in 1986, rather than a further heightening of its significance in plants for which it was important before. Using multiple regression analysis, the authors are also able to show that organizational factors rather than factors exogenous to the organization are significantly related to both the level of HCM, and its rate of change between 1986 and 1990. Of overwhelming importance is the extent of the strategic integration of personnel management. The authors draw out the relevance of the study for the wider debate about HRM. In particular the results add some support for Walton's and Guest's universalistic theories of HGM, as opposed to what have been called matching or contingency theories of HGM, according to which it is only likely to be found in specific contexts where, for example, high quality is important for competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent interest in the growth of subcontracting, as part of a broader trend towards greater 'flexibility' in forms of employment relationship, has not as yet been matched by a full consideration of its organizational and managerial implications. In particular, the question of whether or not subcontracting has an impact upon, or is affected by, the organization's structural characteristics remains largely unexplored. The aim of this article is to report findings from a detailed study of subcontracting practices across a sample of British industry, which focuses upon the relationship between subcontracting and organizational characteristics. The results indicate several important points about the practice. Firstly, that there is wide variation in the use of subcontracting across industry, although the overall extent is limited. Secondly, that variation in the practice is significantly related to basic firm characteristics - namely, industrial sector, type of production system' and pattern of ownership and control. Thirdly, that, on balance, subcontracting is associated with more, not less, structural complexity. Finally, that this greater complexity is found in particular types of firms - notably, outside the manufacturing sector, in mass and process production systems and amongst British independents and subsidiaries, rather than in their foreign competitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the statistical properties of financial ratios and the issue of ratio proportionality. The article used the ratio of current assets to current liabilities without allowing for industry effects to support the hypothesis of proportionality. The article examines the results of the statistical model in relation to the fixed effects, mixed effects and random effects to data from British companies. The results of the study suggested that the remaining departure from proportionality can be explained by a size effect, where the ratio for larger firms tends to represent an overall norm of the company.

The new orthodoxy has it that there has to be a much freer interchange of information. It's one of the current fads. But behind the facile front there has been very little examination of the reasons for wishing to spread more information around, or how to spread it around, or what information is most useful to disseminate, or to whom it should be directed or for what purpose.
And we talk as though all information comes within the same category, when the truth is that there are different sorts of information: some, if properly applied, could lead to desirable and beneficial changes; other sorts border on idle gossip. These various types of information are not all equally useful nor are they all likely to lead to action. And we don't all have the same motives for seeking a wider distribution of information. Trade unionists and their friends of the left talk a lot about disclosure of information, as though to imply that the information they seek is closely guarded and only to be released by force. Their purpose is partly to sharpen up their ability to further the financial and other claims of their members and partly to bring about a closer control of industry by the union leaders themselves. Others talk about such devices as added value to enable companies to explain the company's financial state and its financial and commercial operations to the employees, in the hope that such explanations will cause employees to see the company and its activities in a new light.
There are others, yet again, who see an open style of management as essential to the further development of democracy and unrestricted access to information is seen as the corner-stone of the open style. And then there are those, well-intentioned but perhaps woolly-minded, who just think that more information is a good thing in its own right. Behind this approach is the assumption, not supported by any factual evidence, that once people can see the shortcomings of our society they will d... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the control of competition in the British coal-mining industry in the 1930s. The reasons for the failure of the interwar rationalization programme in the British industry and in coal-mining in particular are discussed. One of the attempted remedies embodied in the 1930 Coal Mines Act is considered, namely the operation of the statutory cartel system. The apparently contradictory policy of amalgamation, which found reflection in Part II of the Act, is investigated. The article attempts to show whether the two major aspects of government industrial policy were capable of being reconciled. The experience of coal-mining in the interwar years could not be regarded as typical of that of other industries. In the strictest sense, the only directly comparable example is that of the iron and steel industry where the granting of a degree of protection by the Government in 1932 was on the clear understanding that the industry itself would undertake the necessary rationalization. Yet it is the very unrepresentative nature of the experience in coal-mining, especially the degree of state involvement, that makes its study particularly interesting. Rationalization of industry failed because of the existence of schemes of output and price control, many of them having statutory force, or at least government encouragement.

The article discusses management in Great Britain. The author notes its great potential for industrial development and technical innovation. He recognizes that the ideas and practices which characterize industry within Great Britain had been developed over several decades. He feels that, had the technological and scientific bases of business continued to expand at the pre-World War II rate, the culture of British industry would have been likely to adapt most effectively to the changes. Science and technology have had an unprecedented rate of growth from 1945 to 1970, as revolutionary ideas and practices promote a greater change over much shorter periods of time. An effective industry needs to have a culture that is highly adaptive to the technical innovations affecting it.

The article refers to research on public administration and organization theory and focuses on the organizational structure of Government Departments in Great Britain. Four organization types are manufacturing/commercial, public utility, Government/operative, and Government/adaptive/creative. Managerial style including internal communication in the public services, internal cohesion and interchangeability in government organization, and informality in the organic system are discussed. Research in the manufacturing industry by Tom Burns and G. S. Stalker--which placed organizations on a mechanistic-organic continuum according to the rate of change in their environment--is mentioned.

The article looks at some of the general characteristics held in common by directors of companies in Great Britain. The majority of research on company directors has been sociological and focused on the education and career history of directors as a social class. The author feels that educational and social background is less relevant to the practical function of directors in the management of their companies than are their industrial and commercial experience and the area of their professional and academic training.