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In this article, I present some of the teaching and learning challenges faced from the perspective of a U.K. business school dean. There are many challenges that I could have chosen, but my focus is on the unpredictable external environment, the conundrum of teaching evaluation, developing teaching staff, and the curriculum issues we face.

Purpose: Disparities in learning opportunities endure. This paper aims to investigate whether the learning representative schemes in the UK and New Zealand (NZ) may redress disparate opportunities for learning. Design/methodology/approach: An interview study of UK trade unions' educational officers and an interview study of representatives of bodies involved in designing the NZ learning representative scheme are used to consider each scheme's capability to address disparate learning opportunities. Findings: The paper finds that the UK scheme allows trade unions to initiate vocational and non-vocational learning opportunities locally. Legislative and financial support allows some redress of inequalities in learning opportunities. The NZ scheme was introduced through a tripartite alliance of central organizations, without legislative support, to provide vocational opportunities. This scheme may facilitate learning opportunities at companies where the constituents of the central organizations support the initiative. Research implications/limitations: The UK scheme is firmly established, while the NZ scheme has only been developed recently. The potential for further developments in the New Zealand scheme must be acknowledged. Practical implications/limitations: Union-backed learning representative schemes in different countries have been introduced to redress the unequal distribution of learning opportunities that exist at work. However, to date, there has been limited research into the potential for learning representative schemes to promote learning in different organizational contexts. There is a need for further research in this area. Originality/value: The paper presents findings from the first comparative study of the learning representative schemes in the UK and NZ. (Contains 3 tables.)

This article considers the in-service learning opportunities arising from the emergence and early formation of the learning representative scheme in New Zealand. Drawing on an interview study with respondents from the major stakeholders involved in the design of the scheme and subsequent ongoing research, the article makes comparisons between the scheme in New Zealand and its counterpart in the United Kingdom. The article suggests that in New Zealand both the training for learning representatives and the forms of learning they are likely to facilitate for others have tended to be more standardised initially than was the case with their UK counterparts. A tripartite framework that did not exist in the United Kingdom and the initial smaller scale of the New Zealand learning representative project facilitated greater standardisation of the process by which people acquired the skills and knowledge to be learning representatives. The greater standardisation of the training that learning representatives may facilitate for others is attributed to the stronger sector-based vocational learning arrangements that existed in New Zealand and the lesser funds that have been made available to the New Zealand scheme to date. The article concludes by emphasising the merits of both the New Zealand and UK schemes that give workers greater choice and control in learning opportunities. (Contains 1 table and 1 note.)

Drawing upon an employer branding lens to help explore and inform our understanding of the marketing of workforce diversity, here we argue that diversity is understood and used in an aesthetic and commercialized way, rather than with a focus upon the inclusion of disadvantaged groups. Our analysis of the marketing and diversity practices of four small and medium‐sized law firms demonstrates a continued access‐and‐legitimacy approach to diversity: that a desire for successful employer branding still supersedes organizational commitment to equal opportunities and diversity management in practice. We argue that this commercialized approach leads to several contradictions, which in turn reproduce the market‐based perspective of diversity, relegating employees primarily to the aesthetics of race and gender and the affiliated skills and resources. In theorizing the processes by which diversity is undermined and functions solely to enhance business image and increase organizational performance, we highlight how an employer branding lens enables us to identify and understand contradictions between diversity policy and practice in a different way, by linking aesthetics with the marketing of the brand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was conducted to examine the institutional work of disrupting institutions, and analyze the rhetorical strategies used in constructing meanings and interpretations. The topic is explored in the context of the contemporary academic labor process. It is argued that examining institutional work as rhetoric adds to the theoretical understanding of the discursive disruption of institutions.

Ten small business owner-managers were interviewed to study the influence of small company size on the content and construction of psychological contracts. Relevance of the new deal in small companies is also discussed.