This paper explores the regulatory process of UK privatised utilities as manifest in the periodic review of prices. Two separate review processes are identified, operating concurrently – a covert dialogue between the regulator and the regulated and an overt dialogue taking place in the public...

Purpose – This paper aims to present a detailed examination of the relationship and debate between realist understandings of HRM, on the one hand, and discourse‐based notions of HRM, on the other. The objective is to provide a basis for a possible debate between these, seemingly...

Draws a distinction, via the edited text of an interview, between a sociology of postmodernity and postmodernism: the latter has an emphasis on theory and its intertextuality while the former would focus more evidently on discontinuities in the empirical world which serve to mark a difference...

Taken from an inaugural address at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Discusses postmodernism, particularly regarding Japanese influences in this sphere but also looks at the overview of organizational characteristics among other nations, particularly the US. Looks also at the changes which...

Discusses the issue of computer‐aided design/computer‐aided manufacturing (CADCAM) integration from an organizational point of view. The installation of cross‐functional integrating technology in manufacturing organizations involves technical problems related to hardware, software and...

Purpose – Modern bureaucracies are under reconstruction, bureaucracy being no longer “modern”; they are becoming “post” bureaucratic. Defining the post‐bureaucratic organization as a hybrid form provides insight into the intrinsic difficulties involved in the refurbishment of large...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the role of intervention‐oriented scientists in the process of organisation development. The paper seeks to contribute to the growing interest in design studies for organisation development and argues that a focus on reflexivity is...