Management and organisation literature often characterises managing in Africa as 'the challenge of' and rarely do scholars look to the continent for novel ideas, inspiration, best practice, or theoretical insights. Yet, in the last five years or so, the African organisational landscape has...

It is argued that management seek to close the gap between their employees’ requisite and actual performance, not only by mechanisms of “primary” control but also by imposing their own belief systems as a “strong” culture. However, such belief systems are never successfully transmitted...

The radical critique that HRM developments reflect a determination to impose new forms of managerial control is discussed. It is argued that the intent, intensity and zeal of contemporary managerial initiatives, reflecting strong ideological overtones, give credence to the theory and HRM in this...

The recruitment of young, “green” workers has long been recognised as a defining characteristic of the greenfield site. Extends understanding of how person‐centred recruitment, with its emphasis on employee acceptability, disadvantages the older greenfield applicant. Whether it be a new...

This article examines teamworking in a call centre and how this is shaped for the employees by an increase in technical control, the dynamics of emotional labour and gender politics. The research is based on a case study of call centre work organisation in different sectors, and this paper draws...

Despite a promising outlook in the 1970s, it has been claimed that human resource costing and accounting have progressed at something less than snail’s pace over the past two decades. This is largely due to difficulties in the application of the concept. In this article several extant studies...

This article reports employee attitudes towards quality management (QM) at two organisations in the private services sector. It examines the nature and extent of employee involvement in QM through teamworking, describes the methods which managements use to encourage teamworking, and assesses the...

Despite over 20 years of academic hype, international human resource management (IHRM) literature has been only partly successful in its original claim to offer a universal panacea for complexities of managing people that can transcend national, cultural and economic divides. This paper provides...

Notes that the present human resource literature on absence pays relatively little attention to the management of genuine injury and illness. Seeks to partially address this lacuna in the literature through the findings of an exploratory study of the arrangements used to facilitate the return to...

Examines the role of the personnel function in the selection of doctors. Reveals a “clerk of works” role, marginal to the decision‐making process. Considers the implications of such a role for effective and fair selection practice. Develops a model of “weak” personnel management which...