Graeme Martin

Managerial Competences in Small Firms

The failure rate of small firms in the UK is high, but there is little reliable evidence as to what factors account for success or failure in small businesses. Lending organizations have adopted a set of criteria that they use to evaluate new business proposals. One lending organization sponsored a research project with the object of identifying whether a general set of competences could be found which were associated with effective performance in the region. Describes the setting up and findings of the research, and identifies the competences that were found.

The impact of psychological contract violation on employee attitudes and behaviour

Psychological contract violation has gained the attention of both practitioners and academics in recent years. Critical commentaries have questioned whether breaching such a contract has implications for employee attitude and behaviour, and ultimately organisational performance. This paper addresses the question “To what extent does psychological contract breach impact on employee attitude and behaviour?”. The study is based on an industrial textiles company and draws on quantitative and qualitative data. The findings suggested that triggers of violation impinged on employee attitudes but not on behaviour, trends substantiated by analysis of the organisations absenteeism records. The qualitative data helped explain this trend and have highlighted two contextual issues. The first of these is labour market conditions and perceptions of job insecurity and second of these is a sense of collegiality and pride in the job.

Diffusing 'best practice' in multinational firms: prospects, practice and contestation

This article explores the possibilities and problems of transferring best practice within multinational enterprises. Following a discussion of the literature on the transfer of best practice, we draw on a case study of ABB to highlight some of the issues and problems involved. In particular, we focus on the use of benchmarking as a powerful tool for the diffusion of best practice in ABB. We conclude that under certain conditions the case for the transfer of best practice within multinational enterprises is relatively sound and that the use of internal benchmarking can be a highly effective method of producing such organizational change. However, any form of diffusion has to take into account (a) the local cultural and institutional context and (b) the ability and incentive of local managers to implement best practice.

Is there a bigger and better future for employer branding? Facing up to innovation, corporate reputations and wicked problems in SHRM

Employer branding is becoming an increasingly important topic for research and practice in multinational enterprises (MNEs) because it plays directly into their corporate reputation, talent management and employee engagement agendas. In this paper, we argue that the potential effects of employer branding have yet to be fully understood because current theory and practice have failed to connect this internal application of marketing and branding to the key reputational and innovation agendas of MNEs, both of which are at the heart of another strategic agenda – effective corporate governance. However, these agendas are characterised by ‘wicked problems’ in MNEs, which have their origins in competing logics in strategic human resource management (SHRM). These problems need to be articulated and understood before they can be addressed. This paper proceeds by (1) setting out a definition and model of employer branding and how it potentially articulates with corporate governance, innovation and organisational reputations, (2) discussing and analysing the ‘wicked problems’ resulting from the sometimes contradictory logics underpinning innovation and corporate reputations and SHRM in MNEs and (3) evaluating the potential of employer branding as a contribution to the third SHRM approach – HR strategy-in-action – as a way of resolving three particularly wicked problems in MNEs. We conclude with some ideas for research and practice on the future for employer branding.

Company‐based lifelong learning: what’s the pay‐off for employers?

Addresses the question: will investment in HRD through company‐based programmes of lifelong learning pay dividends to companies in terms of knowledge transfer from courses and more positive psychological contracts? Develops a model of the relationship between HRD investment, the content of psychological contracts and key consequences such as satisfaction, continuance commitment and knowledge transfer. This model is tested empirically using data from a survey of a cohort of participants in a major Scottish electronics company. The results show that the programme paid off in terms of more positive psychological contracts and knowledge transfer. However, contrary to other research, the nature of the transfer climate (e.g. manager support, career and salary advancement, etc.) was not seen to be important in affecting knowledge transfer. This latter finding has important implications for HR policies in knowledge creating companies.

Engaging in the future of e‐learning: a scenarios‐based approach

e‐Learning has been frequently heralded as a transforming influence on global education and corporate training. Despite such rhetoric, the adoption, diffusion and exploitation of e‐Learning by educational institutions and organizations have been slower than anticipated. In this paper we attempt to examine the future of e‐learning by adopting a scenario planning approach, which formed the basis of a recent major international conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland in February 2004. We set out the background of the study, the methodology used to investigate the future(s) of e‐learning and reflect on the process and outcomes of the exercise to provide some assistance for practitioners in the field. Our general conclusions are that the scenarios have been a valuable starting point to engage in a more informed discussion of how e‐learning may transform education and training markets and the ways in which people learn over the next decade.

Internationalisation strategies for management education

Western business schools currently face a number of pressures to internationalise their postgraduate course provision in terms both of content and place of delivery. In doing so they are faced with decisions concerning their motivations, the broad strategies to adopt, the nature of collaborative links with host‐country institutions, and a number of practical matters. The literature suggests that many of such issues have now broadly become clearly identified, and that a general “model” of postgraduate management course internationalisation may have begun to emerge. In this article a survey of the literature is followed by a case study of the internationalisation experience of a small UK university business school. It reports on the extent to which its experience supports the model and highlights other issues. The conclusion of the analysis is that an emergent strategy in this respect, not necessarily following a clear stages model, has nonetheless been largely successful.

Driving corporate reputations from the inside: A strategic role and strategic dilemmas for HR?

The field of reputation management has been dominated by marketing and communications though there is an emerging consensus that corporate reputations and good governance are built from the inside-out. However, HR professionals and academics have been slow to contribute to these key strategic drivers of organizational success. In this paper I draw on our previous research from often disparate bodies of literature to develop a model of the links between strategic HR and corporate reputations. The model suggests converging lines of enquiry and interest for academics in HR, marketing, communications and strategy, but also highlights some strategic dilemmas for organizations in balancing best practice and best-fit HRM.

Dialogues and dialetics: limits to clinician-manager interaction in healthcare organizations.

This paper examines clinician-manager interactions within healthcare organizations in the U.K. and contrasts the notions of dialetics and dialogues within such interactions. We draw particularly on Bakhtins work on dialogue to frame our focal research question, which considers the extent to which clinician-manager interactions are dialogic. Using data drawn from a thirty-two month study of five U.K. healthcare organizations we suggest that clinician-manager interactions are more dialectic than dialogic in their orientation. Further, we suggest that, despite the appearance of dialogical possibility between clinicians and non-clinicians, the tendency to dialectic positioning reinforces opposition between these groups and we conclude that local, rather than system-wide interventions, offer the best means of disrupting these dialectics and fostering productive dialogues.

Reconceptualising absorptive capacity to explain the e‐enablement of the HR function (e‐HR) in organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to ask why some organizations might be better than others at continuous innovation in the field of e‐enablement of human resource (e‐HR).Design/methodology/approach – To answer this question, the notion of absorptive capacity (ACAP) is applied to explain some of the problems faced in moving from face‐to‐face HR to a technology‐mediated model.Findings – Dynamic ACAP models are adapted to produce a more realistic, iterative framework in which realized capacities for e‐HR innovations contribute to, and constrain, potential capacities for further innovations.Research limitations/implications – The model is used to offer some research propositions for academics operating in this newly emerging field of human resource management (HRM).Practical implications – Some theory‐driven advice are also offered for HR practitioners.Originality/value – The specific contribution is to introduce the concept of ACAP to HRM scholars and practitioners interested in the field of e‐HR and W...