Learning in manufacturing organizations: what factors predict effectiveness?

This paper argues that it is possible to identify factors which pre-dispose organizations to adopt effective learning strategies and processes. It is hypothesized that effective OL is associated with: profitability, environmental uncertainty, structure, approach to HRM and quality orientation. The study focuses on forty-four manufacturing organizations, and draws on longitudinal data gathered through interviews. The findings suggest that two of these variables - approach to HRM and quality orientation - are particularly strongly correlated with measures of OL. It is concluded that effective learning mechanisms, with the potential to improve the quality of OL processes, are more likely to be established in businesses where HRM and quality initiatives are well established.     

The Discourse of Legitimacy in Early Modern England

Christopher Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England c. 1200–1520 (1989), xvi + 297 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £25.00, paperback £8.95).

Wendy Davies, Small Worlds: The Village Community in Early Medieval Brittany (1988), x + 227 (University of California Press, Berkeley, $30.00).

Steven Rosswurm, Arms, Country, and Class: The Philadelphia Militia and the ‘Lower Sort’ during the American Revolution (1988), xv + 373 (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, $40.00).

Steven Watts, The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1700–1820 (1987), xxiii + 378 (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, £20.95).

Malcolm Chase, The People's Farm: English Radical Agrarianism 1775–1840 (1988), vi + 221 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £25.00).

Iain McCalman, Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornogra‐phers in London, 1795–1840 (1988), xvi + 338 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £27.50).

Alan Armstrong, Farmworkers: A Social and Economic History, 1770–1980 (1988), 302 (Batsford, London, £29.95).

Bruce Curtis, Building the Educational State: Canada West, 1836–1871 (1988), 450 (Falmer Press, Brighton, no price).

Chad Gaffield, Language, Schooling and Cultural Conñict. The Origins of the French‐Language Controversy in Ontario (1987), 249 (McGill‐Queen's University Press, no price).

Martin J. Sklar, The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890–1916. The Market, the Law, and Politics (1988), xiv + 484 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £35.00, paperback £12.50).

Dieter Dowe (ed.), Jugendprotest und Generationenkonflikt in Europa im 20. Jahrhundert: Deutschland, England, Frankreich und Italien im Vergleich? (1986), xiv + 473 (Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, Bonn, no price).

? [Youth Protest and Generational Conflict in Twentieth‐Century Europe: Germany, England, France and Italy in Comparison.]

Anthony Carew, Labour under the Marshall Plan: The Politics of Productivity and the Marketing of Managerial Science (1987), x + 293 (Manchester University Press, Manchester, £27.50).

Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 (1987), xiv + 482 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £27.50, $34.50).

Peter Weiler, British Labour and the Cold War (1988), xiv+ 431 (Stanford University Press, Stanford, $42.50).

Charles Webster, The Health Services Since the War. Vol. 1: Problems of Health Care. The National Health Service Before 1957 (1988), x + 479 (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, £27.50).     

Understanding the relative influence of attitudes and societal norms on dietary intentions among African-Caribbean women

This study applies the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to understand the relative influence of personal attitude (AT) toward three chronic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension), and social normative (SN) groups (family, friends, and church), toward intention to engage in dietary behaviors associated with obesity and chronic disease risk. The sample consists of N = 183 women, aged 18–55 years, in Barbados, West Indies, selected through a stratified cluster sample technique. The instrument includes demographic and anthropometric variables and components of the TRA. Analyses using structural equation modeling (SEM) indicate that the TRA explains 22%, 35% and 19% of the variances in intention to consume high-fat foods, alcohol, and fruits, nuts and vegetables, respectively. SN is a predictor of all three dietary intentions, while AT predicts only intention to eat fruit, nuts, and vegetables. In the models, social pressure from family is relatively more important than friends and church in influencing dietary intentions. It can be concluded that social normative influences have a stronger effect on intentions to consume fatty foods, alcohol, and fruit, nuts and vegetables than do personal attitudes.     

The curious case of case study: a viewpoint

Abstract

This paper focuses on microethical issues concerning interactions in which the process of informed consent occurs. It draws on research analysing the biographies and future hopes of 15- to 17-year-old girls and boys participating in targeted youth/educational programmes in the Helsinki area. The ethical challenge explored here is how to negotiate with the young interviewees on expanding the research setting towards a longitudinal and cross-generational approach, which also means expanding the data produced on their already well-reported lives. The paper highlights the power relations between adult researcher and young research participant, the contextual nature of gaining informed consent, and the conflict involved in trying to avoid hounding an over-surveilled group while still tracking their whereabouts and revisiting them for a follow-up interview.     

'Reconnecting' the Unemployed

This paper discusses the potential uses of the Internet and other forms of information and communication technology (ICT) as a tool for delivering information services for unemployed people, comparing the experiences and attitudes of jobseekers in peri-urban and remote rural labour markets. The analysis is based upon research carried out in two areas: the first combining a remote rural town with a much larger, more sparsely populated, rural 'travel-to-work area'; the second, a centrally located peri-urban labour market. Survey research undertaken in the study areas gathered responses from 490 unemployed jobseekers. Emerging issues were then followed up during twelve focus groups. The study found that the use of ICT for job seeking remained a marginal activity for most unemployed people, but was much more important in remote rural communities. In these areas, jobseekers were more likely to use the Internet as a search tool and were particularly dependent on telephone helplines provided by the public employment service (PES). However, the study also found that a 'digital divide' was evident within the unemployed client group. Those with low educational attainment, the long-term unemployed, young people and those perceiving their ICT skills to be 'poor' were less likely to use the Internet. Although respondents in rural areas were more likely to use ICT to look for work, they also pointed to the overriding importance of informal, social networks as a means of sharing job information in remote communities. We conclude that ICT may have a future role in the delivery of services for jobseekers, especially in rural areas. However, policies are required to ensure that information provided through ICT-based services is locally relevant, and disadvantaged groups have access to the facilities and training they require.     

Part Aboriginal Juvenile Offenders: Some Considerations of Care and Treatment

Among child care workers there has in recent times been an increased interest in the care and treatment of part aboriginal juvenile offenders in corrective care. This paper briefly discusses some current treatment approaches and makes a number of recommendations on alternatives. In particular it is suggested that there is a need for special training colleges or centres to meet the needs of these young people.