Dr Simon M Smith

Purpose
This paper offers a deeper understanding of Gen Z professional attitudes and expectations in the workplace through a large data set.

Design
We provide reference to a unique survey of 1,234 adults who work full- or part-time across different age groups. Gen Z data were compared to three other generational cohorts, namely Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers.

Findings
Broad findings reveal that Gen Z have lower satisfaction levels with their job compared to other generations. Furthermore, the findings show that Gen Z craves progress, challenge and better mental health and diversity commitments from employers. Related to that, mental health is reported as significantly lower amongst Gen Z participants.

Originality
The research reinforces that there is often a negative view of ‘other’ generations. Indeed, the findings here indicate there are often negative assumptions made about Gen Z. Importantly, these are not aligned to how Gen Z perceive themselves. We offer some reflections and recommendations for strategic HR approaches. 

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, launched during the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in December 2022, encourages governments, companies, and investors to publish data on their nature-related risks, dependencies, and impacts. These disclosures are intended to drive businesses to recognise, manage and mitigate their reliance on ecosystem goods and services. However, there is a “biodiversity blind spot” that is evident for most organisations and business schools. Business education rarely addresses the root causes of biodiversity loss, such as the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. As the dominant positioning of Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG) presents biodiversity in anthropocentric instrumental terms inadequate for addressing ecosystem decline, we posit that a more progressive and transformative ecocentric education through ecopedagogy and ecoliteracy is needed. Both approaches include the development of critical thinking about degrowth, circular economy, and conventional stakeholder theory to include non-human stakeholders. Using comparative case studies from Northumbria University, the University of Hong Kong, and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, we illustrate how business education can be transformed to address biodiversity loss, providing theoretical guidance and practical recommendations to academic practitioners and future business leaders.

Purpose: The recruitment and promotion of teaching academics in the UK is constrained by a complex array of career progression barriers. These barriers have led to an increasing trend of horizontal career (lack of) progression. The purpose of our paper is to reveal and discuss linearity and horizontality constrictions, challenges and issues impacting on potential careers in tourism academia.

Design/methodology/approach: We use a leading UK national academic recruitment website to gather data and insights from across 137 posted jobs related to tourism between 2020 and 2022.

Findings: The main findings of this work note the constrictions of the UK academic job market and the consequences it poses for academics within tourism and beyond. It is proposed that future research to further understand the realities faced by academics is needed to prompt action for change to create more enriching career development.

Originality: Our contribution centres around sense making a phenomenon that exists but is not often talked about within academia (whether in tourism or beyond). For academics and managers, the paper presents an opportunity to reflect more holistically on careers with a view to instigating valuable change moving forward (for oneself or others). There is also a dearth of studies relating to career progression of tourism HE educators.

Purpose
Organisational responses to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals depend on the competency and mindset of business leaders to lead responsibly. This study is informed and underpinned by the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME). We examine how embedding the ‘sustainability mindset principles’ within a university programme can contribute to responsible management education and, by extension, leadership development.    

Design/methodology/approach
An illustrative case study using 84 students was applied, including undergraduate, postgraduate, and executive MBA students. An exploratory, qualitative design was followed, primarily adopting focus groups.

Findings
Evidenced learning gains in connecting sustainability knowledge with personal beliefs and behaviours, provide a compelling basis for educational and business practitioners to focus on the sustainability mindset principles. Mapping of mindset against leading global competency frameworks provides important theoretical insight. Learning is illustrated through multiple dimensions (i.e. cognitive, behavioural, and affective) to inform leadership development approaches. 

Originality
This study is original in the pedagogic examination of the learning dimensions of the sustainability mindset principles in a Business and Management programme. It also offers new insights in terms of the implications for leadership development.  

Research limitations/implications
The mapping of sustainability competency frameworks against the sustainability mindset principles, alongside qualitative research insights, provides a compelling basis for further research into the learning gains from embedding the mindset principles. The situated nature of the study and the lack of longitudinal measurement of what students take forward into their lives and workplaces is a limiting factor to be considered.

Practical implications
​​​​​​​This study evidences the value of ‘whole-person’ learning for responsible management, which can helpfully inform the design of both educational and workplace leadership development programmes.   

This article discusses whether, as academics, we are behaving irresponsibly in the manner in which we deliver the much-vaunted Principles for Responsible Management Education. The Principles for Responsible Management Education constitutes an association and ethos which seeks to promote and infuse responsible management education into business schools and organisations. RME seeks to, inter alia, surface and challenge hegemonic neo-liberal and capitalistic meta-narratives with a view to replacing these with more value-driven, ethical, sustainable and corporately socially responsible education in business schools and business. In our article, we propose a more complementary approach – one in which Principles for Responsible Management Education/RME might work in parallel with dominant capitalistic perspectives. We do this by considering the impact of the hidden curriculum, sustainability competencies and related symbolization (through rankings and accreditations) all within the paradox-explanatory framework of organisational ambidexterity. The argument proposes that a paradoxical approach is needed that is aligned with both the capitalist norms of business society and yet, achieves the more socially orientated United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Business schools and Principles for Responsible Management Education can play an essential role in ensuring this happens. In essence, we hope to provoke thought, change and action towards the achievement of more socially and societally focused United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on which Principles for Responsible Management Education is predicated.

Purpose: Psychological resilience, defined here as the capacity to bounce back from adversity and failure, has been studied in various leadership contexts. However, the literature demonstrates less consensus concerning how psychological resilience manifests in, and interacts within, the leadership role and, equally, the focus on resilience development is underdeveloped. This paper addresses these issues by focusing on the interactions between psychological resilience and leadership and presents practical development strategies.

Design/methodology/approach: A systematic review employing 47 empirical studies followed a thematic synthesis within an associated model encapsulated as: Building-up Resilience and Being Effective.

Findings: First, resilience is identified as and aspect that is essential and can benefit individuals and organizations’ work outcomes across leadership contexts, including work performance, job engagement, well-being, and enhanced leadership capability. Secondly, leaders may build up their resilience by obtaining coping skills and improved attitudes toward challenges. The idea of resilient attitudes, which are presented as paradoxical perspectives toward challenges, may help leaders adapt to challenges and adversities, and lead to beneficial outcomes.

Originality: Fundamentally, the synthesized model applied may encourage further studies to focus on how to build up resilience and practically apply it in workplaces across leadership contexts. In particular, this study found that adopting paradoxical perspectives and ambidextrous leadership approaches toward adversities is an original resilience development strategy, which serves to contribute to the gap in the literature.

Language bias is a common yet undiscussed practice that can significantly constrain the rigour and generalisation of place-based studies and literature reviews. This paper discusses how research published in English compared with other languages is considered or not when conducting literature reviews. This research focuses specifically on tourism research and explores specific journal article examples in the contemporary subject area of overtourism within destination-based studies. To do this, we take a critical-linguistic, post-positivist approach to three case studies drawn from the literature on the phenomenon of overtourism. The study highlights how research in languages other than English is often discounted or omitted in academic fields that are dominated by English language publications.

Nevertheless, our findings strongly support the proposition that place-specific research, to be rigorous and generalisable, should be supported by research carried out in relevant languages for its location. This research provides evidence that place-based research, based on literature from multiple languages and interdisciplinarity, can be reliable, valid and trustworthy. The study also notes the recommendations for conducting literature reviews within place-specific research and avenues for future research.

Technological change is a feature of contemporary life encompassing interactivity, collaboration and, above all, real-time content sharing and livestreaming. The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new dynamics in relation to digitisation and technology usage. Within organizations, these changes have been swift and profound, leading to online meetings, events and virtual team management. An explosion of literature has accompanied these changes and their human impacts. However, the generational and intergenerational issues remain under-examined and therefore constitute an important gap. The paper examines the literature on workplace technology, digitalisation and human impacts in relation to the COVID-19, and particularly, through the lens of different generational adoptive patterns. Taking an inductive qualitative approach, the paper’s empirical focus is analyses of semi-structured questionnaire data from intergenerational senior executives. The findings showcase alternative understandings of technology in the late-COVID-19 era and of Xer generational (i.e. born 1961-1981) resilience and operational change dynamics. This allows a number of contributions and implications to be developed.

Purpose: This study examines the influence of neoliberalism and managerialism on the recruitment of tourism academics in the UK. We analyse how sustainable recruitment and retention of talents are in the tourism industry. Importantly, we provide particular focus on sustainable tourism roles, as well as the impacts of COVID-19.

​​​​​​​Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative content analysis focuses on academic jobs in tourism advertised on Jobs.ac.uk between June 2020 and July 2021.

Findings: Study findings reveal how, in the case of the UK, current educational ideologies, including neoliberalism and managerialism, significantly influence curriculum and recruitment. Such an approach facilitates the hidden curriculum of undisciplined tourism programmes and significantly constrains the prominence of sustainability principles. The development of curriculum, student life course and recruitment of academics are influenced by several variables (personal, environmental, behavioural), which must be identified to enable decision-makers to engage in efficient planning.

Originality: We provide a unique focus on the recruitment of tourism academics encompassing crucial factors like sustainable tourism and COVID-19. The proposed framework creates the foundation for the investigation and discussion of academics' recruitment in different contexts. We also offer several new avenues for future research.

Purpose: This paper explores the real life examples made by a single SME to address organisational inequalities and develop a more inclusive culture. Design / Approach: This paper considers the approach taken by Punter Southall Aspire to manage their gender balance through a case study of documents, policies, and interviews. Findings: There is still plenty of work to do, but the multiple actions taken by the leadership have been positive, well-received, and importantly progressive. By taking a focused approach to manage gender equality within an SME, the outcome has been far reaching. Originality / Value: By showcasing the leadership and positive action within a single SME we hope other organisations are able to take inspiration to make their own changes.

Purpose

This paper reports on the experience of attempting a ‘collaboratory’ approach in sharing knowledge about leadership development evaluation (LDE). A collaboratory intertwines ‘collaboration’ and ‘laboratory’ to create innovation networks for all sorts of social and technological problems.

Approach

The authors, alongside a variety of public and private sector organisations, created the collaboratory. Within the process, we collected various forms of qualitative data (including interviews, observations, letter writing and postcards).

Findings

Our findings show key areas of resonance, namely the ability for participants to network, a creation of a dynamic shift in thinking and practice and the effective blending of theory and practice. Importantly, there are some critiques of the collaboratory approach discussed, including complications around: a lack of ‘laboratory’ (hence bringing into question the idea of collaboratory itself), and the need to further develop the facilitation of such events.

Originality

Our originality is to ultimately question whether the network actually achieved the collaboratory in reality. We conclude, however, that there were some distinct benefits within our collaborations, especially around issues associated with LDE, and we provide recommendations for academics and practitioners in terms of trying similar initiatives.

Purpose. This paper explores the establishment of a National Pension Tracing Day in an attempt to address the national problem of employees not telling their pension provider when they change address, which has resulted in £19.4 billion in unclaimed pensions.

Design / Approach. This paper considers the approach taken by Punter Southall Aspire to build employee engagement to trace lost workplace pension through a summative content analysis. We then apply an ambidextrous leadership lens to develop greater meaning.

Findings. The combination of a simple narrative, a CSR approach allowing cooperation across the industry, and an engaging campaign allowed the first National Pension Tracing Day to build momentum and spread across the workplace.

Originality / Value. The first National Pension Tracing day was established 31st October 2021 by a small team within an SME. This paper attempts to raise awareness of how the lost pension challenge can be addressed for the purpose of future research.

Aim/Purpose: Grounded Theory (GT) has grown and developed into several strands making its application all the more problematic, argumentative and remaining potentially as a research methodology to avoid when it comes to doctoral research, early-career research. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to revisit GT as a general approach and present an evolved and more considered step-by-step guide to conduct research using this methodology. A leadership development context is applied in this paper to examine how this methodology could work for a new generation of researchers, i.e., new to doctoral research or an early career researcher.

Background: Since its academic inception in the seminal text in 1967 (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), GT has emerged and developed to become a popular choice for researchers contemplating qualitative data approaches amongst a variety of subject backgrounds. However, the divergent development and criticized approaches within GT families can lead researchers to avoid such a research methodology. This can especially be the case within doctoral research or other early-career research. Indeed, a specific/explicit GT guideline or framework to assist doctoral students in conducting GT research does not currently exist.

Methodology: There is a general review of GT approaches followed by theoretical development of a framework and an applied doctoral example.

Contribution: The three evolved methods in GT research and the developed supporting author-designed three-phase research framework will contribute to two aspects. Firstly, the step-by-step guideline can reduce the sense of confusion within an area where criticisms and conflicting approaches exist. This will hopefully assist the next generation of GT researchers in conducting their research through detailed processes and applications. Secondly, there is arguably a need for more GT applications and evolvements to further enrich the body of knowledge that exists in this area and further support a diversity of subject research.

Findings: The authors outline numerous differences and similarities within divergent GT practices. By integrating Glaser’s four core principles and three evolved methods, the authors design a three-phase research framework that presents a transparent step-by-step guide. This framework attempts to mitigate criticisms within GT approaches whilst maintaining clarity, flexibility, depth, and rigour within a study.

Recommendations for Practitioners: Three GT evolvements (the two-step literature review method, two-step open-coding method, and two-step theory-constitute method) provides greater clarity within a rigorous author-designed three-phase research framework that demonstrates a transparent step-by-step guide. These techniques can encourage a new generation of GT researcher through confident and structured analytical techniques.

Recommendation for Researchers: We hope the presented framework and concise view of GT in action will inspire other doctoral students and new GT researchers to conduct GT research following an evolved GT framework.

Impact on Society: The debates and innovations around GT, like in this paper, are needed within a methodological society to keep the area contemporary and constantly evolving.

Future Research: The framework presented will need further testing beyond the parameters set out here. We hope future research can adopt the evolved GT techniques and procedures to enforce research quality overall and inspire further GT methodological developments.

Despite the growing body of literature on tourism higher education, there is a notable absence regarding the Principles for Responsible Management Education and the tourism higher education and sustainability nexus. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the implementation of PRME in tourism courses and its outcomes in European Union countries. This conceptual paper finds that PRME is not effectively embedded in tourism curricula. As a result, we present a conceptual model centred around an ambidextrous management approach to enable a deeper contribution to sustainability and the tourism industry when engaging with PRME.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop understanding of cross-cultural issues relating to the experience and implications of an elite grouping of Japanese CEOs customer value orientations (CVOs) within Japanese firms operating in India. The paper underlines that there is a propensity for East-West comparisons and in contrast the argument contributes to the under-examined area of research on East Asian/South Asian comparative studies.

Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were employed to generate narratives that provided rich and novel insights into the lived experience of Japanese CEOs working in Indian contexts and in relation to CVO. An inductive framework was employed in order to develop a more in-depth understanding of Japanese CEO CVO in Indo-Japanese empirical settings.

Findings
The data analysis identified a number of shared themes that influence CVO practice in the Indo-Japanese context. The findings develop an awareness of cross-cultural management's (CCM) in relation to the under-explored area of the Indo-Japanese dyad.

Research limitations/implications
The paper develops CCM perspectives towards a more in-depth conceptualization of Japanese CEO perceptions on CVO practice in India. This is also of potential relevance to wider foreign investors not only Japanese businesses. The sample respondents – Japanese CEOS working in India – constitute a small and elite group. The lead author, having experience as a CEO of a Japanese firm was able to use convenience sampling to access this difficult to access group. In addition, also stemming from the convenience aspect, all the respondents were in the manufacturing sector. The study was deliberately targeted and narrowly focussed for this reason and does not claim automatic wide generalizability to other employee strata or industry; however, other sectors and employees may recognize resonance. This identified gap provides space for future studies in varying regional, national and sector contexts.

Practical implications
The paper identifies implications for CCM training and Indo-Japanese business organization design.

Social implications
Use and acceptance of the enhanced research paradigm could support diversity in research and knowledge production with implications for research, teaching and future policymakers.

Originality/value
The cross-cultural study is original in that it contributes to CCM literature by providing a rare Indo-Japanese (sic East Asian: South Asian) comparative study. It provides an uncommon granular appreciation of the interaction of these cultures in relation to CVO. In addition, it secures rare data from an elite Japanese CEOs of manufacturing sector businesses.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the Diversity Project’s Build Back Better report, which considers leadership practice while maintaining the fight for equality through and beyond COVID-19, through the lens of ambidextrous leadership.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors succinctly present findings from the Build Back Better report that explores an industry response of investment and savings practitioners to managing diversity and inclusion through and beyond COVID-19. Ambidextrous leadership is applied to the discussion to offer greater theoretical discussion and practical consideration for HR leaders and their strategic approaches to the subject at hand.

Findings
The Build Back Better report offers numerous recommendations for leadership practice within these unprecedented times. An ambidextrous leadership approach can assist in supporting many of the recommendations, as they are complex and potentially paradoxical.

Originality/value
he Build Back Better report offers a practitioner’s immediate response to supporting business leaders shape their strategies as national lockdown periods ease while also ensuring the fight for equality is not lost within the COVID-19 crisis.

This paper examines bi-cultural talent in relation to human resource management (HRM) practices in cross-cultural merger and acquisitions (M&A). The intersection of HRM, bi-cultural talent management and cross-cultural M&A literature proposes a conceptual framework to capture the complexity of bi-cultural talent management and reveals the dominant macro-characterization of the extant HRM literature focussing on a more micro-orientated perspective. The paper develops a matrix by underlining spatial dimensions (spanning micro-aspects of the individual employee through to the macro-entity of firm and its location in the macro-national cultural context) and temporal dimensions (consisting of pre-merger, during merger and post-merger phases). This provides a template which examines the multi-level dynamics of bi-cultural talent management. The argument identifies ways in which extant cross-cultural lenses require deeper understanding of bi-cultural talent management in M&A settings. Future research directions and agendas are identified.

In the twenty-first century, resilience has emerged as a seminal and important topic linked to calls for adaptability, well-being and organizational performance. Extant strategic human resource management (HRM) literature and practices have developed many insights into resilience. However, overall, they have a propensity to conceptualise resilience as being associated with ‘macro-’ and ‘extreme’ situations. This paper complements the prevailing perspective by developing a micro-focus on resilience through the conceptual framework of organizational ambidexterity surfacing under-examined individual resilience in connection with HRM practices. Methodologically, the paper adopts a qualitative approach presenting data from two illustrative contexts: an ‘everyday’ quasi-governmental institution and a prima facie ‘extreme’ pan-international military organization. Using template analysis, a number of valuable themes and similarities are identified. The findings and discussion underline the managerial challenges in handling organizational ambidextrous dynamics and tensions surrounding resilience, positive and sceptical approaches in relation to individual and organizational stances towards HRM practices. As such, the results point at value in HRM managers and practices recontextualising and appreciating ‘extremes’ and resilience more as an everyday (rather than exceptional) phenomenon wherein myriad micro-moments are highly significant in constructing and influencing macro-contexts. This also implies a need to see cynical resistance as normative rather than automatically negatively.

Tourism can help regenerate post-colonial, post-conflict and post-disaster destinations (PCCDs), and national governments and destination marketing organisations (DMOs) play a central role in this. They face the dilemma of either consolidating tourism situations with seemingly safe, known, predictable steps, or taking more ambitious risk-prone, less tried-and-tested and more uncertain approaches. This choice can be portrayed as the respective exploitative and explorative dimensions of strategic conceptual framework of organisational ambidexterity (OA). This regional spotlight provides a conceptual analysis using the lens of OA to examine these dynamics. It focuses on the specific case of Haiti, set within the context of the Caribbean region. A range of OA effects in relation to tourist enclaves is identified. In particular, the spotlight argues for less segregation and separation between tourist and local populations, along with a need for DMOs to espouse more exploitative-explorative postures. In terms of wider implications, it can be argued that other Caribbean economies might learn lessons from the discussion of the Haitian case.

: This conceptual paper evolved from an extensive literature review and a consultancy project conducted via a UK University Business School/commercial sector collaboration. The paper explores how the digital age is presenting challenges for destination and place marketing agencies. Key trends in consumer behaviour are identified and their significance is examined.The context is largely the European tourism sector with a particular focus on the UK. The paper argues that many place and destination marketing agencies are not responding to the challenges of the digital era. With this as the backdrop, a novel conceptualisation of the customer journey model is offered which can be tested empirically. A vignette supports the model and this illustrates the complexities in consumer behaviour that are involved in a decision over where to take a city break. The paper concludes with strategic recommendations for destination and place marketing agencies.

This paper undertakes a conceptual examination of the emergence of digital marketing in recent decades. It identifies a number of key trends in consumer behaviour and manners in which the medium is evolving. The argument progresses to examine and challenge predominant conceptualisations of the buyer behaviour process and considers how these have been recast in the advent of digital technologies. This provides the backdrop to develop a novel diagrammatic representation of digital marketing buyer behaviour processes which can be tested empirically. The model is illustrated through the use of a vignette which points up the complexities which the model aims to represent. The paper concludes with an appeal for the continued development, modelling and empirical testing of the evolving world of digital buyer behaviour.

This paper seeks to establish whether subjects from different cultures, in this case from Europe (Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK)) and Asia (China and Japan), react differently when exposed to the same shock advertising. This is of relevance to advertisers/marketers who wish to target particular groups in a population as societies continue to evolve, change and become less homogenous. This paper examines the effects that gender and cultural identities have on different ethnic groups. The current study was carried out in the UK using 115 undergraduate university students from 6 countries. The participants were exposed to 7 adverts on safe driving from 4 countries. The aim of the study was to see if the participants would react
differently to the degree of shock depending on the culture portrayed within the advert. Our findings highlight that there is a correlation between gender and the environment depicted within 3 of the adverts. Furthermore, significant differences between European and Asian participants were also found within 2 of those 3 adverts. The findings accentuate the importance of cultural content within shock advertising. Thus, advertisers/ marketers need to take great care when constructing and delivering messages to multi-cultural customer bases.

Purpose
The paper aims to introduce the concept of organizational ambidexterity and offers some implications for practitioners of human resources (HR).

Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a developed viewpoint constructed using other literature on organizational ambidexterity.

Findings
This paper offers a unique perspective to HR practitioners which embraces a paradoxical stance that combines exploitative and explorative dimensions.

Originality/value
Organizational ambidexterity is growing and developing within the literature. This paper seeks to offer access to this complex perspective to provoke thought and potential action.

The expansion of advanced-market economy (AME) firms into emerging-market economies (EME) is well documented. In recent decades, EME companies have moved increasingly into AMEs, especially within the manufacturing sector, as well as other important AME sectors such as higher education (HE). However, the latter have received less attention. This study conducts an in-depth qualitative analysis of two EME HE organizations operating in the international HE sector in London. The argument applies a theoretical framework of organizational ambidexterity with which to examine the contexts and complexities in collaborations between EME-HE and AME-HE firms. These argument surfaces, inter alia: differing dynamics in relation to institutional frameworks and sense making; myopic internationalization; tensions regarding organizational reputation, place, partner, and product legitimization; unfulfilled reverse innovation and “explorative-pull” phenomena. Overall, the article develops novel conceptual frameworks of practical relevance, which inform EME-AME firm collaborative operations in AME settings.

The human resource (HR) practices involved in global talent management continue to advance and evolve. A majority of talent management commentary is from multinational corporation (MNC) perspectives. However, the less commented small-to-medium-sized enterprise (SME) also confronts challenges grounded in economic (i.e. resources, finance), organisational (i.e. size, scope and structure) and consequent behavioural rationales (i.e. mindsets and stances). This paper establishes and examines a number of propositions which consider how these factors impact on an advanced economy SME’s talent management in emerging economy collaborations. An interpretive qualitative methodology is employed using interviews conducted within two cases – SME and an MNC comparator case. The SME case is used as the driving force of the paper and its theoretical focus and findings. The MNC is used to develop issues as a comparator case. The findings show SME economic and organisational drivers producing behavioural dynamics in relation to mimesis of planned actions yet informal serendipitous responses in reality; a predilection for the proximate and familiar; design configurations of short-term expatriate visits and inpatriates; cumulating in ongoing inpatriate acculturisation and re-acculturation oscillation. Consequently, the implication is that the SME needs a HR practices encompassing resignation to the situation, flexibility and resilience in order to survive and progress.

The rapid and dynamic rate of urbanization, particularly in emerging world economies, has resulted in a need to find sustainable ways of dealing with the excessive strains and pressures that come to bear on existing infrastructures and relationships. Increasingly during the twenty-first century policy makers have turned to technological solutions to deal with this challenge and the dynamics inherent within it. This move towards the utilization of technology to underpin infrastructure has led to the emergence of the term ‘Smart City’. Smart cities incorporate technology based solutions in their planning development and operation. This paper explores the organizational issues and challenges facing a post-industrial agglomeration in the North West of England as it attempted to become a ‘Smart City’. In particular the paper identifies and discusses the factors that posed significant challenges for the dynamic relationships residents, policymakers and public and private sector organizations and as a result aims to use these micro-level issues to inform the macro-debate and context of wider Smart City discussions. In order to achieve this, the paper develops a range of recommendations that are designed to inform Smart City design, planning and implementation strategies.

Purpose
This paper aims to examine and assess the reputational impact of the logo and symbols of the UK Standard Investors in People (IiP). The extant literature highlights differing opinions in terms of the likely benefits that IiP generates following achievement of the Standard. This paper focuses specifically on the perceptions of reputational claims made regarding existing employees, potential employees and customers.

Design/methodology/approach
The debate is explored through 38 interviews using the perceptions of managers and frontline employees within six IiP-accredited firms and one non-accredited firm.

Findings
The study indicates that the logo and symbols of the Standard have minimal meaning and significance for the interviewees and their outlook on potential employees and customers. There were some indications, however, that the wider reputational implications of carrying the logo may have some potentially beneficial effects.

Originality/value
The paper concludes that the overarching findings present a potentially serious issue for IiP, and that there is a need to understand further the impact and value of the logo and symbols.

Organizational ambidexterity has emerged as a valuable contemporary lens on organizational design and action, examining the dynamic relationships between exploitative (extant) and explorative (evolving) resources within organizational contexts and environments. This article analyzes the literature pertaining to ambidexterity and underlines a number of recurrent preoccupations including definition of the nature, characteristics, and normative boundaries of organizational ambidexterity; a predilection toward considering interfirm/unit comparisons of large-scale corporate organizations; and a concentration on the significance of the managerialistic role of the senior management team's disposition and action-orientations. While a few calls have been made for a focus on the micro-aspects, predominant attention has remained on the macro-aspects of organizational ambidexterity.

The aim of the article, therefore, is to conduct a complementary study that considers the boundaries and transitions between exploitative and explorative modes at the intraorganizational, individual micro-behavioral level. To facilitate this, the article surfaces and underscores the paradigmatic modernistic characterization of large areas of the current organizational ambidexterity literature and the implications of this. Moreover, it explores alternative potentially useful critical paradigms that assist in providing tools with which to examine the “micro.” The research conducts an ethnographic-style study of a quasi-public training and development organization to illustrate the above background contexts and the micro-interface and boundary of explorative and exploitative modes of organizational ambidexterity in the intraorganizational situation. Within this, the study points up the significance of the role of sense-making in operational micro-moment individual and small-group situations, and their vital influence in ultimately underpinning, and contributing to, macro-organizational ambidextrous contexts.

Purpose
Investors in People (IiP) is a UK government-backed scheme aimed at enabling organizations to develop their training and development cultures and, thereby, their competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions and understandings of individuals in six organizations undergoing IiP to explore recent claims within the literature concerning the Standard's impact on training and development, and job satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach
Data from 35 semi-structured interviews among managers and employees of six diverse organizations were gathered and analysed.

Findings
The paper identifies three key findings in response to recent literature: first, the findings do not support a causal relationship between IiP and training and development; second, the findings do not support a causal relationship between IiP and job satisfaction; third, and to support the other findings, the results indicate little employee awareness of IiP.

Practical implications
If IiP – UKCES are to realize the potential of their Standard, it needs to find a way to ensure it has a direct and positive impact on skill development.

Originality/value
While much of the previous research has identified associations between IiP and various outcomes, this paper seeks to identify the extent to which these associations can be considered to be causal.

Purpose
This paper aims to explain that job‐hopping has become more common in recent years, partly because of globalization, greater short‐termism, shortened product life‐cycles and growing and vanishing markets.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides the results of a survey of four chief executives from the metalworking industry, and one from a four‐star hotel within a management center, to back up claims that training is helping to discourage employees from job‐hopping in rural south Germany.

Findings
The paper claims that job‐hopping may be more of a problem in urban than in rural areas, among lower‐paid employees and among people working in fast‐growing economies.

Practical implications
The paper highlights some of the advantages firms can gain if their employees stay for longer than the average 3.3 years.

Social implications
The paper reveals that numerous German organizations strive to train a certain number of young people – often more than required for the company – and develop key skills within the employment market. This includes an agreement with unions to employ these trainees for a minimum of 12 months after the training period is completed.

Originality/value
The paper reveals that the cost of replacing an employee is, on average, between 100 percent and 125 percent of his or her annual salary, so retention is financially important.

This short report presents the findings of a pilot study conducted to tackle student attrition within year 1 undergraduate business school programmes. The approach tracks across a year of study 13 Accounting and Finance students (the business programmes with distinctly the worst attrition statistics) from a cohort of 92 who failed their very first assessment in higher education. A variety of interventions were used within an action research approach, including interviews, coaching and general academic skills support classes. 12 of these 13 ‘at risk’ students successfully passed their year of study and continued their studies within the institution. Ultimately, the study presents an alternative and strategic micro-level approach that could prove useful in the continuous efforts towards improving student retention.

Purpose
To explore the alleged causal link between Investors in People (IIP) recognition and improved business performance and profitability.

Design/methodology/approach
Four in‐depth case studies using semi‐structured interviews are used to gather the appropriate data.

Findings
The data collected challenges the direct relationship frequently proposed between IIP recognition and increases in business performance and profitability. Although it could be argued that changes are usually necessary in companies in order to align the organization with IIP standards and requirements, the cases explored instigated such changes independently of the pursuit of IIP. Only after these changes had taken place did the organizations consider a pursuit for IIP recognition. Thus, the findings point to a complex amalgam of factors at play in the micro and macro environments of the organizations studied rather than just an IIP‐profit/performance cause and effect nexus. In consequence, the reasons for these IIP recognized organizations performing better than non‐IIP organizations were due to their efforts prior to recognition and not because of it.

Research limitations/implications
Further research is needed to explore and generalize the rhetoric and realities behind the alleged causal link between IIP recognition and increased business performance and profitability.

Practical implications
HR practitioners and managers need to exhibit caution before considering IIP recognition. The potential benefits suggested by advocates of the standard are not guaranteed, regardless of any alleged casual link.

Originality/value
This gives HR practitioners and managers a valuable and timely alternative discourse and perspective when considering employee development towards IIP recognition and the possibility of improved business performance and profitability.

Purpose
This paper aims to explore the alleged causal link between Investors in People (IIP) recognition and improved business performance and profitability.

Design/methodology/approach
Draws on information from three case studies using semi‐structured interviews.

Findings
Challenges the direct relationship frequently proposed between IIP recognition and increases in business performance and profitability. Although it could be argued that changes are usually necessary in companies in order to align the organization with IIP standards and requirements, the cases explored instigated such changes independently of the pursuit of IIP. Only after these changes had taken place did the organizations consider a pursuit for IIP recognition.

Practical implications
Demonstrates that HR specialists need to be cautious before considering IIP recognition. The potential benefits suggested by advocates of the standard are not guaranteed, regardless of any casual link.

Originality/value
Gives HR specialists a valuable alternative perspective when considering employee development towards IIP recognition and the possibility of improved business performance and profitability.