Previous classroom observations, and examination of students’ written drafts, had suggested that when summarising or paraphrasing source texts, some of our students were using software tools (for example the copy-paste function and synonym lookup) in possibly unhelpful ways. To test these impressions we used screen capture software to record 20 university students paraphrasing a short text using the word-processing package on a networked PC, and analysed how they utilised software to fulfil the task. Participants displayed variable proficiency in using word-processing tools, and very few accessed external sites. The most frequently enlisted tool was the synonym finder. Some of the better writers (assessed in terms of their paraphrase quality) availed themselves little of software aids. We discuss how teachers of academic writing could help students make more efficient and judicious use of commonly available tools, and suggest further uses of screen capture in teaching and researching academic writing.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between governance characteristics of a sample of 200 UK non-profit organisations (NPOs) and their performance, considered as their ability to collect financial resources. Using a regression analysis, we verify strong positive relationships between the NPOs’ financial performance and CEO duality and board size. Further analyses show that if the charities increase their level of accountability through the use of additional voluntary disclosure mechanisms and tools such as the use of social networks, these relationships are confirmed. The results of our research have implications for policy makers that seek to strengthen governance of NPOs, and for boards and managers of NPOs who wish to develop their organisations’ performance.

This qualitative study explores how contemporary US managers and non-managerial employees in the metropolitan region of Atlanta, Georgia behaviorally differentiate effective managers from ineffective ones. We collected from 81 research participants 381 critical incidents (CIs) of observed effective and ineffective managerial behavior. These CIs were subjected to open, axial and selective coding which resulted in the emergence of 10 effective and 13 ineffective behavioral indicators of perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness. The findings could be valuable to managers seeking to make better decisions about how best to behaviorally manage and lead US employees in the 21st century.

There is little academic research in relation to mentoring, learning and women, particularly in the male dominated organisational context of the UK Police. Currently, there is a Home Office drive to address inequality with the UK Police with a number of initiatives proposed including mentoring interventions, flexible working arrangements and positive action recruitment initiatives. The purpose of this study is to investigate what policewomen mentees and mentors perceive they are learning through formal mentoring over time and how this makes a difference for them in the workplace. This will provide insights into whether Government investment in formal mentoring is the right intervention to help create a more gender reflective, more equal workforce, in the Police. This study takes a critical realist position and an interpretivist theoretical perspective investigating a single case study organisation. Key themes, spread across the four phases of the mentoring lifecycle were explored through 68 semi-structured interviews and four focus groups. Key findings have been uncovered in relation to learning outcomes for these police women, both as mentees and mentors. It was found that mentoring added value across all four learning domains (cognitive, skills, affective-related and social networks) and that the largest number of responses over time, were in relation to the affective-related domain, particularly building self-confidence. These findings are significant as they demonstrate that formal mentoring programmes can support and empower women within the specific workplace of the UK Police. In conclusion, if women are being precluded from breaking the ‘glass labyrinth’ due to lack of knowledge, opportunity and networks to progress within this context, then mentoring could be part of this solution. If the masculine organisational culture is also creating prejudice and obstacles for women in the workplace (the ‘concrete floor’), then mentoring might be one way towards breaking down these barriers. Also, if all (or some) of these factors are contributing to women’s lower self-confidence levels and the ‘sticky floor’ syndrome, then again the findings suggest that mentoring may be part of the solution towards empowering women beyond their current role. It is hoped that these insights will impact the emphasis put on the various Home Office recommendations and the initiatives offered by different Police forces. It is also hoped that these insights will have implications for other organisations who are considering investing in mentoring interventions, for similar groups or beyond.

Purpose: This study proposes a solution to the challenges of Professional Service Firms (PSF), which are referred to as cat herding, opaque quality and lack of process standardization. These result from misalignment in the mental pictures that managers, employees and customers have of the service. The study demonstrates how the process of articulating a shared service concept reduces these challenges. Methodology: A narrative methodology is used to analyze the perspectives of old management, new management and employees during organizational change in a PSF–a website design company growing to offer full-service branding. Group narratives are constructed using longitudinal data gathered through interviews and fieldwork, in order to compare the misaligned mental pictures and show the benefits of articulating the service concept. Findings: Professional employees view growth and change as threats to their culture and practice, particularly when new management seeks to standardize processes. These threats are revealed to stem from misinterpretations caused by miscommunication of intentions and lack of participation in decision making. Articulating a shared service concept helps to align understanding and return the firm to equilibrium. Research Limitations: The narrative methodology helps unpack conflicting perspectives, but is open to claims of subjectivity and misrepresentation. To ensure fairness and trustworthiness, informants were invited to review and approve the narratives. Originality: The study contributes propositions related to the value of articulating a shared service.

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Using oral history interviews and questionnaires gathered as part of the ‘Cultural Memory and British Cinema-going of the 1960s’ project, this article recovers and analyses the reminiscences of people who were interested or involved in the British counterculture. By drawing on a broader range of experiences than typically represented in canonical accounts of the counterculture and those that have informed prior historical scholarship, it adds a wider range of experiences, understandings and behaviours when considering how people remember their discovery of the counterculture and its bearing on their social lives, understanding of film, popular culture, politics and society. The article demonstrates how film and, more generally, popular culture held significance in presenting ideas about counterculture as well as how cinemas and film clubs provided spaces for people to socialise and develop subcultural networks. It also suggests how significant class, locality, educational experiences and gender were in shaping how people did or did not enter countercultural scenes, how they understood themselves, their cinema-going experiences and the films that they watched.

The policing of insurance fraud has traditionally been dealt with beyond the criminal justice system as a private matter between the claimant and the insurer with only a few iconic cases referred to the criminal justice system each year. The growth of insurance fraud, particularly ‘crash-for-cash’ fraud, and the disinterest of the police, has led to a change in the response of the insurance industry. This paper will argue that this response can be characterised as a shift from the traditional ‘shallow’ to a ‘deeper’ form of policing which sees greater focus upon criminal and quasi-criminal outcomes. This paper explores some of the private and innovative methods the industry has developed and illustrates what greater private criminal investigation might look like at a time when police privatisation has become a higher profile issue. The paper argues the shift to ‘deeper’ policing necessitates greater regulation of the private investigation of crime and outlines a number of proposals to address this gap which require further consideration and debate.

With a view to making Britain the best place in the world to start and grow a business, on 25 May 2016 the Government launched “A Review of the Corporate Insolvency Framework: A consultation on options for reform” (the “Consultation”). Motivated by a manifesto pledge to put the UK in the top five of the World Bank’s Doing Business ratings, the Consultation puts forward four key proposals to encourage rescues of viable businesses: the introduction of a pre-insolvency restructuring moratorium; the protection of essential supplier contracts during restructuring; the ability to bind and cram-down secured creditors in a restructuring; and exploring options for rescue financing. This article will consider the central plank to the reforms, the introduction of a new restructuring moratorium. Experienced readers will remember similar proposals being made in 2010 (“Proposals for a Restructuring Moratorium” (the “2010 Proposals”)), with questions remaining whether the issues arising then have been addressed.

This paper investigates the impact of product and process innovation on firms’ export performance in transition economies (TEs) which embarked on a systemic change from a planned to a market economy in the early 1990s. The research builds on the technology gap theory and the analysis of the self-selection of firms into the export market. Unlike other studies that have focused on the export behaviour of firms in developed economies where business environment is generally stable and favourable, the paper controls for the relevance of business environment and the stage of transition on export performance of firms. The paper uses the firm-level Business Environment and Performance Survey data undertaken by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 2002, 2005 and 2008 in 29 TEs. Findings show that the impact of innovation on export performance increases with the transition reforms. Macroeconomic instability acts as a moderating factor of export performance in countries at high transition stage, as it pushes firms to export more, as a risk shifting mechanism. The main implication of the study is that the impact of some explanatory factors on export performance differs through the stages of transition.