Four research projects are to be included in a newly launched Skills Development Scotland (SDS) website. Following a successful joint conference between the Scottish Centre for Employment Research (SCER) and SDS last year, a series of briefing notes from the conference are to be published through the SDS website. The four briefing notes are drawn from the recently completed SCER research programme examining skill and training issues and developments across the Scottish labour market. The four briefing notes focus on: graduate skills and higher education (Shiona Chillas), skills and training in intermediate level jobs (Pauline Anderson), routine jobs and skill formation (Scott Hurrell) and skills demand and training provision for the unemployed (Anne Marie Cullen). All are available from the SDS website: http://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk
The Scottish Centre for Employment Research successfully hosted the first ESRC-funded seminar on Making Bad Jobs Better in April. To a large audience of academics, policy-makers and practitioners, a series of high-profile speakers debated the issue and outcomes of job quality. In a very topical presentation, Harvard economist Professor Richard Freeman gave a powerful analysis of the negative health, family and life expectancy impacts of unemployment.
The audience heard how even employed workers can face enormous stresses. In an important contribution to the seminar, Jackie Gilchrist related the trials and tribulations of her job as a Scottish classroom assistant, particularly the need to balance low wages with high responsibilities. The day ended with a panel discussion that included the STUC Assistant Secretary Stephen Boyd and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills' Mark Spilsbury. The debate focused on what academics could do to help practitioners and policy-makers better understand and improve bad jobs - a topic for the future seminars. More information about the seminar series can be found on: http://ewds.strath.ac.uk/badjobsbetter/Home.aspx
Dr Barbara Simpson, Department of Management, was in Albuquerque, USA, last month to attend the Qualitative Research in Management and Organization Conference. She delivered a paper called 'pragmatism versus Pragmatism: Doing Process Research' to an audience of scholars from USA, UK, Brazil, Columbia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium.
Dr Simpson also had an article recently published in 'Organization Studies' - Pragmatism, Mead and the Practice Turn - which is currently ranked 3rd out of the 50 most read articles in that journal. Find the article here.
Professor Phil Taylor of the Department of Human Resource Management has made two keynote presentations to the Communication Workers Union (CWU). On February 3 in London he addressed the CWU Telecoms Executive on the subject of Performance Management and on March 27 in Manchester he delivered the introductory presentation to a special conference on the theme of organising.
Professor Paul Thompson of the Department of Human Resource Management recently returned from a research trip to Australia. Based at the Queensland University of Technology, Professor Thompson was beginning work on a research grant secured from the Australian Research Council with Professor Rachel Parker. This is part of their ongoing work in creative industries and shifts the attention from film to computer games. Whilst in Australia, Professor Thompson was the main plenary speaker at the Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australian and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) conference in Sydney. His topical title was 'Financialised Capitalism: Challenges for Theory and Practice'.
Professor Tom Baum of HRM (and co-author, Leonie Lockstone-Binney of Victoria University in Melbourne) contributed to a Special Report in Holyrood (12 April 2010 issue) on the Commonwealth Games. Their contribution focused on lessons for volunteering in Glasgow 2014 to be learned from the experiences of Melbourne 2006.
Dr Jill MacBryde from the Department of Management Science was invited to give the keynote talk at the 19th National Annual Engineering conference, "Manufacturing the Edge", organised by the Chamber of Engineers, Malta on 15th April. Dr MacBryde's keynote speech dispelled some myths about a manufacturing sector in crisis. She said that the future of manufacturing lies in high value manufacturing and clever strategic company repositioning within the sector itself.
The shift from the labour-intensive manufacturing scenario to the new investments in high value-added products was echoed in talks from leading Maltese politicians and industrialists, including Jason Azzopardi, Parliamentary Secretary for Revenues and Land and Ing. Saviour Baldacchino, president of the Chamber of Engineers. Whilst attending the conference Dr MacBryde also managed to visit three Maltese manufacturers: Playmobil, Methode Electronics and SD Microelectronics.