Privatization is closely associated with the ideological turn to neoliberalism and regarded as a cornerstone of Britain’s “Thatcherite project.” Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government did not undertake its major privatizations of state-owned businesses until its second term began in 1983. We argue in this article, however, that the 1980 disposal by the National Enterprise Board of its controlling interest in the engineering and electronics company Ferranti offers significant insights into the development of privatization policy and practice, as well as the changing role of the state in British business. This disposal reflected the early caution of some of the Thatcher government’s actions but contributed to fulfillment of an electoral commitment and provided valuable privatization experience in addressing difficult financial, industrial, and political issues.

Between 1976 and 1994 the UK Government’s Welsh Development Agency made 2,304 loan and equity investments totaling £117.8 million. The agency aimed to address difficulties faced by firms in obtaining finance, and such intervention was justified by the market failure and spillover hypotheses. This article assesses the agency’s investment activities against both justifications. It finds that while some investments succeeded, the portfolio’s financial performance was poor, and the agency did not address widespread market failure. Evidence of spillover returns existed, but cannot be quantified accurately across the portfolio. The article argues that the agency’s two venture capital objectives, to assemble a profitable portfolio and to grow employment levels through boosting commercial activity, were incompatible within a poorly performing regional economy. Although spillovers can justify public venture capital in such economies, expectations as to financial performance should be realistic in the absence of an ecosystem that facilitates demand for capital.

The compassion of healthcare workers towards patients is widely recognized, but research suggests a dearth of compassion among co-workers. Indeed, workplace bullying and negative employee outcomes are over-represented in the healthcare sector (including burnout and substantial staff turnover). In this paper, we discuss the cultivation of compassion for healthcare workers, using the lens of positive organizational scholarship. Our concern is not only with the individual level compassion (i.e. between employees), we also consider how compassion can be cultivated systemically across healthcare institutions at the organizational level. More specifically, we present a proposed Noticing, Empathising, Assessing and Responding Mechanisms Model of Organizational Compassion as a tool for consciously cultivating workplace compassion in healthcare organizations.

The purpose of this study was to examine contextual factors (empowerment, ownership, and accountability) that facilitate and promote exploration and exploitation behavior. Data were obtained from an American manufacturing company using employee and supervisor surveys (n = 297). Findings indicate that empowerment improved exploitation and that when employees perceived they would have to be accountable for their actions, employees who felt empowered showed lower gains in exploration behaviors compared with those who felt less empowered; in contrast, those having feelings of ownership exhibited higher gains in exploration behavior than those who scored low in ownership. Although ownership was theorized to have a positive effect on exploitative behavior, we found evidence for its negative effects instead. We contribute to the limited individual-level ambidexterity literature by providing empirical evidence on the effects of contextual factors on ambidextrous behavior. This knowledge could help firms better manage employee behavior and implement effective supervisory oversight.

This study uses Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as a lens for informing the process for building on employees' existing wellbeing within one Australian organisation, using the ‘discovery, dreaming, designing, and achieving destiny’ process. Using POSH as a theoretical framework, we worked with a large Not-For-Profit healthcare organisation as part of the ‘discovery’ phase to identify elements of what was positive, flourishing, and life-giving in the practices of their employees. During the ‘dreaming’ process, employees' wellbeing was identified as a strength. During the ‘designing’ phase, a training program was co-designed to build on employees' existing levels of wellbeing. This paper reports outcomes as part of the ‘achieving destiny component’ of the AI process. In particular, the outcomes show that employees' knowledge of, and ability to use positive emotions increased, which is a positive first step for increasing employees' wellbeing and organisational resilience.

This study examines the motivating effects of goal congruence on outcomes in teams. Building on psychological contract theory and theories of person–environment fit, we proposed at the team level of analysis a mediating role of psychological contract fulfilment (PCF) and moderating effects of task interdependence and team identification. The results indicate partial mediation of shared PCF in the goal congruence – team performance relationships and a significant moderation effect of team identification with team alignment in learning goal orientations.