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This article explores how mature SMEs which lack internal resources access external knowledge to facilitate strategic renewal. Organizational learning, in contrast to entrepreneurial learning, recognizes that owner-managers must distribute knowledge throughout the firm to achieve competitive benefits. Three case studies demonstrate how external ‘knowledge providers’ (customers, suppliers and educational institutions) help institutionalize ‘new’ knowledge. Initially, learning from inter-organizational relationships requires owner-managers to be proactive in accessing and extending appropriate inter-organizational relationships. Second, external organizations can play an active role by ‘intertwining’ knowledge to support the development of processes, systems and routines that distribute and institutionalize learning throughout the organization. The three cases have practical implications for owner-managers and add to academic knowledge via the extension of Crossan et al's 4I model of organizational learning.

Over the last 15 years, critical organization theorists have increasingly adopted postmodernist perspectives. The setting-up of Organization by a group of “radical organization theorists” provided an outlet for a network of authors who considered “conventional” management journals restricted their thinking and writing. Since the first issue in 1994, Organization has become established as an important outlet for scholars from a wide range of countries. This diversity is combined with a concentration of authors associated with five universities, Warwick, UMIST, Lancaster, Keele (UK) and Massachusetts Amherst (US) who account for more than 27% of all publications during the first 8 years. We use the concepts of “solidarity group” and “invisible college” [de Solla Price DJ. Science since Babylon. New Haven: Yale University Press; 1961; de Solla Price DJ. Little science, big science. New York: Columbia University Press; 1963; de Solla Price DJ, Beaver D. Collaboration in an invisible college. Am Psychol 1966;21:1011–8; Crane D. Invisible colleges: diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1972] as the basis for a critical analysis of this network of authors many of whom are linked to the journal's editorial board. We also offer a critique of the bureaucratic nature of the journal's Organizational structure that, we suggest, contradicts the principles underpinning postmodernism. For example, Cooper and Burrell distinguish between the modernist “control” model and the “autonomy” model that approximates to the postmodernist perspective.

The concept of routines, repetitive patterns of action, have been adopted in a wide range of academic disciplines including economics, psychology and sociology. Nelson and Winter (Nelson, R.R., Winter, S.G. (1982) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change . Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London), used the concept of routines to build on evolutionary economics in their attempt to explain the way in which organisations innovate. However, there have been few attempts to identify the day-to-day social activity which contributes towards maintaining existing routines or, more importantly, the creation of new routines. In this paper we report on a Teaching Company Scheme (TCS) established between Aston Business School and Rotadex Systems Ltd. The programme was designed to improve the capacity for innovation within Rotadex. The data are based on the experience of the Teaching Company Associate, Martin Craven, in his role as the initiator of change within Rotadex. Hence, this research represents an attempt to “peel back the layers” of organisational activity by describing the processes by which new routines become institutionalised.

The paper is concerned with the strategic human resource management (HRM) implications of recent pressure for change in the pharmaceutical industry: the mergers and marketing agreements which began in the late 1980s; Government attempts to control NHS spending through the ‘Limited List’; and competition from generic drugs. Despite the increasing use of information technology and expert systems, scientific research remains highly labour intensive and very costly. However, the continued success of all the leading pharmaceutical companies is heavily dependent upon the ability of R&D to innovate new drugs. The research establishes that there has been a switch from personnel management to HRM in the pharmaceutical industry. This change is symbolized by a ‘hardening-up’ of the personnel function as ‘welfare issues’ give way to a more business-centred approach to employee relations. In addition, first line managers (FLMs) are taking greater responsibility for the appraisal and reward of their own staff. The research also establishes that leading pharmaceutical companies no longer regard R&D as a core activity and this represents their desire to improve efficiency and reduce R&D spending. The extent to which the core-periphery model has had an impact on employment contracts of R&D staff varies between firms in the sample. Three companies rejected the use of fixed-term contracts while in the other three companies such arrangements were viewed much more favourably. However, there was certainly a consistent trend towards the sub-contracting of some R&D activities. In each of the companies R&D employees were encouraged to become less insular and more aware of the commercial aspects of the business. The study also confirmed the widely-held view that HRM decisions are not regarded as strategic issues: only one company had an HR professional on the main board. It is argued that the changes identified in the research pose a serious threat to the unique position of pharmaceutical companies in the UK economy. The strength of UK pharmaceutical companies has been based on their ability to maintain a long-term perspective with regard to R&D investment. The trends identified in this research are not irreversible, but it is clear that the value of in-house R&D is being questioned at the highest levels within the pharmaceutical industry.