New insights into informal migrant employment: hand car washes in a mid-sized English city

This article provides new analytical insight into migrant labour by examining a newly emergent low-margin sector, hand car washes (HCWs). The sector is co-created by pressures from above in the form of economic restructuring and from below by employers and migrants who diffuse fluid and flexible low-wage employment. The diffusion of HCWs demonstrates how exploitative privatized employment generates autonomous economic growth in the unregulated economy. The formal and informal economies are however interlinked and overlapping within and beyond the labour process. Locally, HCWs have the potential to become the established car wash sector, putting regulated outlets in a state of uncertainty as informalization in employment if not business practice becomes the norm

The dynamics of central control and subsidiary autonomy in the management of human resources: case study evidence from US MNCs in the UK

This article revisits a central question in the debates on the management of multinationals: the balance between centralized policy-making and subsidiary autonomy. It does so through data from a series of case studies on the management of human resources in American multinationals in the UK. Two strands of debate are confronted. The first is the literature on differences between multinationals of different national origins which has shown that US companies tend to be more centralized, standardized, and formalized in their management of human resources. It is argued that the literature has provided unconvincing explanations of this pattern, failing to link it to distinctive features of the American business system in which US multinationals are embedded. The second strand is the wider debate on the balance between centralization and decentralization in multinationals. It is argued that the literature neglects important features of this balance: the contingent oscillation between centralized and decentralized modes of operation and (relatedly) the way in which the balance is negotiated by organizational actors through micro-political processes whereby the external structural constraints on the company are defined and interpreted. In such negotiation, actors’ leverage often derives from exploiting differences between the national business systems in which the multinational operates

The diagnostic molecular pathology of colorectal carcinoma using automated PCR

BACKGROUND: Diagnostic molecular testing in colorectal cancer (CRC) offers a number of benefits including predicting prognosis, directing targeted therapies and screening for hereditary cancer syndromes. Molecular testing however is expensive, requires specialist facilities and staff and is time consuming, limiting its widespread availability. The Idylla System is an automated testing platform that could overcome these issues. AIMS: To appraise the suitability of the Idylla System for use in clinical practice by evaluating the system’s accuracy and financial impact. HYPOTHESIS: The Idylla System has high accuracy for detecting mutations in BRAF, KRAS and NRAS genes in CRC resection tissue and is a cost-effective alternative to current testing platforms. METHODS: Ethical approval was granted by Oxfordshire Research and Ethics Committee A (reference: 04/Q1604/21). Diagnostic accuracy was determined for the Idylla System in detecting BRAF and KRAS mutations with a comparison against conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Further validations were also performed for BRAF, KRAS and NRAS mutation testing against NGS and IHC methods. An audit of the molecular diagnostics workload was carried out and a cost-analysis performed. RESULTS: The Idylla system had a sensitivity of 100.0% (95% CI: 88.3% to 100.0%) and a specificity of up to 100.0% (95% CI: 94.7% to 100.0%) for detecting BRAF mutations and a sensitivity of 100.0% (95% CI: 79.6% to 100.0%) and a specificity of up to 92.9% (95% CI: 68.5% to 98.7%) for detecting KRAS Mutations. There was 100% concordance for NRAS testing. A cost-analysis estimated that the Idylla System could save from around £12,000 to anywhere up to £40,000 per year in some centres. CONCLUSIONS: The results support the hypothesis that the Idylla System is an accurate system for detecting relevant mutations in CRC and demonstrate the system to be cost-effective. The Idylla system is therefore suitable for use in routine clinical practice

What happened when the Americans took over Britain's electricity industry? Exploring trans-national sector effects on employment relations

Pressures stemming from the country of origin are seen increasingly as the single most important influence on multinational companies, and American managements are famed particularly for their marked preferences for non-unionism and for pay systems linked to performance. The dramatic inflow of American investment into the British electricity industry from 1996 onwards provides an opportunity to observe the development of these influences. In fact, employment relations reform was not driven by the concerns of American owners to any significant degree, but tended to follow patterns already very well established in the utilities sector in the UK. This can only be understood in the context of similar developments in sector-level governance in both countries, and the processes through which this drove international strategies at higher levels, affecting investment and organizational structure

The management of human resources in project management‐led organizations

Purpose: The paper examines the operational impact of project management systems on the management of human resources and the practical implications of this for practitioners in two project-led engineering contractors Design/methodology/approach: The paper achieves these objectives through semi-structured interviews in two in-depth case studies. Findings: The paper examines specific human resource practices, for example, staff appraisal and efforts at work re-structuring. The paper finds that in project-led organizations, such as those in engineering contracting, embedded sectoral characteristics such as portfolio training limit the capacity of HR practitioners to actively change employee perceptions of their development. Research limitations/implications: The paper reports on sector-specific research. However, the paper does illustrate the lack of engagement between project management literatures and personnel/HR literatures on the role of HR practitioners in project-led organizations Practical implications: The paper draws out the impact of embedded sector effects on the management of HRs and the effects of this on the role played by practitioners. Originality/value: The value of this paper for the academic community is that it emphasizes a lack of engagement between project management literatures and HR/personnel literatures when it is likely that “project management” systems are a core managerial mechanism for the deployment of staff

The structure and function of supported molybdenum nitride hydrodenitrogenation catalysts

A series of [gamma]-Al2O3 supported Mo nitrides were prepared by the temperature programmed reaction of supported molybdates with NH3. Several loadings, heating rates, and space velocities were employed in an attempt to vary the properties of the nitride. The structure and composition of the supported nitrides depended on the structure of the precursor oxide and the conditions employed in nitriding the oxide. The ease with which the oxide was nitrided improved with increasing Mo loading. Nitride domains in the low-loaded materials (4 and 8 wt% Mo) were highly dispersed and X-ray amorphous while the higher-loaded catalysts (16 wt% Mo) consisted of [gamma]-Mo2N crystallites. The response of the high-loaded materials to the various nitriding conditions was similar to that observed for unsupported [gamma]-Mo2N. The supported Mo nitrides were active for the hydrodenitrogenation of pyridine. In fact, their activities were superior to that of a commercial sulfided Ni---Mo hydrotreating catalyst and comparable to those of the unsupported Mo nitrides. The catalytic properties of the supported Mo nitrides depended on the size and composition of the Mo nitride domains. We believe that the most active sites were located at the perimeters of two-dimensional, raft-like domains. Regions near the perimeter also appeared to be nitrogen deficient. Lower activity sites were associated with the [gamma]-Mo2N crystallite surfaces.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31902/1/0000855.pd