Employment Appeal Tribunals

If you are a Human Resource Management student or doing an AMP which involves Employment issues you may want to look at the freely available judgements available on the site below.

These may concern issues such as racial discrimination or (mis)use of social networking sites at work. The blog post mentioned below, about a pub manager who was csacked for maligning her customers on Facebook, is not included at present.

It should be forthcoming soon I anticipate.


http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/courts-and-tribunals/tribunals/employment-appeals/judgments.htm

Social Networking, Privacy, Wetherspoons and the Law

For those of you doing an AMP topic about privacy and social networking, don't forget to look at any relevant legal cases.

In Preece v JD Wetherspoons plc an Employment Tribunal found recently that a pub manager was fairly dismissed for when she made inappropriate comments about her pub customers on Facebook.

This breached Wetherspoons’ internet policy. Many employers are not aware of the risks of commenting on either their customers or their managers !

This behaviour has led to a new phrase....Anti-Social Networking. I think we may be hearing lots more about this in future.

For help with finding relevant law cases ask
alan.bullimore@beds.ac.uk

Sample AMP Topics

We have seen the following topics come up several times over the past couple of years, and although there are several new questions in June 2011 some are quite similar to these :

Will Toyota, the former legend of the car industry. lose the game ?
( All about market position, and how a company which has had a difficult time can overcome it. The case study may be someone like BP in the future, and how they might recover from their disastrous year. General information about the company could be found on Newsbank. You will have to use theory from books and journals to support your arguements )

Will advances in mobile telephone technology and applications herald the end of cash ?
( You need to think about how the cash-less society might develop, and look at how quickly technology is moving in this direction ). Are there time where hard currency cannot be replaced ? Will the situation develop in all countries at an equal pace ? Are there analogies to printed books being replaced by their electronic counterparts ? Look at general work about visions of the future, eg the Rough Guide to the future book, a recent addition to stock at Park Square.

How could a high street retailer survive the down-turn economy ?
( Although the obvious "Aldi Effect" is that the cheapest will prosper, how to explain the current good results for Waitrose ? )

Aldi Effect

The term "Aldi Effect" has been used to convey the idea that during recessionary times shoppers will dessert Tesco and Asda is order to save money.

Instead they will visit Aldi and Lidl, cut-price supermarkets which have recently prospered.

Although the arguement is a tempting one it does not explain the recent success of the more upmarket chain, Waitrose.

Figures to support these theories can be found on the Newsbank database.

Look at shops which have disappeared in Luton or your local town lately.

The Effect of Drought on Business

According to Chemical Business NewsBase Wednesday, December 31, 2008 the
Australian biotech market has had recent difficulties securing capital due to the global recession. Many desalination and other green projects have been put at risk. There are about 130 listed life science companies in Australia and an estimated 420 private companies. In 2008, two companies, Apollo Life Sciences and Portland Orthopaedics entered administration.

Thus, although green strategies can help to overcome the effects of climate change the effect of the global downturn has an even more marked effect.

Material on Inter Library loan

This is the site which you will need to use to obtain material ( Books / Journal Requests etc ) from elsewhere. We normally get your requests from the British Library. You need to keep a check on your university e-mail as a journal article link may be sent directly to this address.


http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/guides/resources/researchers/document_supply

Material on Interlibrary loan

Flexible Working

Williams, G (2011) Part-time and Flexible working : a new approach Business Review 17 (3) p.30-31

This article in a recent print only publication is a good summary of the popularity of part-time work in the UK, despite negative conotations of the word. A good explanation too of Charles Handy's sc called shamrock organisation :
Core workers
Contracted Specialists
and Flexible workers providing the leaves !

The relevant legal regulations are also looked into, and these could be followed up on our Law Databases such as Westlaw and Lawtel ( without getting too bogged down in the detail )

Rough Guide to the Future

Recent addition to stock in the LRC. This book may be relevant to AMP groups looking at Climate Change ( particularly water shortages ) and the effect on the business of the future. We found lots of research on desalination when we looked at this topic earlier in the week.

Business Review

Another plug for my favourite print only journal, Business Review (ISSN 1354-1110. Having seen many AMP project groups this week I know that several of your topics have been covered recently in this journal.

Online advertising, Future of the Post Office, Flexible Working, Social Networking are all there.

For those doing case studies on Entrepreneurs there are several case studies here.

And just to repeat - this stuff is only available in print !

Business Ethics

If you are attempting an AMP Question on business ethics ( particularly about the ethics of advertising harmful products such as cigarettes ) bear in mind that you may find information in health and social science journals which you do not normally use ( as well as titles like Business Ethics )

Here is an example of an article which I traced using the ASSIA database

Assessing the cumulative impact of alcohol marketing on young people's drinking: cross-sectional data findings

Gordon, Ross; Harris, Fiona; Mackintosh, Anne Marie; Moodie, Crawford

Addiction Research & Theory, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 66-75, 2011

ISSN 1606-6359

Case Studies in Marketing

Another new addition to stock, AMP students are advised to beat the Autumn intake to this 2011 publication. The author is from nearby Cranfield University. It contains plenty of up-to-date case studies as indicated by the logos on the cover !

AMP Marketing Students

Beat the rush to this new text which we have recently added to stock. It's going to be the recommended text on MAR-005-3 Marketing in Contexts 2011 from next academic year so we are expecting a high demand.

Super Injunctions and Social Networking Privacy

The recent stories in the newspapers about privacy has meant that there are lots of stories in the newspapers recently about social networking sites. I found this one on the Newsbank Database by combining Social Network in the headline and Privacy in the story. Here's one example.



Nigel Morris and Cahal Milmo

Media freedoms in the balance - News Cabinet to consider legislation including privacy law and regulation of social media Watchdog may be unleashed to police social networks

Independent, Wednesday, May 11, 2011
( Accessed via Newsbank Database on 10th June 2011 )

Why so glum Sir Alex ?

Business Management Students working on the Olympics Effect on the UK economy might like to think about last weekend's Manchester United v Barcelona Champions League Final.

According to a Mastercard Survey this was one of the most lucrative games ever.
110,000 Spanish fans descended on London spending money in bars, restaurants, at tourist attractions ( and for the lucky ones at the game itself )

£320 million was generatated
£42 million went into the London Economy
Wembley proved a good host, capable of hosting this kind of game admirably.A good omen for 2012 one would imagine.

I was in A supermarket during the day where several trolleys were being filled for the game on TV.

Ruddick, G (2011) London nets £42m from final, Daily Telegraph, 28th May (accessed via Newsbank through library.beds.ac.uk ) 1st June 2011