Professor Craig Littler died in September 2010 after having been suddenly taken ill while lecturing at James Cook University (JCU). Craig had joined JCU in early 2009 as Head of its School of Business. 

JCU’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Sandra Harding, said that Professor Littler was a fine scholar with ten books and monographs, and approximately one hundred other publications, but he also brought something different to the universities he served: “His intellect sparkled. I am very glad that Craig Littler came to JCU. He made a difference. He will be sorely missed,” 

His Pro Vice Chancellor at JCU, Professor Robin Woellner, added that Professor Littler had made a profound impact on the University. “He will be remembered for the strong leadership he provided to the School of Business.” 

Craig had moved to JCU from St Andrews University, Scotland. His former Head of School there, Professor Peter McKiernan, commented: “He was a founding professor of the Centre for Business Education in 2002 and helped lay the foundations for its merger with the School of Management two years later. He was one of the School’s high profile professors and was much admired by his students, whom he inspired with dynamic and inspirational teaching in strategic management and organisation studies. He flourished in this top class research environment and continued to publish in highly-ranked journals, so helping to raise the profile of the School in the UK’s 2008 research assessment exercise.” 

Before moving to St Andrews, Craig had been Professor and Director of External and Executive Programs at Royal Holloway College, University of London. His responsibilities included running and developing a suite of corporate education programs, such as the JP Morgan MBA program for senior managers.

Through most of the 1980s and 1990s, Craig worked at several universities in Australia, including as a professor at the University of Southern Queensland, and as a visitor at the University of Melbourne. 


While a senior lecturer at Griffith University, Queensland, in the 1980s, Craig led the team that founded Labour & Industry – A journal of the Social & Economic Relations of Work, which is now based at Monash University and published by the Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australian and New Zealand (AIRAANZ). He had been active in AIRAANZ and other professional associations, including the Australian & New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM), British Academy of Management (BAM) and the British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA).

Born in Birmingham, UK, Craig studied at the London School of Economics where he gained a BSc and a PhD. He subsequently worked in the UK at Cambridge University; City University, London; and Imperial College. 

In one of the last articles that he wrote while at JCU, Craig encouraged his colleagues to foster research and build a a research community: “…above all we need a sense of ideas-consciousness…. we can recognise that we are always forming hypotheses (‘Does he really like me’), testing them, and making conclusions. Research is no different from self-reflective focussed thinking operating within a set of guidelines…Research is fun, even if it is hard work”.

Craig conducted research in a range of areas including: the Labour Process, the Sociology of Work, Industrial Relations, Human Resource Management, International Management and Strategic Management. His interests included China (long before it was fashionable), Research Methods, Organisational Change, Organisation Theory and the Management of Innovation. He consulted with governmental organisations and companies in Australia, Britain, Japan and USA.


For more than a decade, Craig co-ordinated a research project on organisational restructuring, which involved Australian, New Zealand, South African and US comparisons. Recognised as an expert on corporate downsizing, he presented many papers at international conferences and in Australia he gave an address at the Parliament in the Vital Issues Program for “notable speakers.” 


A well-attended celebration of Craig’s life was held in Townsville on 15 September 2010. He was a well known academic who made a considerable impact on the academic fields in which he worked and will always be remembered by those who knew him. They will recall his wit, insightfulness and his intellectualism. 


One colleague commented to me that he was “very warm hearted, hospitable, and interested in people and their reactions'. Another observed that he was a “colourful and exciting character who did not suffer fools gladly”. He was not afraid to be critical or to constructively challenge others’ assumptions.


Craig is survived by two wives and three children: Dene, with his first wife, Gill Palmer, as well as Nyree and Cassia with his second wife Elizabeth Wickham.


Greg J. Bamber, Monash University

Melbourne, Australia: GregBamber@Gmail.Com


With many thanks for helpful comments to Craig’s family, friends and colleagues.

for a Special Issue of the INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

The Power of Ideas in Managing People

This special issue examines a neglected topic in HRM – the role of ideas. It will explore the significance of ideologies, identities, beliefs, values, norms and world views in shaping the management of work and the behaviour of workers and managers. The goal of the special issue is to demonstrate the explanatory power of ideas in human resource management studies. 

A key assumption motivating the special issue is that rational and material conceptions of actor behaviour are incomplete at best. Material structures such as markets, national HR institutions, geographic landscapes and organizational structures all influence HR actors; however, these contexts do not determine actor behaviour. Actors have to interpret material contexts, different possibilities exist and actors chart a course of action based on their ideas and ideologies. The latter provide roadmaps that are particularly important in periods of economic uncertainty, such as that faced today.

Specific questions that the special issue will address include: How do systems of ideas shape HR management and practices? How are HR ideas and ideologies socially constructed at the workplace? How do ideas change and lead to changes in HR? How and to what extent do cross-national and cross-organizational differences in ideas and ideologies explain HRM variation? How significant are identities in shaping the experience and management of work? How do ideas and institutions, agency and structure interact? What is the role of normative beliefs and values in directing the study of HRM itself?

Themes
•Management and union ideologies in HRM
•Ideologies of work and capitalism 
•Subjectivity and language in HRM 
•Ideas and ideologies of performance and productivity in HRM
•Identities and ethnicities at the workplace
•Identity work: changing ideas and collective beliefs and their role in reshaping HRM
•Analyzing employee well-being, preferences, attitudes or perceptions
•The notion of the ‘ideal worker’ and of ideas of justice and fairness in shaping work
•Gendered and feminist analysis of HRM 
•Different research tradition and ideologies in the study of HRM 
•Structure and agency: Combining material and ideational research in HRM 

These themes should be seen as illustrative rather than exhaustive. However, in order to be considered for inclusion, articles should show how ideational factors shape HR management and practices. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed method approaches are welcome. Contributions to the special issue may be empirical, analytical or conceptual. 

Review process
This call is open and competitive, and the submitted papers will be blind reviewed in the normal way. Submitted papers must be based on original material not under consideration by any other journal or outlet. The editors will select up to 10 papers to be included in the special issue, but other papers submitted may be considered for other issues of the journal. 

Submission
Manuscripts should be submitted online using the International Journal of Human Resource Management ScholarOne Manuscripts site (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rijh) by April 15th 2011. New users should first create an account. Once a user is logged onto the site submissions should be made via the Author Centre.


Authors should prepare and upload two versions of their manuscript. One should be a complete text, while in the second all document information identifying the author should be removed from files to allow them to be sent anonymously to referees. When uploading files authors will then be able to define the non‐anonymous version as “Complete Document with author information”, and the anonymous version as “Main document without author information”.


To submit your manuscript to the Special Issue on ‘The Power of Ideas in Managing People’ choose the title of the Special Issue from the Manuscript Type list when you come to submit your paper. Also, when you come to the ‘Details and Comments’ page, answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘Is this manuscript a candidate for a special issue’ and insert the title in the text field provided.

The editors of the Special Issue are happy to discuss initial ideas for articles via e-mail. 

Edmund Heery 
heery@cardiff.ac.uk

Marco Hauptmeier 
hautpmeierm@cardiff.ac.uk

You are invited to attend a Global Forum on Employment Relations to be held in Sydney on 30 March 2011.  The Forum will focus on recent trends in employment relations in key economies North America, Europe and Asia and their implications for Australia. The Forum will also provide an opportunity to review the effects of recent reforms in Australia in the context of the re-elected Labour government from a wide range of employer and union perspectives. 

The Global Forum in 2011 follows the highly successful World Congress on Industrial Relations held in Sydney in 2009 attended by more than 900 participants from over 40 countries. A number of keynote speakers from that congress are returning to Sydney to review international changes which have occurred since the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath. The forum will consist of a combination of presentations and panel discussions by leading international and local experts.

Keynote speakers who have accepted invitations to speak at the Forum include:


•Professor Thomas Kochan, Sloan School of Management at MIT in Cambridge, USA who has served as an adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama


•Professor William Brown, Master of Darwin College and former Head of Economics at Cambridge University who has served on Britain’s Minimum Wage Commission


•Professor Janice Bellace, Wharton School of Management, University of Pennsylvania and President of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association.


•Dr Peter Auer, Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Labour Studies in Geneva and former Head of the European Employment Observatory in Berlin, Germany.


•Professor Mia Ronnmar, Faculty of Law at the University of Lund in Sweden who has recently published a book on Industrial Relations in the European Union.


•Dr Chang-Hee Lee, Senior Adviser on Employment and Labour Relations issues for the ILO in China who formerly served as the Asian Regional Adviser in Bangkok.


•Ged Kearney, President, Australian Council of Trade Unions. She was previously Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation, one of Australia’s largest and fastest growing unions. 


•Peter Anderson, Chief Executive, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Peter represents Australian business regionally and globally at international forums such as the OECD, the International Organisation of Employers and on the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland.


•Heather Ridout Chief Executive, Australian Industry Group. Heather holds a large number of key national positions on bodies which include the National Workplace Relations Consultative Committee, Infrastructure Australia and Skills Australia and the Henry Review of Taxation.


Leading Australian specialists in employment relations from General Motors Holden, Qantas Airways, employers associations, trade unions and universities will examine the implications of international developments for Australia and review the effects of recent industrial relations reforms of the Gillard Labour government.

The Global Forum is jointly sponsored by the International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) based in Geneva, the Journal of Industrial Relations (JIR) published by the Industrial Relations Association of Australia (IRSA)  and the Workplace Research Centre (WRC) at the University of Sydney. 

The forum is now open for registrations with a limited amount of early bird tickets available at $450 until the 31st of December (Standard rate $550 after this date). To book and for more information please go to www.erglobalforum.com  

We advise you to book early for this important forum.

With best regards,

Janice Bellace 
Professor, University of Pennsylvania
President, ILERA

Russell Lansbury                                                                             
Emeritus Professor, University of Sydney 
Immediate Past President, ILERA