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It has frequently been claimed that work experience can contribute to higher educational standards in schools and in higher education and contribute to the development of a exible, highly-skilled and enterprising labour force. This potential was endorsed by the Dearing Report on higher education, although there is little research evidence about the contribution of work experience to the higher education curriculum. This article reports on four empirical studies of work experience in higher education, which suggest that work experience is related to a more positive view of the learning experience and to higher employment rates. However, retrospective views of graduates tend to be more positive than those of current undergraduates and there appear to be distinct subject variations in the impact of different types of work experience. It is argued that the potential is more likely to be realised where work experience placements have six characteristics of good practice and where the higher education curriculum consistently encourages students to re ect well on their own learning.A. Blackwell et al.The National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (NCIHE) placed considerable emphasis on work experience in its nal report, concluding, amongst other things, that 'students can bene t from experience in many different settings, structured and informal, paid and unpaid. Their academic experience should help them understand how experience relates to their personal and future development' (NCIHE, 1997, para. 9.30). The Committee's Chairman, Sir Ron Dearing, knew from his earlier work on the school curriculum that work experience has frequently been advanced as a powerful way of raising standards in primary and secondary schools and that there have been repeated calls for the curriculum to be more work-related.The claims that are made for work experience, whether as a part of the school or higher education curriculum, can be summarised under the following headings:

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One response to the possible outsourcing of the human resource (HR) function is to turn to 'science' and seek to demonstrate an empirical association between HR practices and increased organizational performance. This paper critically examines the shortcomings of the 'scientific' approach by first, reviewing the three distinctive versions of research on the Human Resources Management (HRM)-Performance link in an attempt to demonstrate their commitment to a common 'scientific' meta-theory. Second, we use critical realism to demonstrate: (1) that theoretical underdevelopment and lack of explanatory power are encouraged by the use of an inappropriate 'scientific' meta-theory; (2) the possibility of meta-theorizing the causal connection between HRM and performance without seeking statistical associations; and (3) how all this is in-keeping with Institutional theory. Finally, all of this is achieved by inserting evidence from interviews with HR professionals to demonstrate not only that they are sceptical of the 'scientific' approach, but also that they hold views of the world not dissimilar to the critical realist approach we advocate. Volume 13(5): 677-699

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