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This chapter discusses research exploring preschool practitioners' beliefs about child poverty and their responses to it before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, in 2014, the authors’ research found notable levels of poverty insensitivity amongst preschool practitioners within prescribed formal pedagogical contexts emphasising early education over care. With COVID-19 pandemic, some commentators speculated care's place in public consciousness would be raised allowing it to go viral across society. Exploring this, the authors replicated the earlier study in 2021. Drawing upon these recent data from England, the authors consider preschool practitioners' views about the extent to which COVID-19 posed challenges for children in poverty and how much they agreed poverty was something they needed to be sensitive to during the pandemic. The authors then examine preschool practitioners' pedagogical adaptions and their prioritising of care alongside early education during the pandemic. The chapter ends by questioning conjecture about a ‘new normal’ emerging in preschool, allowing pedagogical space for an energised focus upon care.

The objective is to ascertain and amalgamate the extant data about farmers' plans for climate change adaptation and mitigation. The chapter provides comprehensive insights to help farmers and policymakers make informed and relevant decisions.

We conducted five-step scoping review procedure with key databases: Scopus, ProQuest, Science Direct, Springer Link and PLOS ONE. The keywords including climate change AND Agriculture AND production AND rice AND farmer AND farming AND mitigation AND adaptation AND resilience AND Indonesia focusing on publications from 2013 to 2023. We employed PRISMA-Scr protocol and data were thematically extracted using NVivo 12 Plus tool.

The search yielded 878 records, of which 116 were screened in full text, and 37 were included in the review. Key findings indicate that adaptation strategies and management planning involving social capital and social networks are essential for anticipating and responding to climate change-induced disasters. The collaboration between farmers, farmer groups, government and NGOs is pivotal for climate change mitigation.

The research implications highlight the need for targeted policy interventions and capacity-building initiatives to enhance farmers' knowledge and skills in climate change adaptation, fostering collaboration among various stakeholders.

The originality and value of the paper lie in the comprehensive review of the adaptive measures and strategies employed by farmers in Indonesia to mitigate the impacts of climate change on agriculture. This contribution is significant as it not only addresses local challenges but also connects them to broader global discussions on food security and climate adaptation.

This chapter discusses the findings of a research project rooted in the unique context of a former Victorian square in South London squatted in the 1980s and 1990s. Over three decades, squatters (later homeowners and tenants) mended derelict houses, created two community gardens and green streets, and set up a vegetarian café locally. The square, an oasis in the middle of London, is now a fashionable neighborhood to live and visit because of its enduring artistic flair and alternative cultural “feel.” Through ethnographic methods, our research focused on how residents transformed derelict buildings and neglected spaces and on the evolving dynamics of this neighborhood undergoing progressive gentrification, reflecting similar trends in many other neighborhoods in London. This chapter analyses these informal practices as examples of creative placemaking. Framed by the intricate interplay between the community's initiatives and the challenges posed by contemporary processes of regeneration and gentrification, we explore how such practices shaped both the material fabric of the place as well as its immaterial character: its sense of community and identity and the feelings and memories associated with its built environment. Informed by Lefebvre's theories on the social production of space and the right to the city, our analysis emphasizes the importance of informality, everyday practice, spontaneity, and self-management in shaping and sustaining a vibrant urban culture. By exploring how these elements intersect with forces of regeneration and gentrification, this chapter aims to contribute to a nuanced understanding of creative placemaking, the complex dynamics at play in the ongoing transformation of urban spaces, and the resilience of bottom-up, community-driven placemaking initiatives in the face of external pressures.

This chapter reinforces the overall premise of the book: placemaking is here to stay, has become an integral part of decision-making for the built environment, has much of value to offer, and should encompass all layers of our diverse urban communities. Nevertheless, even dominant paradigms need critical attention, and this chapter reinforces the contributions of the individual chapters and the overall message that placemaking needs to be more holistic, to demonstrate more “joined-up thinking”, in a fast-changing world in which our growing urban areas need to prepare for climate change and other uncertainties.

This article aims to map the expectations of manufacturing companies towards suppliers in terms of implementing improvement activities. The article poses two research questions: RQ1: What kind of improvement of activities do the surveyed producers expect from their suppliers? RQ2: Do factors such as size, capital or implemented systems influence different assessments of the analyzed requirements toward suppliers?

The Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) technique was used to collect data. The sample consists of 150 producers (employing over 50 people) who were suppliers for enterprises from the automotive, electromechanical and chemical sectors operating in the Polish business-to-business (B2B) market. We analyzed 11 improvement activities, while their correlation structure was examined by exploratory factor analysis.

We have identified three latent factors – risk reduction, product innovation and increasing efficiency – which summarize the main expectations of manufacturing companies towards suppliers. Expectations for these factors are independent of the implemented management system, although the analysis showed higher expectations for product innovation in organizations with the implementation of Kaizen.

The article fills the research gap in the literature. The research results presented in the literature so far have focused on the expectations of enterprises towards suppliers in terms of meeting the criteria for their initial and periodic assessment. The research gap in the article is the result of empirical research presenting the expectations of manufacturers towards suppliers in terms of improving their processes. Based on the findings of the presented study, development trends and implications for managers responsible for purchasing processes and relationships with suppliers can be determined.

The recruitment of undergraduate students within English universities is of vital importance to both the academic success and the financial stability of the organisation. Despite the primacy of the task, there has been a dearth of research looking at related performance and how to ensure that the process is optimised. The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree of variation both within a university and between different universities. The reliance that individual programmes and/or universities place on the Clearing process is key; given its uncertainty, resource demands and timing shortly before students take up their places.

The Nomogramma di Gandy diagrammatical approach utilises readily available data to analyse universities’ performance in recruiting students to different programmes, and the degree to which they each rely of the Clearing process. Inter-university performance was investigated on a whole-student intake basis for a sample of English universities, representative of type and region.

The study found that there were disparate patterns for the many programmes within the pilot university and also disparate patterns between different types of universities across England. Accordingly, universities should internally benchmark their programmes to inform both strategic and tactical decision-making. Similarly, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service benchmarking inter-university patterns could inform the overall sector.

The approach and findings provide lessons for analysing student recruitment which could be critical to universities’ academic and financial health, in an increasingly competitive environment.

This paper specifically aims to examine how (via which activities, methods and capabilities) organizations’ management deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems to address underperformance. Five mitigation strategies/recommendations are introduced to manage the challenges and facilitate greater efficacies in changing organizations.

This paper conceptually synthesizes 47 articles, thematically reports and critically analyzes the AI–HRM–managerial decision-making relationship in changing organizations and discusses the impacts.

The results highlight three significant challenges and opportunities for changing organizations: (1) job performance challenges, (2) organizational performance challenges and HR and (3) collaborative intelligence opportunities.

The paper’s originality lies in addressing the current lack of a theoretical framework guiding HRM and AI experts on the managerial and strategic capabilities needed to address underperformance and their impacts in facilitating collective efficacies in human–AI collaboration in changing organizations. By further capturing an innovative HR Framework’s (1) human, (2) AI, (3) employees’ well-being, (4) jobs and (5) organizational performance, and its five key managerial recommendations/strategies, this paper develops two concepts: “technological servitization” and “re-ontological in-securitization” to advance theory in Managerial Psychology regarding the unintended/paradoxical consequences of managements’ AI-driven organizational performance interventions, including meaninglessness in organizations.