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This study aims to investigate the research question: how do women leaders in the professional business services (PBS) sector develop and approach workplace (in)authenticity?

Ten senior women leaders in the Midlands region of the UK were purposefully selected and interviewed. A semi-structured approach meant that the author adopted a social constructionist paradigm and feminist interpretation. Questions were designed to elicit rich descriptions from the participants. An inductive thematic analysis was conducted to address the study’s purpose.

Four themes were important to women when they developed and approached workplace (in)authenticity: (1) Power Structures, (2) Fit to Belong, (3) Influential Femininity and (4) Through Her Evolution. Women described masculine-majority organisations exerting power. They were pressured into altering their behaviours to “fit” into workplaces. When women had the latitude to be themselves, their leadership excelled. Women’s authenticity developed through increased self-knowledge, helping them to overcome workplace challenges. The study concluded that women face complexities when developing and approaching their constructions of authenticity, namely in the barriers and ramifications they face.

The study suggests several implications for practice and theory concerning enablers and barriers to women leaders' workplace authenticity. The link between authenticity and workplace gender equity needs to be investigated.

The study provides evidence that women are challenged when becoming authentic, therefore, altering their careers irrecoverably in some cases.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) commonly struggle to acquire needed financial, human, and technological resources. The above being stated, recent scholarly research argues that SMEs that are able to successfully navigate the legitimacy threshold are better able to gather the resources they need to survive and grow. This article provides an empirical test of that claim by examining whether the presence of a corporate parent positively influences SME resource acquisition. Results of the study show that SMEs with corporate parents, when compared to like-sized independent SMEs, have higher credit scores, have more complete management teams, use more computers, and are more likely to be on the Internet. These differences are most pronounced for very small firms and diminish in significance as firm size increases. Study implications include the notion that presence of a corporate parent likely represents a successful navigation of the legitimacy threshold, positively increasing SME resource acquisition.

Participation in community programmes by the Roma community is low, whilst this community presents with high risk of poor health and low levels of wellbeing. To improve rates of participation in programmes, compatibility must be achieved between implementation efforts and levels of readiness in the community. The Community Readiness Model (CRM) is a widely used toolkit which provides an indication of how prepared and willing a community is to take action on specific issues. The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a CRM assessment for the Eastern European Roma community in Bradford, UK, on issues related to nutrition and obesity.

The authors interviewed key respondents identified as knowledgeable about the Roma community using the CRM. This approach applies a mixed methodology incorporating readiness scores and qualitative data. A mean community readiness score was calculated enabling researchers to place the community in one of nine possible stages of readiness. Interview transcripts were analysed using a qualitative framework analysis to generate the contextual information.

An overall score consistent with vague awareness was achieved, which indicates a low level of community readiness. This score suggests that there will be a low likelihood of participation in currently available nutrition and obesity programmes.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to apply the CRM in the Roma community for any issue. The authors present the findings for each of the six dimensions that make up the CRM together with salient qualitative findings.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which work-based learning could potentially improve education and training pathways in Australia.

The paper reviews education and training provision in Australia through a contextualisation of the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) with work-based learning pedagogy to determine the extent to which it might contribute to improved outcomes for learners.

People seeking to advance their career aspirations can consider the application of work-based learning to support lifelong learning pathways through the AQF.

There is a need for further longitudinal studies on the outcomes of work-based learning for organisations, individual learners and education and training institutions.

The application of effective WBL approaches has the potential to create a much larger flow of learners from experiential and vocational backgrounds into undergraduate programmes and onto higher education programmes using a consistent and effective pedagogy.

By actively considering the opportunities for learning at work and through work learners, educators and business managers may recognise that there would be more demand for work-based learning.

This paper represents an initial action research study which examines the role WBL can provide for life-long learning.

While research has identified a consistent link between startup intent and entrepreneurship education (EE) intentions, studies also indicate that many entrepreneurs lack the EE they need. However, research examining factors that explain why certain individuals with high startup intent pursue EE while others do not is rare. Given this, the purpose of this paper is to examine how individual characteristics moderate the startup intent EE intentions relationship.

Survey data were gathered on 199 US adults. Moderators examined include attitudes toward education, perceived entrepreneurial efficacy, propensity for risk taking and the Big Five personality traits. Linear regression models were used to test each of the moderation relationships predicted.

Notable findings suggest that extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, perceived entrepreneurial efficacy and risk propensity reduce the chances that individuals with high startup intent will pursue EE, while viewing education as instrumental enhances the relationship.

Study findings imply that EE programs might not be reaching critical target markets, suggest that EE programs might need to be modified to attract individuals with high startup intent and indicate that individual characteristics are key factors that determine why certain individuals with high startup intent pursue EE while others with the same desires do not pursue EE.

This study builds on previous work that looks at the relationship between startup intent and EE intentions by investigating how individual characteristics either amplify or diminish the relationship, increasing scholarly knowledge about why certain individuals with high startup intent pursue EE while others do not.

Background: Rising food bank usage in the UK suggests a growing prevalence of food insecurity. However, a formalised, representative measure of food insecurity was not collected in the UK until 2019, over a decade after the initial proliferation of food bank demand. In the absence of a direct measure of food insecurity, this article identifies and summarises longitudinal proxy indicators of UK food insecurity to gain insight into the growth of insecure access to food in the 21st century.

Methods: A rapid evidence synthesis of academic and grey literature (2005–present) identified candidate proxy longitudinal markers of food insecurity. These were assessed to gain insight into the prevalence of, or conditions associated with, food insecurity.

Results: Food bank data clearly demonstrates increased food insecurity. However, this data reflects an unrepresentative, fractional proportion of the food insecure population without accounting for mild/moderate insecurity, or those in need not accessing provision. Economic indicators demonstrate that a period of poor overall UK growth since 2005 has disproportionately impacted the poorest households, likely increasing vulnerability and incidence of food insecurity. This vulnerability has been exacerbated by welfare reform for some households. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically intensified vulnerabilities and food insecurity. Diet-related health outcomes suggest a reduction in diet quantity/quality. The causes of diet-related disease are complex and diverse; however, evidence of socio-economic inequalities in their incidence suggests poverty, and by extension, food insecurity, as key determinants.

Conclusion: Proxy measures of food insecurity suggest a significant increase since 2005, particularly for severe food insecurity. Proxy measures are inadequate to robustly assess the prevalence of food insecurity in the UK. Failure to collect standardised, representative data at the point at which food bank usage increased significantly impairs attempts to determine the full prevalence of food insecurity, understand the causes, and identify those most at risk.