Sue Davies, Jane Hughes, Karen Davies, Elizabeth Dalgarno, Rowan Elaine Jasper, Helen Chester, Amy Roberts and David Challis
The purpose of this study is to examine changes in the nature, form and range of commissioning arrangements for home care.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine changes in the nature, form and range of commissioning arrangements for home care.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from two discrete national surveys of English local authorities with social service responsibilities were used. In the first, undertaken in 2007, responses from 111 of the 151 local authorities (74%) were received; in the second, undertaken in 2017, responses from 109 local authorities (72%) were received. A combined data set of 79 complete cases, 52% of local authorities, was created. Percentage point differences across the two time periods were calculated and tested to identify significant changes and a systematic analysis of the free-text responses regarding intended changes to the commissioning process in each data set was undertaken.
Findings
Findings identified substantial changes in some aspects of the commissioning of home care in the 2007-2017 decade. Collaboration between stakeholders had increased, particularly regarding the identification of future needs. Improved conditions of service and remuneration for home care workers were evident within the commissioning process. Standardised charges for home care (regardless of time and day) had also become more widespread. Initiatives to prompt providers to deliver more personalised care were more evident.
Originality/value
This paper describes the evolution of commissioning arrangements for home care in localities in response to national policy initiatives. It provides guidance to commissioners in meeting the needs of current service users and emphasises the importance of collaboration with stakeholders, particularly providers, in securing future capacity.
Details
Keywords
– The purpose of this paper is to report on the Fall 2015 MARAC Conference.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on the Fall 2015 MARAC Conference.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper focuses on the use of technology in archives, libraries and museums, as presented in various sessions at the Fall 2015 MARAC Conference.
Findings
Archives, libraries and museums are harnessing technology to archive Twitter feeds, digitize obsolete media, provide better online access to collections, automate workflows for patron-driven requests, conduct forensic recovery of born-digital objects and manage long-term access and preservation of diverse digital collections.
Originality/value
The paper condenses the authors’ notes from various sessions.
Business schools are becoming invaluable platforms linking academia, business and industry. The constantly changing nature of markets requires a continuous and iterative dialog…
Abstract
Purpose
Business schools are becoming invaluable platforms linking academia, business and industry. The constantly changing nature of markets requires a continuous and iterative dialog between business schools and other constituents including the government, the private sector and the civil society to guarantee that business and management education is catering for local and global market needs. The purpose of this paper is to address the growing role of business schools in transforming the society, building on the experience of the school of business of the American University in Cairo, and its impact in preparing the business leaders and entrepreneurs who can make a difference in society through rigorous and adaptive business and management education while addressing the elements of governance, accreditation, internationalization, and relevance, creativity and innovation in research.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, desk research is coupled with sharing of the development of the accreditation journey of American University in Cairo (AUC) School of Business and the lessons learned over the last 15 years.
Findings
While undergoing multiple accreditations, the school should effectively and efficiently manage the timeline, otherwise the maintenance of all accreditations could end up in one year, and that could be really challenging, a situation faced by the school during the academic year 2016–2017. While having a task force or a committee is mandatory, for the long-term development and sustainability of a continuous improvement culture, an office for academic assessment and accreditation is a must. For the school, the office helps create and embed the culture that accreditation is a journey and not a destination. Accreditation as a process should involve all school stakeholders on and off campus including faculty, staff, students, alumni, advisory boards, employers and the university administration; they should all be engaged and their buy-in through creating a sense of ownership and empowerment is invaluable. Throughout the accreditation journey, nothing is more important than communication, a school can never have enough of it. While the accreditation process needs a strong, transparent, effective leadership style, a bottom-up approach aligning and motivating the school’s different constituents is essential. For accreditation and continuous improvement to be sustainable, it should be driven and guided by a unified school-wide strategy addressing and catering to its different objectives. Accreditation is all about an invaluable triangle of building blocks, including an informed human capital, a respected and well-thought process and a timely, accurate and efficient wealth of data and knowledge about the school.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations are primarily the focus on the case of Egypt and AUC School of Business. Obviously, there is no one size that fits all, but there are lessons learned that could be replicated and tested in business schools located in similar environments.
Practical implications
The study presents the experience of the governance model at AUC School of Business with both internal council of the school of business and external board of advisors.
Social implications
The study presents the implications of the school on the society and the role, directions, guidelines that accreditation and continuous improvement introduce to the curriculum.
Originality/value
Historical background of business and management education at large in Egypt and Middle East North Africa is coupled with the overview of the school of business, sharing the challenges and opportunities of accreditation and continuous improvement.
Details
Keywords
Alexandra L. Ferrentino, Meghan L. Maliga, Richard A. Bernardi and Susan M. Bosco
This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in…
Abstract
This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in business-ethics and accounting’s top-40 journals this study considers research in eight accounting-ethics and public-interest journals, as well as, 34 business-ethics journals. We analyzed the contents of our 42 journals for the 25-year period between 1991 through 2015. This research documents the continued growth (Bernardi & Bean, 2007) of accounting-ethics research in both accounting-ethics and business-ethics journals. We provide data on the top-10 ethics authors in each doctoral year group, the top-50 ethics authors over the most recent 10, 20, and 25 years, and a distribution among ethics scholars for these periods. For the 25-year timeframe, our data indicate that only 665 (274) of the 5,125 accounting PhDs/DBAs (13.0% and 5.4% respectively) in Canada and the United States had authored or co-authored one (more than one) ethics article.
Details
Keywords
Apostolos Giovanis and Pinelopi Athanasopoulou
The purpose of this study is to develop and empirically test a lovemark measure that can be used to identify how brands of wireless-enabled computing devices are classified based…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to develop and empirically test a lovemark measure that can be used to identify how brands of wireless-enabled computing devices are classified based on customers’ respect and love toward them.
Design/methodology/approach
On evidence drawn from 1,016 consumers of wireless-enabled computing devices (e.g. netbooks and tablets) in Greece, partial least squares method is used to test the validity of the proposed hierarchical model.
Findings
Results show that a lovemark measure can be conceptualized as a third-order reflective construct having respect and love as its second-order dimensions. In turn, respect reflects on brand performance, trust and reputation, and love reflects on brand commitment, intimacy and passion. The proposed measure presents a very good external validity as it can explain big portions of variance in consumer responses including repurchase intentions, positive WOM and willingness to pay a price premium. Finally, the proposed measure is used to classify eight well-known devices as products, fads, brands and lovemarks and identify the love styles associated with brand relationships.
Originality/value
This paper provides empirical evidence for measuring and identifying lovemarks using a hierarchical model, which can be further used to develop a more effective strategy for managing the functional and emotional aspects of brands to strengthen consumer-brand relationships.
Propósito
El objetivo de este estudio es el desarrollo metodológico y validación empírica de una escala para clasificar las marcas de productos tecnológicos en base a las dos dimensiones que caracterizan a las marcas Lovemark: el respecto y amor.
Diseño/metodología/enfoque
Con una base de datos recogidos de una muestra de 1.106 consumidores de productos tecnológicos (e.g., tablets y portátiles pequeños) en Grecia, se usa PLS para testar la validez del modelo jerárquico propuesto.
Resultados
Los resultados ponen de manifiesto que el concepto Lovemark puede ser conceptualizado como un constructo reflectivo de tres dimensiones siendo el respeto y el amor hacia la marca las dimensiones de segundo orden. A su vez, el respeto hacia la marca refleja el desempeño, la confianza y reputación de la marca mientras que el amor queda reflejado en conceptos tales como el compromiso, la intimidad y la pasión. La medida propuesta presenta una aceptable validez externa pues es capaz de explicar mayor porcentaje de la varianza de las intenciones de compra, la comunicación boca-oreja positiva y la disposición a pagar un mayor precio por la marca. Finalmente, se demuestra la utilidad de la medida propuesta para clasificar ocho marcas conocidas según los niveles de amor y respeto que los consumidores manifiestan hacia las mismas así como identificar los estilos de amor asociados a la relación que los consumidores mantienen con estas marcas.
Originalidad/valor
Este trabajo ofrece evidencias empíricas para medir e identificar las Lovemark usando un modelo jeráquico que puede ser utilizado posteriormente para desarrollar una estrategia más efectiva en la gestión de los aspectos funcionales y emocionales de las marcas como medio para fortalecer las relaciones marca-consumidor.
Details
Keywords
Purpose: Miscarriage is commonly understood as an involuntary, grieve-able pregnancy outcome. Abortion is commonly understood as a voluntary, if stigmatized, pregnancy outcome…
Abstract
Purpose: Miscarriage is commonly understood as an involuntary, grieve-able pregnancy outcome. Abortion is commonly understood as a voluntary, if stigmatized, pregnancy outcome that people do not typically grieve. This chapter examines a nexus of the involuntary and voluntary: how people who chose abortion following observation of a serious fetal health issue make sense of their experience and process associated emotions.
Design: The author draws on semi-structured interviews with cisgender women who had an observed serious fetal health issue and chose to terminate their pregnancy.
Findings: Findings highlight an initial prioritization of medical knowledge in pregnancy decision-making giving way, in the face of the inherent limits of medical knowability, to a focus on personal and familial values. Abortion represented a way to lessen the prospective suffering of their fetus, for many, and felt like an explicitly moral decision. Respondents felt relief after the abortion as well as a sense of loss. They processed their post-abortion emotions, including grief, in multiple ways, including through viewing – or intentionally not viewing – the remains, community rituals, private actions, and no formalized activity. Throughout respondents’ experiences, the stigmatization of abortion negatively affected their ability to obtain the care they desired and, for some, to emotionally process the overall experience.
Originality/Value: This chapter offers insight into the understudied experience of how people make sense of a serious fetal health issue and illustrates an additional facet of the stigmatization of abortion, namely how stigmatization may complicate people’s pregnancy decision-making process and their post-abortion processing.
Details
Keywords
A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that…
Abstract
A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).
– The purpose of this paper is to highlight the stigma surrounding old age, which in many ways has increased rather than decreased with the ageing of the population.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the stigma surrounding old age, which in many ways has increased rather than decreased with the ageing of the population.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach of this paper is to introduce the reader to recent writing and research surrounding talk of a “demograhic time bomb”, with the ageing of populations world wide. It also looks back on the work on “ageing studies” over the last two decades, revealing the prevailing disavowals of old age among the old themselves, as well as the contrasting gendered dynamics of the ways in which we are, as Margaret Gullette writes, “aged by culture”.
Findings
–The author introduces the conceptual notion of “temporal vertigo” to the complicated effects of the multiplicity of continuities and discontinuities older people experience when reflecting upon who they are over a lifetime. Ageing is of interest for those who have always been sceptical about any notion of the “true self”, allowing us to puzzle over how the account the old give of themselves will rely upon their ability to incorporate differing versions of the self, woven into the volatilities of memory and fantasy.
Originality/value
The paper's exploration of the radical ambiguities in the representation and discussions surrounding old age in these times.