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The purpose of this paper is to describe the authors’ experience operationalizing the care delivery value chain (CDVC) as a management and continuous quality improvement (QI) approach to strengthen HIV/AIDS services provided in Northern Togo through addressing gaps across a care continuum.

The authors led a series of discussions to develop a CDVC specific to existing HIV/AIDS services in Northern Togo. Using the CDVC framework, 28 specific gaps in service delivery were identified and integrated into a strategic QI plan.

At 12 months, 92 percent of delivery gaps had demonstrated improvement. The CDVC framework proved to be valuable in the following ways. First, it facilitated the first comprehensive mapping of HIV/AIDS services in the Kara region of Togo. Second, it enabled the identification of gaps or insufficiencies in the currently available services across the full continuum of care. Third, it catalyzed the creation of a strategic QI plan based on identified gaps.

This case description is the authors’ experience in one setting and should not be considered comparative in nature. Furthermore, the approach described may not be applicable to all initiatives and/or organizations. As described, the lack of sophisticated and comprehensive data collection systems limited the authors’ ability to collect reliable data on some of the QI initiatives planned.

The operationalization of the CDVC framework is an effective approach to drive continuous QI.

Through the operationalization of the CDVC, the authors developed a new approach for assessing existing services, identifying gaps in service delivery and directing continuous QI initiatives in a strategic manner.

Recent research including advances in neuro‐imaging indicates a profound effect on brain development as a result of exposure to abuse and neglect in childhood. This new area is called developmental traumatology. Areas of the brain that may particularly be affected are important in arousal control and executive function. Many adolescents presenting to forensic services have histories of neglect and abuse and deficits in key brain developmental functions. The management and treatment options for young people with developmental trauma and forensic needs are explored.

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.

Police misconduct is a grave matter undermining public trust in law enforcement and police professionalism. While research has specified major forms and causal theories of police misconduct, especially regarding corruption and excessive force, scientific attention to police sexual misconduct (PSM) has been more limited and is addressed here. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

The current study was commissioned to examine PSM incidents (n = 50) between 2000 and 2009 in a large, metropolitan, police department in the USA. Data were extracted from agency internal affairs case files, personnel records and disciplinary histories for involved officers.

Analyses identified common factors and trends across officers, complainants and sexual misconduct events that were dichotomized per case substantiation and observed on a severity continuum from unobtrusive to criminal conduct.

Though findings did not evidence a deviant subculture often implicated in the police literature, specific opportunities to reduce officer misconduct, including intensifying administrative sanctioning and other perceptual deterrence measures, were identified.

In developing countries, local buyers often rely on relational contracting based on reciprocity and trust. This paper analyzes relational contracting and global value chain (GVC) governance by focusing on how domestic and foreign coffee exporters in Rwanda confront challenges.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 representatives of Rwandan private, Rwandan cooperative-owned and foreign exporters, and four coffee sector stakeholders.

Foreign firms export most Rwandan coffee, and local exporters express concerns about their ability to compete. Rwandan exporters face challenges accessing capital, competing with foreign firms and managing high transaction costs. They use relational contracts to reduce transaction costs, and they benefit from a monopsony zoning regulation that reduces competition. Foreign exporters face regulatory challenges: a government-set coffee price and the zoning regulation. They vertically integrate to reduce costs and lock in suppliers through prefinancing.

Future research should analyze differences between local and foreign exporters in other contexts to advance understanding of the different challenges faced and contracting approaches used.

Few GVC governance studies address the role of relational contracts in contexts where enforcement is costly. Considering relational contracts within GVCs can improve value chain analysis, specifically in the developing countries where many GVCs start.

This study aims to improve our understanding of side selling in farmer cooperatives. Cooperative member side selling, in which farmers divert produce from cooperatives to competitors, threatens coffee cooperatives. This is a problem in Burundi, where many households earn income from coffee and cooperatives serve a collective action function.

Using data from a survey of Burundian coffee farmers, we assess the determinants of two types of cooperative member side-selling behavior: selling to both cooperative and non-cooperative buyers and selling solely to non-cooperative buyers.

Farmers who sell to both cooperative and non-cooperative buyers are more likely to be male household heads, be more invested in coffee and have larger farms than non-side sellers, among other characteristics. Farmers who only sell to non-cooperative buyers are poorer and less invested in coffee than non-side sellers.

Additional research is needed to better understand why side-selling behavior differs between groups and to better understand how household head gender influences side selling. In addition, this study lacks qualitative data supporting quantitative findings. Future research should include qualitative methods to better understand motivations for side-selling behavior.

The study provides important information on what influences cooperative member side selling and focuses on specific types of side-selling behavior that have been largely overlooked. The study focuses on the role of household head gender in side selling, which is important, given the centrality of women to African agriculture.

In this chapter, we report findings from a three-year, survey- and interview-based study involving 538 families bringing up children with disabilities in Alberta, Canada. The focus of the study was on the everyday challenge and accomplishment of sustaining a routine of daily life. The families who participated in this study were diverse, yet they struggled with many of the same questions and challenges. Four over-arching and inter-related challenges emerged from our analysis of the interview data. These are difficulty balancing the competing needs and wants of their children; tension between wanting to protect and wanting to integrate their child and family into the community; conflict between earning and care giving activities; and, trouble accessing and navigating supports and services. This chapter includes a small sample of illustrative family stories. The study findings suggest that parents are striving but struggle to meet normative expectations, that is, to simultaneously do all they can to help their disabled child and create a routine that balances the needs and interests of all their children. One conclusion is that service systems and professionals can help and or hinder families as they strive to create and maintain a daily routine that is fitted to the local ecology and family resource-base, and congruent with their values and goals, and with the needs, interests, and competencies of family members.

Belkin and Robertson (1976a) reflected on the ethical implications of theoretical research in information science and warned that there was potential for abuse of knowledge gained by undertaking such research and applying it to information systems. In particular, they identified the domains of advertising and political propaganda that posed particular problems. The purpose of this literature review is to revisit these ideas in the light of recent events in global information systems that demonstrate that their fears were justified.

The authors revisit the theory in information science that Belkin and Robertson used to build their argument, together with the discussion on ethics that resulted from this work in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The authors then review recent literature in the field of information systems, specifically information retrieval, social media and recommendation systems that highlight the problems identified by Belkin and Robertson.

Information science theories have been used in conjunction with empirical evidence gathered from user interactions that have been detrimental to both individuals and society. It is argued in the paper that the information science and systems communities should find ways to return control to the user wherever possible, and the ways to achieve this are considered.

The ethical issues identified require a multidisciplinary approach with research in information science, computer science, information systems, business, sociology, psychology, journalism, government and politics, etc. required. This is too large a scope to deal with in a literature review, and we focus only on the design and implementation of information systems (Zimmer, 2008a) through an information science and information systems perspective.

The authors argue that information systems such as search technologies, social media applications and recommendation systems should be designed with the recipient of the information in mind (Paisley and Parker, 1965), not the sender of that information.

Information systems designed ethically and with users in mind will go some way to addressing the ill effects typified by the problems for individuals and society evident in global information systems.

The authors synthesize the evidence from the literature to provide potential technological solutions to the ethical issues identified, with a set of recommendations to information systems designers and implementers.