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This paper aims to explore challenges and opportunities of shifting from physical to virtual employment support delivery prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic. It investigates associated changes in the nature and balance of support and implications for beneficiary engagement with programmes and job search.

The study draws on longitudinal interviews conducted with beneficiaries and delivery providers from a neighbourhood-based employment support initiative in an English region with a strong manufacturing heritage between 2019 and 2021. The initiative established prior to the Covid-19 pandemic involved a strong physical presence locally but switched to virtual delivery during Covid-19 lockdowns.

Moving long-term to an entirely virtual model would likely benefit some beneficiaries closer to or already in employment. Conversely, others, particularly lone parents, those further from employment, some older people and those without computer/Internet access and/or digital skills are likely to struggle to navigate virtual systems. The study emphasises the importance of blending the benefits of virtual delivery with aspects of place-based physical support.

Previous studies of neighbourhood-based employment policies indicate the benefits of localised face-to-face support for transforming communities. These were conducted prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and the more widespread growth of virtual employment support. This study fills a gap regarding understanding the challenges and opportunities for different groups of beneficiaries when opportunities for physical encounters decline abruptly and support moves virtually.

The purpose of this paper is to engage with the theme of activation policies and organisational innovation in the capability perspective, from the viewpoint of active labour market policies in the UK.

The focus of the article is the City Strategy initiative in Great Britain, which encourages institutions to work together to develop solutions to concentrations of worklessness. The article presents findings from a case study of the introduction of the City Strategy in one English sub‐region: Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country. The empirical investigation is based on analysis of documentary evidence including strategy papers and “grey literature” such as minutes of meetings and internal briefings. In addition, the case study draws on in‐depth qualitative interviews conducted with 18 local actors involved in the City Strategy.

The empirical investigation provides selected evidence of successful public action undertaken through the City Strategy. It discusses issues concerning the benefits of partnership working and inter‐agency cooperation, but also limits that are reached.

The paper identifies elements of the capabilities approach – the idea of situated public action, the importance of local actors, and key concepts of empowerment and voice – as providing a helpful framework for analysis. While the City Strategy represents an interesting example of situated public action to tackle worklessness, it can be argued that what is missing in this instance is what the capabilities approach identifies as key elements of empowerment and voice for local actors.

This paper aims to serve as an introduction to the scholarly study of L.M. Montgomery through a selection of annotated resources.

Items were located using library catalogs, databases, academic reviews, bibliographies, and online searches. Items were evaluated through inspection and consulting academic reviews.

The body of academic resources and scholarship on Montgomery studies continues to expand. Resources can be found in the form of print bibliographies, biographies, databases, collected essays, edited papers, monographs, periodicals, reference works, and web resources.

While other bibliographic lists of works by or about L.M. Montgomery exist, this resource guide provides a starting point for the scholarly study of Montgomery through a selective introduction and explanation of key secondary sources. This guide may also serve as a tool for building academic library collections.

This study aims to explore the moderation effect of environment uncertainties (supply, competition and demand) in the relationship between a firm’s drivers (internal and external) and practices (purchasing, design and manufacturing, logistics and internal management) when going green.

The questionnaire survey was utilized in this study. The survey was distributed to 981 electronic manufacturing companies, with 174 valid responses collected (a response rate of 17.74 per cent). Confirmatory factor analysis and regression models were then conducted to test the result.

The result indicates that both the internal and external drivers have significant influence on the adoption of green-related practices when firms go green. It is further confirmed that the practice of green purchasing is significantly influenced by the moderator of environmental uncertainty. Moreover, supply uncertainty has the most significant influence on numerous green practices, such as green purchasing, internal management and green logistics.

This paper measures the drivers, practices and environmental uncertainty of firms going green from multiple perspectives. It provides guidance to practitioners on how to choose appropriate practices in accordance with the uncertainties they are facing.

Researchers of the history of women teachers have included fiction, as well as memoirs and history, as an important part of that testimony. The aim of this article is to examine the novel, Anne of Avonlea (1925) by Lucy Maude Montgomery as both a source of information about the working life of a woman teacher and, due to the immense popularity of the book, as a shaper of how women understand and enact teaching. Anne is a young teacher in her first posting consisting of a rural Canadian one‐ teacher school. She struggles to resist using corporal punishment in favour of winning her students respect, stimulating their minds and finding a ‘genius’. However, the local community, fellow teachers and her students have different notions of how teachers should behave. Her beliefs are further undermined when in a fit of anger she succumbs to beating one her students. Her reflections on what drove her actions are realistic and contain warnings for contemporary teachers to appreciate the often fragile hold they have on their espoused educational philosophy. Another danger revealed is the unconscious leaking of the shadow side of the psyche in the necessary close but dangerous relationships between students and teacher thereby providing a complex view of what motivates young women to teach and how they approach their work.

This paper aims to identify industry drivers and priorities that influence decision-making towards adopting environmentally sustainable (ES) features in stadiums. An “Environmentally Sustainable Stadium (ESS) Process Model” is proposed to track ES features throughout their life cycle, guiding planning, designing, construction, operation and management.

Data were collected through 20 online semi-structured interviews with experts from sustainability, built environment, stadium management, mega-event planning and management and researchers. The experts’ project experiences spanned across Oceania, North America, South America, Asia and Europe. The data were recorded and transcribed through Teams and analysed using NVivo 11 application software.

Stadium’s ES features predominantly focus on energy, waste and materials management with some emphasis on carbon emission reductions and renewable energy sources. Emerging focus areas include flexible designs, audience (or fans) and community engagement, circular economy principles and integration with nature. Key drivers for adopting ES features include legislation and other sector-based requirements, competitive advantages and stakeholder pressures. ES feature success depends on owner support, budget, partnerships, expertise and opportunities. Major barriers include stakeholder diversity, infrastructure limitations and limited stadium-specific requirements.

This paper proposes a six-step “ESS Process Model” to support the stadium industry to holistically integrate ES features, from the initial decision-making to the implementation, ongoing improvement and stakeholder engagement. The model helps stakeholders to identify opportunities, navigate challenges and achieve continual improvement.

The ESS process model is a novel approach to integrate ES features in stadiums, through enhancing collaboration among stakeholders and overcoming challenges in choosing, implementing and maintaining ES features.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The purpose of this paper is to examine user perceptions toward consumer-facing words used by fashion brands to stimulate sustainable consumption and post consumption behavior.

A self-completion, survey based matching exercise was administered to 100 active fashion-shoppers in Hong Kong aged between 18 and 35 years old. A probability sampling method was used for on-street intercepts to ensure a random selection within the defined population. This was accompanied by 20 individual ethnographic interviews.

A lack of understanding and comprehension of key green language terminology used frequently in user facing communications is problematic for fashion brand marketers as the impact of their messages is often unclear, distributed and more likely to lead to user frustration rather than positive engaged consumer decision making and action. Further, there is an emerging indication that this approach is highly unlikely to enhance knowledge, engagement and action or to influence brand loyalty.

Data were collected in Hong Kong and is culturally bounded, so while providing a good indication of the findings in situ this can also be replicated in other locations.

Recommended outcomes from the findings suggest that brand messages should be delivered that are intended to stimulate sustainability behaviors that are core to one key brand theme so that user outcome decision making and actions fit with the core brand values. This suggested approach will have a greater likelihood of leading to brand trust, responsible business action and greater clarity about the issue of sustainability and related action to be taken on behalf of the user.

The paper raises concerns about the effectiveness and outcomes of fashion brand marketing communications and findings provide insights into the confusion of understanding and the rise in frustration among targeted fashion shoppers 18-35 years, despite the use of frequently used words in brand communications to promote sustainable fashion consumption behaviors.

This chapter outlines a unique collaboration between industry, academia and education to embed sustainability across the hairdressing sector. The chapter is in two parts with the first part written by Dr Denise Baden from the academic perspective. Dr Baden begins by outlining why the hairdressing sector is especially important to engage with respect to sustainability. Three projects run by the Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, and funded by the Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC) are then described. Lynda Whitehorn then expands upon the context of hairdressing practice, training and education from the perspective of Vocational Training Charitable Trust (VTCT) – a specialist awarding organisation which offers vocational and technical qualifications in a variety of service sectors, including hairdressing and barbering. In the process, we show how the collaboration between academia, industry and education enabled sustainable practice to become embedded across the sector.

The current pilot study explored food insecurity, food waste, food related behaviours and cooking confidence of UK consumers following the COVID-19 lockdown.

Data were collected from 473 UK-based consumers (63% female) in March 2020. A cross-sectional online survey measured variables including food insecurity prevalence, self-reported food waste, food management behaviours, confidence and frequency of use of a range of cooking methods, type of food eaten (ultra-processed, semi-finished, unprocessed) and packaging type foods are purchased in.

39% of participants have experienced some food insecurity in the last 12 months. Being younger, having a greater BMI and living in a smaller household were associated with food insecurity. Green leaves, carrots, potatoes and sliced bread are the most wasted of purchased foods. Polenta, green leaves and white rice are the most wasted cooked foods. Food secure participants reported wasting a smaller percentage of purchased and cooked foods compared to food insecure participants. Overall, participants were most confident about boiling, microwaving and stir-frying and least confident with using a pressure cooker or sous vide. Food secure participants were more confident with boiling, stir-frying, grilling and roasting than insecure food participants.

This has implications for post lockdown policy, including food policies and guidance for public-facing communications.

We identified novel differences in self-report food waste behaviours and cooking confidence between the food secure and insecure consumers and observed demographics associated with food insecurity.