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This paper seeks to identify the most effective ways both to recruit and retain social workers. It aims to explore the roles and skills that social workers bring to the provision of social care for adults and to invite a more detailed debate on the particular responsibilities in the field of neurodisability.

The paper draws on successful methods of recruitment and retention of social workers, from the experience of recruiting managers and the perspectives of social workers. It explores the current, in part inconclusive, debates on how best to utilise their practice skills and knowledge. It also invites the contribution of people working in this field to inform a second paper for the journal to address this in more detail in the field of neurodisability.

Despite enduring problems in the supply of capable and skilled social workers and low levels of retention, strong leadership by managers of social work services can take positive steps to ensure the provision of sustainable services and avoid the use of agency staff. These leaders can positively identify and make best use of the specific practice skills and knowledge of social workers, which in itself supports higher levels of retention.

The paper is based on direct experience of achieving high levels of successful recruitment and retention of social workers in times of short supply and a positive analysis of the specific and positive contribution of social workers in adult social care.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the discourse of the leadership of professional and public policy responses to the scandals of the care and treatment at the private Winterbourne View and NHS Calderstones Hospitals which demonstrates the lost learning from earlier attempts to provide humane care for the enduring numbers of people contained in similar settings.

An analysis of the use of general management and managerialism through commissioning, rather than a focus on pro-active self-leadership within professional practice or through collaborative, collegiate or distributed leadership has arguably been responsible for the lack of progress.

The emphasis on direction and action by government ministers, quangos, and managers across the NHS and local government has ignored and stifled the potential for initiative and self-leadership by professionals. This is notable for social work, aggravated by the absence of an engaged professional body for social workers.

This case study addresses the limitations of leadership approaches which focus on policy direction, general management, managerialist and commissioning approaches to the reform and delivery, contrasted with the potential of professionals self-leadership by practitioners.

Generic deficiencies are identified in the theory generation of supply chain management (SCM). There is a crucial and challenging necessity to revise and extend the current theory generation of SCM. There is a need to move from atomistic theory generation towards holistic and cross‐disciplinary theory generation beyond the traditional boundaries of SCM. The holistic theory generation of SCM should consider the dynamics between the point‐of‐origin and the point‐of‐final‐consumption in marketing channels. Furthermore, adequate cross‐disciplinary concepts and frameworks beyond the current theory generation of SCM should be considered, which so far mainly come from economics, engineering, operation management, production management, and logistics. The incorporation of generic marketing concepts and frameworks in the theory generation of SCM contribute to enhance the holistic and cross‐disciplinary theory generation of SCM beyond atomistic considerations, thus eliminating some of the deficiencies of the current theory generation of SCM.

Scanning both the academic and popular business literature of the last 40 years puzzles the alert reader. The variety of prescriptions of how to be successful (effective, performing, etc.) 1 Organizational performance, organizational success and organizational effectiveness will be used interchangeably throughout this paper.1 in business is hardly comprehensible: “Being close to the customer,” Total Quality Management, corporate social responsibility, shareholder value maximization, efficient consumer response, management reward systems or employee involvement programs are but a few of the slogans introduced as means to increase organizational effectiveness. Management scholars have made little effort to integrate the various performance-enhancing strategies or to assess them in an orderly manner.

This study classifies organizational strategies by the importance each strategy attaches to different constituencies in the firm’s environment. A number of researchers divide an organization’s environment into various constituency groups and argue that these groups constitute – as providers and recipients of resources – the basis for organizational survival and well-being. Some theoretical schools argue for the foremost importance of responsiveness to certain constituencies while stakeholder theory calls for a – situation-contingent – balance in these responsiveness levels. Given that maximum responsiveness levels to different groups may be limited by an organization’s resource endowment or even counterbalanced, the need exists for a concurrent assessment of these competing claims by jointly evaluating the effect of the respective behaviors towards constituencies on performance. Thus, this study investigates the competing merits of implementing alternative business philosophies (e.g. balanced versus focused responsiveness to constituencies). Such a concurrent assessment provides a “critical test” of multiple, opposing theories rather than testing the merits of one theory (Carlsmith, Ellsworth & Aronson, 1976).

In the high tolerance level applied for this study (be among the top 80% of the industry) only a handful of organizations managed to sustain such a balanced strategy over the whole observation period. Continuously monitoring stakeholder demands and crafting suitable responsiveness strategies must therefore be a focus of successful business strategies. While such behavior may not be a sufficient explanation for organizational success, it certainly is a necessary one.

This paper seeks to gain an understanding of how different consumer conceptualisations in marketing may lead to negative outcomes. Every profession has its grand vision. The guiding vision for most marketing professionals is customer orientation. Of course, reality is more complex and nuanced than a single unified vision. Organisations tout their consumer-centric marketing decisions, in that they use consumer research to make operational decisions about products, prices, distribution and the like. However, marketers’ treatment of consumers is often far from the customer’s best interests. It is proposed that by understanding the different conceptualisations of the consumer over time, we can explore their implications for putting authentic consumer-centric marketing into practise.

A thematic analysis of marketing thought as reflected in the marketing literature.

This review of the history of marketing thought bears out a diversity of opinions concerning the role of consumers in aiding marketing efficiency and effectiveness. Not all views of the customer are nurturing of the marketing concept nor predicated on a solicitous relationship with consumers. A demonstrable lack of consumer orientation can lead to a distrust of marketers as well as the extant marketing system. Often additional regulation of marketers and markets is a compensating result and sometimes the structure of the marketing system itself may require adjustment.

This paper is intended to nudge marketing academics to more thoughtfully examine the pragmatic implications of how marketing managers conceive of the typical consumer. After conducting a thematic analysis of marketing thought, a normative ethical argument is then put forward concerning why an adherence to this fragile grand vision of marketing – genuine customer concern – is important for prudential marketing and the overall health of the marketing system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the widely‐held belief that marketing holds customers in thrall and persuades them to buy things they otherwise would not.

Rather than adopt a scientific approach to the mesmeric marketing phenomenon, it embraces an artistic perspective, focusing on three crucial cultural “moments” in the emergence of the great manipulator mindset.

Whereas innumerable scientific experiments show that subliminal advertising does not work, except in certain circumstances, the cultural approach demonstrates that subliminals are, in fact, enormously successful. Regardless of scientific evidence to the contrary, most consumers believe that subliminal advertising not only works but is an established marketing practice.

The paper suggests that marketers should place less reliance on the scientific paradigm. Marketing science has its place – a very important place – but not everything can be captured in a simultaneous equation or linear regression model. Cultural components analysis is just as significant as principal components analysis.

Received wisdom concerning subliminal advertising is challenged and creatively reinterpreted from a supra‐science standpoint.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how researchers in the field of arts marketing are gradually abandoning the traditional marketing concept in order to respond to established and emerging modes of audience engagement.

The study is based on a comprehensive content analysis of the past three decades of journal articles related to arts marketing.

The results of the content analysis highlight that a paradigm shift in arts marketing has occurred over the past two decades, from an overriding focus on neoliberal processes of consumption towards a relational, humanistic approach, which aims to enrich audiences and interrogate the wider value and impact of their arts experiences.

The logical conclusion to be derived from this paradigmatic shift is that “arts marketing” is increasingly becoming an outmoded misnomer, which suggests the need for a fundamental reassessment of the traditional arts marketing concept.

In order to develop meaningful relationships with audiences, arts and cultural organisations should prioritise the long-term relational approaches offered by audience engagement over short-term tactical activities such as segmentation and promotion.

The paper advocates a radical reconceptualization of the field that would replace the transactional 4P model with a relational 4E model, derived from an adoption of theories, processes and practices related to the elements of experience, exchange, environment and engagement.