Claire Powell, Karen Ciclitira and Lisa Marzano
Imprisoned mothers are at increased risk for poor psychological health and psychological distress when separated from their children, so staff need to be highly skilled to support…
Abstract
Purpose
Imprisoned mothers are at increased risk for poor psychological health and psychological distress when separated from their children, so staff need to be highly skilled to support the women. However, there is a paucity of research focusing on staff experiences around sensitive issues such as mother–child separation. This study aims to understand the challenges faced by staff and how these might be addressed.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative interview study explored the views and experiences of 24 prison-based staff in England working with female prisoners separated from their infants.
Findings
Staff emphasised the challenges of working with separated mothers, specifically the emotional impact of this work, and the impact of the wider criminal justice system on their sense of agency.
Originality/value
A focus on the experience of separation highlights the broader problem of incarcerating women in general. Reducing the number of mother–child separations would mitigate the impact on both women and staff.
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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how designers attempt to engage audiences through different media in TV idents; and to explore how the human mark (such as drawing and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how designers attempt to engage audiences through different media in TV idents; and to explore how the human mark (such as drawing and model making) in a hybrid with digital media can not only revitalise traditions in design, but also the reception of illusion in this context.
Design/methodology/approach
The study focuses on the work of RedBee Media, a company that has a global market and reputation. The phenomenology of how BBC Three and BBC 2 Christmas were rebranded was examined through interviews with the designers and animators involved. Taking a media industry studies lens to examine an art/technology divide the author will expand the visual culture theory of Manovich’s (2007) metamedium.
Findings
The influence of technology on television graphic design is contested and continual. Designers might begin to question rather than rely on technology through the process of design. They can confront generic software solutions and apply more critical skills to explore fusions of heritage and digital processes in a metamedium.
Research limitations/implications
This research was focused on a UK broadcaster and a single UK creative agency with a global influence. Future research should examine leading creative practice in other international markets.
Practical implications
The significance of this research is in understanding the materiality and creativity in the artform of TV idents and how designers attempt to engage audiences through different media.
Originality/value
Academics in media and design history are acknowledging the cultural significance of television branding. Design practitioners need to understand why and how in the work of others.
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Milena Stateva, Jacqueline Minton, Celia Beckett, Moira Doolan, Tamsin Ford, Angeliki Kallitsoglou and Stephen Scott
The Helping Children Achieve study is a randomised controlled trial designed to test the effectiveness of parenting interventions for children at risk of anti‐social behaviour…
Abstract
Purpose
The Helping Children Achieve study is a randomised controlled trial designed to test the effectiveness of parenting interventions for children at risk of anti‐social behaviour. The paper aims to examine the challenges in recruitment to the HCA trial.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is on‐going and is being conducted at two sites: an inner city London borough and a city in the South West of England. In total, 395 participants consented to participate in the trial; 325 were assessed at baseline and 215 met the criteria and agreed to take part. Recruitment used population screens and referrals.
Findings
The screening procedure was more labour intensive but attracted greater numbers, including many parents who might not otherwise have sought help and included many families from disadvantaged backgrounds. The referrals included those with more serious problems and a higher proportion engaged with the service. Recruitment rates were lower in the London site due to ineligibility and greater difficulty in accessing schools. Retention in the two areas was similar.
Originality/value
The study provides data on recruitment challenges and lessons learned that could help formulate future policy regarding service delivery. Also of value is the finding that it is possible to conduct population screens in very deprived, multi‐ethnic areas and to get high rates of return.
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The Dispersions and Pigments Division of BASF United Kingdom Ltd, 4 Fitzroy Sq, London W1P 6ER, announce two new resins for coating formulations.
Martin Powell and Claire Hilton
The purpose of this study is to draw on multiple streams analysis (MSA) and to investigate how policy change emerged from two inquiries into allegations of abusive hospital care…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to draw on multiple streams analysis (MSA) and to investigate how policy change emerged from two inquiries into allegations of abusive hospital care in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in the United Kingdom (UK) in the 1960s.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology of this study is regarding a historical case study of two inquiries.
Findings
The Sans Everything and Ely inquiries had the same legal standing and terms of reference, but the second put psychiatric hospital reform on the agenda, while the first did not. The main factor making Ely rather than Sans Everything the turning point seems to have been concerned with “agency”, linked with a few key individuals.
Research limitations/implications
A study of 1960s event necessarily relies heavily on documentary and archival sources, and cannot draw on interviews which are an important ingredient of many case studies.
Originality/value
The originality of the study is to examines inquiries, which have been largely neglected in MSA, despite their obvious potential role in placing issues on the agenda. Previous studies of MSA have devoted little attention to the ability of the media to provide the focus on “focusing events”.
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Katri Kauppi and Claire Hannibal
Firms are increasingly held accountable for the welfare of workers across entire supply chains and so it is surprising that standard forms of governance for socially sustainable…
Abstract
Purpose
Firms are increasingly held accountable for the welfare of workers across entire supply chains and so it is surprising that standard forms of governance for socially sustainable supply chain management have not yet emerged. Assessment initiatives have begun to develop as a proxy measure of social sustainable supply chain management. This research aims to examine how social sustainability assessment initiatives instigate and use institutional pressures to drive third-party accreditation as the legitimate means of demonstrating social sustainability in a global supply chain.
Design/methodology/approach
Ten assessment initiatives focused on assuring social sustainability across supply chains are examined. Data are collected through interviews with senior managers and publicly available secondary material.
Findings
The findings show how the social sustainability assessment initiatives act by instigating institutional pressures indirectly rather than directly. Coercive pressures are the most prevalent and are exerted through consumer and compliance requirements. The notion of pressures operating as a chain is proposed, and the recognition that actors within and outside of a supply chain are crucial to the institutionalization of social sustainability is discussed.
Originality/value
Studies on sustainable supply chain management often focus on how companies sense and act upon institutional pressures. To add to the extant body of knowledge, this study focuses on the sources of the pressures and demonstrates how assessment initiatives use coercive, normative and mimetic pressures to drive the adoption of social sustainability assessment in supply chains.
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Professional careers have become more precarious in recent decades. Corporations today engage in downsizing even during profitable times, a practice that impacts workers…
Abstract
Professional careers have become more precarious in recent decades. Corporations today engage in downsizing even during profitable times, a practice that impacts workers throughout the labor force, including those with advanced degrees. Using a case study of women geoscientists in the oil and gas industry, I investigate how the increasing precariousness of professional careers reinforces gender inequality. The compressed cycle of booms and busts in the oil and gas industry permits an investigation into how women fare in precarious professional jobs. Extending gendered organization theory, I argue that three mechanisms are built into professional careers today that enhance women’s vulnerability to layoffs: teamwork, career maps, and networking. I illustrate how these mechanisms disadvantage women with in-depth portraits of three geoscientists who lost their jobs during the recent downturn in oil prices. Their personal narratives, collected over a 3-year period of boom and bust, reveal how a particular multinational corporation is structured in ways that favor the white men who dominate their industry. The rhetoric of diversity obscures the workings of gendered organizations during good times, but when times get tough, management’s decisions about whom to lay off belies the routine practices the reproduce men’s advantages within the industry.
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S'thembile Thusini, Tayana Soukup and Claire Henderson
This paper aims to highlight the factors influencing the conceptualisation of return on investment (ROI) from healthcare quality improvement (QI) programmes.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to highlight the factors influencing the conceptualisation of return on investment (ROI) from healthcare quality improvement (QI) programmes.
Design/methodology/approach
In their previous work, the authors found that the concept of ROI from QI is broad and includes numerous internal and external benefits for organisations. In this paper, the authors developed a framework outlining the factors that influence this conceptualisation of QI-ROI from an institutional theory perspective. The framework is based on the synthesis of their serial studies on the determinants of the concept of ROI from QI. The research was performed from 2020–2023 and involved a global multidisciplinary systematic literature review (N = 68), qualitative interviews (N = 16) and a Delphi study (N = 23). The qualitative and Delphi studies were based on the publicly-funded mental healthcare in UK. Participants included board members, clinical and service directors, as well as QI leaders.
Findings
The authors outline a framework of internal and external institutional forces that influence the conceptualisation of ROI from QI programmes in mental healthcare and similar organisations. Based on these factors, the authors state several conjectures. In doing this, the authors highlight the ambiguities and uncertainties surrounding QI-ROI conceptualisation. These challenge leaders to balance various monetary and non-monetary benefits for organisations and health systems. This explains the broadness of the QI-ROI concept.
Originality/value
The authors developed a framework highlighting the forces underpinning the broad, ambiguous and sometimes uncertain nature of the QI-ROI concept. They raise awareness about dilemmas to be confronted in developing or applying any tool to evaluate the value for money of QI programmes. Specifically, the work highlights the limitations of the ROI methodology as a primary tool in the QI context and the need for a more comprehensive tool.
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This paper aims to examine the practice of sustainability assurance and in particular the content of the assurance reports disseminated in the corporate social responsibility…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the practice of sustainability assurance and in particular the content of the assurance reports disseminated in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. The objective of the research is to study the evolution of the content of the assurance reports of French companies. Have the reports evolved as a result of the standardization and regulation of the audit?
Design/methodology/approach
A longitudinal study has been carried out on French companies publishing CSR reports and their sustainability information has been checked for several years. The sample is composed of 19 listed French companies and 135 assurance reports over a period from 2001 to 2015.
Findings
The results highlight a change in the content of assurance reports according to standardization and regulatory of sustainability auditing. The content evolves from a generic discourse to a normative discourse notably because of the realization of a majority of assurance missions by accounting professionals and the increasing use of ISAE 3000 as well as by the introduction of the Grenelle II Law.
Practical implications
This paper shows how assurance reports have evolved over time in a particular regulatory context of the introduction of a law specific to assurance, Grenelle II Law, using a sample of French companies.
Originality/value
Although some studies have attempted to provide a historical analysis of this practice, no research has focused on longitudinal analysis in a particular context of introduction of a law specific to the assurance mission. The lack in previous literature resides in the lack of longitudinal analysis of assurance reports in the light of the evolution of the normative and regulatory frameworks.