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CSCI's market research revealed that people want their ‘dignity, individuality and privacy’ preserved when using public services. WwOP has previously explored the issue of ‘dignity’ (11.3, June 2007) and, given its emergence as a basic human right within the health and social care agenda, we return to the subject as Elaine Cass discusses the progress being made among social care and health workers to instil ‘dignity’ at the heart of services' cultures.

This paper aims to examine the influence of the culture of the service firm on its interpretation of the role of the brand and on the development and implementation of its brand values.

A grounded theory approach was used. Interviews were conducted with 20 managers within two leading banking firms in Ireland and two leading grocery retailers in Ireland.

The development of the brand, and its role within the firm, is closely related to the firm's culture. The research shows obstacles and opportunities created by the cultural context of firms wishing to disseminate and embed a set of brand values. The paper presents an “involvement model” of brand values implementation and outlines changes required to implement brand values.

The study was bound by access to firms, and managers' availability. The authors sought an insight into the relationship between each firm's culture and its brands. They advocate quantitative research to further investigate the findings within these service sectors and to test proposed antecedents (transformational leadership, employee involvement) and outcomes (employee‐based brand equity and consumer‐based brand equity) of values adoption.

The paper identifies aspects of retail and banking cultures which support or detract from brand development. In particular, it presents the learnings from successful brand values implementation in a clan culture, aspects of which are applicable across other cultures.

The paper provides valuable insights into the role of the brand within the service firm and the positive and negative influence of context on brand values and their development and implementation.

The Report on the Consultation on the Review of No Secrets, published by the Department of Health in 2009 highlighted the need for commissioners to take more responsibility, in partnership with regulators, for safeguarding people who use services. This article aims to focus on resources that support the role of commissioners to maintain or improve the quality of services to reduce the likelihood of abuse, neglect or harm.

The article is based on the content of two SCIE resources. The first looks at all of the monitoring mechanisms a commissioner can draw upon to monitor good quality without overlap with inspectors or overburdening the provider. The second looks at common areas of practice that lead to safeguarding referrals in care homes. Working with a group of 30 practitioners, comprising largely commissioners and providers, a guide to preventing some of the problems that frequently lead to safeguarding referrals from care homes was developed.

The first SCIE product on which the article is based outlines the mechanisms available to care home commissioners that can be utilised to improve safeguarding. The second, based on work with practitioners, highlights some of the issues that frequently lead to safeguarding referrals from care homes. These are often the result of poor quality services and poor practice rather than malicious intent. The work demonstrates that commissioners could improve the quality of residential services through better partnership working and better use of available intelligence to reduce the risk to those in residential care.

There are numerous steps that both commissioners and providers can take to improve the prevention of abuse, neglect and harm towards people in residential care.

The guides highlighted in this article have the potential to improve practice in commissioning and, as a consequence, to provide better quality and safer residential care services.

The value of the paper is to support commissioners to better safeguard people in residential care.

This short briefing aims to discuss Social Care Institute for Excellence's (SCIE's) work in safeguarding adults.

SCIE has produced a research briefing on self‐directed support and personal budgets, and work on restraint, personalisation and risk as well as other projects that promote best practice in adult protection.

Placing the person at the centre of safeguarding processes will support practitioners to move away from “service‐led” procedure‐focused responses.

Together, these resources aim to improve access to up‐to‐date knowledge. This will support the rapid pace of change in safeguarding practice.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role of housing in adult safeguarding under the Care Act (2014) in England.

The paper provides a summary of the implications for housing organisations and their staff of adult safeguarding under the Care Act. The implications, underpinned by the six safeguarding principles, are explained within a summary of the legal and practice framework for safeguarding in England.

The paper draws upon research by Imogen Parry (2014). It argues that past failings in adult safeguarding in England have placed it high on the housing agenda and that housing has a key role to play in adult safeguarding.

Housing organisations need to be proactive partners in local multi-agency arrangements for adult safeguarding. Staff and contractors need to receive training in line with their role to raise awareness of their safeguarding responsibilities.

The value of the paper is to increase and maintain awareness of the need for housing engagement in the adult safeguarding agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between employees' perceptions of a particular subsystem of HRM practices (performance management) and their commitment to the organisation. In addition, the study seeks to examine the mechanisms by which these perceptions translate into employee attitudes and behaviours.

A total of 524 questionnaire responses were collected from four organisations in the UK.

The findings show that the link between employee experiences of high commitment performance management (HCPM) practices and their level of commitment is strongly mediated by related perceptions of organisational justice. In addition, the level of employee trust in the organisation is a significant moderator.

This is a cross‐sectional study based on self‐report data, which limits the reliability of the findings. The findings may also be specific to a particular context. However, the results by company support their generalisability.

The findings lead one to believe that it is essential to observe the actual experiences of HCPM practices and outcomes at employee level, and to consider the broader organisational context, if one is to understand their effects on performance.

When exploring the impact of high commitment work practices on firm performance, little attention has been paid to the employee perspective: employees ultimately are the recipients of an organisation's HRM practices, and as such their perceptions of these practices affect their attitudes and behaviour in the workplace.