Search results

To clarify the core characteristics of Nordic activation policies in the context of typologies of European activation governance.

The paper analyses activation governance in the light of the basic values and beliefs behind the formation of the Nordic social protection systems in the mid‐20th century. Recent model‐building efforts see the Nordic countries as being close to a “universalistic” and egalitarian type of activation policy that does not systematically submit citizens to work requirements. The authors ask whether this model captures the actual scope and contents of Nordic activation governance.

The Nordic countries‐based relatively generous income security systems on a strong work ethic and ambitions to maximise labour market participation of the working‐age population. Citizens's rights to income security were generally linked to the fulfilment of work requirements. Although this active governance of unemployed citizens eroded in the 1970s and 1980s all the Nordic countries revived it after 1990. Largely reflecting the dual structure of the income protection system, Nordic active approaches to activation are not egalitarian.

Nordic countries are currently implementing major administrative reforms in social protection, possibly creating more unified and egalitarian governance of activation. Future research needs to assess the impact of these reforms.

The article presents an analysis of activation policies that so far has been missing from comparative research and that will be of particular value for non‐Nordic readers who may have received a biased view of Nordic activation policies.

This editorial aims to introduce the first of a set of two special issues on New modes of governance in activation policies.

The article explores the concept of governance, distinguishing a broad and more narrow use of the concept. Then, it argues that issues of governance should be an integral part of studies of welfare state transformations. Not in the last instance, because governance reforms do have an impact on the content of social policies and social services such as activation. The article continues by discussing three models of the provision of social services.

The article states that the development of the modes of governance in activation in various countries reveals that a mix of service provision models is being used.

The article introduces the articles of the special issue.

In Sweden, the care of older people and people with disabilities is increasingly carried out by informal carers, often family members, who are unpaid and outside a professional or formal framework. While there is an increasing awareness of the role of carers within service systems and their own needs for support, their involvement in research is underexplored. The purpose of this paper is to explore carers’ views and experiences of involvement in research and development (R&D) work.

A qualitative study was conducted, consisting of 12 individual interviews with carers from different local Swedish carer organizations.

Core findings included carers’ discussions of the perceived challenges and benefits of their involvement in research, both generally and more specifically, in the context of their involvement in the development of a national carer strategy.

Limitations included the relative lack of male carer participants and the convenience sample.

Authentic carer involvement in research demands a high level of engagement from researchers during the entire research process. The provided CRAC framework, with reference to the themes community, reciprocity, advocacy and circumstantiality, may help researchers to understand and interpret carer involvement in research and provide the prerequisites for their involvement.

There is a dearth of studies that systematically examine carer involvement in research. This paper attempts to redress this gap by providing a nuanced analysis of carer involvement in R&D work from the perspective of carers themselves.

This chapter explains and discusses the role and potential of psychophysiological tools of research in tourism and hospitality. As tourism and hospitality services are in general inseparable, i.e. the delivery and the consumption of the service mostly take place at the same time, they tend to involve service encounters which intense and frequent contact and social interactions between the customers and the service providers. These intense and frequent contact and social interactions during service encounters may determine the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the customers. Hence, the measurement of actual emotions to understand the reactions of customers to various aspects of the service is of paramount importance. Psychophysiological tools, often referred to as neuromarketing tools, allow the collection of realistic data regarding the emotions of the customers. Based on the above background, this chapter explains and discusses the use of tools such as the EEG, Eye Tracker, Galvanic Skin Response, and Facial Expression Recognition in understanding tourism and hospitality customers' reactions and emotions to various aspects of the service.

Media reporting is one of many circumstances that nursing homes have to relate to, because of the reputational risks. The aim of this article is to investigate media representations of Swedish nursing homes in relation to reports on an annual national user survey.

The empirical data consist of 381 Swedish newspaper articles about the survey results. The questions guiding the analysis were: what messages on nursing homes are communicated, and how are claims organized in order to appear factual?

The data show that press reports focus on comparisons of care units' survey results, eldercare representatives' explanations of the results, and what improvements will be made in order to do better in the next year's survey. With their use of truth-making rhetoric, press articles construct survey results as credible and valid, thus mirroring user perceptions and ultimately nursing home quality. The selection of nursing home representatives' comments equally reinforces the validity of claims.

Given nursing homes' problems with demonstrating success, the authors argue that media reports on the user survey is a way for eldercare organizations to achieve results in an otherwise resultless field, and while media reports might be seen as prompting change in nursing home care, what is ultimately achieved is the legitimation of a costly survey with low response rate.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the intercompetitor relationships response to the contextual developments, the interaction processes between participants and the relationship nature and outcomes.

A model to study intercompetitor strategic alliances, within the theoretical realm of business relationships and industrial networks, is proposed. Methodological challenges related to this phenomenon are put forward and manners to overcome them are suggested.

The proposed model encompasses four components: interaction context, relationship nature, interaction processes and relationship outcomes. The specificities of intercompetitor interaction are considered, leading to the inclusion of the relationship nature’s dimension that tackles the coopetition character of such relationships. Further, since the relational aspects of the relationship are highlighted, in relation to the economic exchanges’ characteristic of vertical relationships, it is expected, in the horizontal business interactions, that coordination processes prevail over adaptation processes.

Strategic alliances established between competitors are a growing phenomenon that may entail many benefits to those involved in these relationships. Still, business interactions between competitors are not sufficiently investigated and conceptualized. It is argued that an enlarged view of intercompetitor relationships is attained by using a dyadic and network perspective.

The export entry behaviour of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is a complex behaviour that requires specific tools for a holistic investigation. Thus far, there are inconclusive findings in the literature on key predictors of export behaviour, which may be explained by methodological limitations. In this chapter, using a novel fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis for its ability to capture complex causality, the authors study the impact of managerial attributes and collaborative behaviours on SMEs’ export propensity. The analysis is based on a sample of 80 SMEs operating in the emerging country context of Turkey. Participants were selected using a non-probability sampling approach. For export propensity, it is found that no single driver is sufficient to facilitate SMEs’ export entry. Rather, a combination of managerial attributes including export knowledge, international orientation, entrepreneurial orientation and export perception is more likely to lead to export entry. Alternatively, the lack of some of these attributes could be offset by the presence of collaborative activities. Specifically, the shortage of export knowledge, international orientation and entrepreneurial orientation at any rate could be mitigated by collaborative activities. These findings hold important implications for SMEs and export promotion organisations in similar emerging contexts.

The purpose of this study is to examine the stadiums in Turkey within the scope of sustainability and evaluate their impact on sustainable urban development.

In the study, at first, the “Sustainable Stadium Assessment Tool”, where the final score ranges from 0 to 100 and the evaluation is made as bronze, silver, gold and platinum according to the score ranges, is developed. With this assessment tool, a total of 20 stadiums built or renovated/restored between 2008 and 2018 in Turkey is examined in social, environmental, economic dimensions within the scope of sustainability, and the current situation is revealed within the frame of sustainable urban development.

As a result of the study, it was determined that among the stadiums evaluated, only two stadiums have sustainability properties at platinum level, three stadiums at gold level while the remaining stadiums mainly at silver level.

To date, no assessment tool has been created in the field of sports management that can assess the sustainable properties of stadiums. Therefore, the “Sustainable Stadium Assessment Tool” created within the scope of the study is the foremost in the field of sports sciences and sports management with its different qualities in national and international terms. In addition, the examination of the stadiums in the social, environmental, economic dimensions within the scope of sustainability and revealed the current situation is also the first, and it contains information that will make very significant scientific contributions to the relevant field.

Purpose: The aim is to explore how family relations are affected by societal changes in relation to informal and formal caregiving and self-determination of older adults.

Design/methodology/approach: Care managers (CMs)/social workers (SWs) (N = 124) participated in a comparative vignette study including Japan, South Korea, and Sweden. Systems theory was used.

Findings: Japanese CMs/SWs clearly describe their efforts to create networks in a relational way between formal and informal actors in the community. South Korean CMs/SWs balance between suggesting interventions to support daily life at home or a move to a nursing home, often acknowledging the family as the main caregiver. In Sweden, CMs/SWs highlight the juridical element in meeting the older adult and the interventions offered, and families primarily give social support. Regarding self-determination, the Japanese priority is for CMs/SWs to harmonize within the family and the community. South Korean CMs/SWs express ambivalent attitudes to older adults’ capability for self-determination in the intersection between formal and family care. Swedish CMs/SWs adhere to the older adult’s self-determination, while acknowledging the role of the family in persuading the older adult to accept interventions. The results suggest emerging defamilialization in South Korea, while tendencies to refamilialization are noticed in Japan and Sweden, albeit in different ways.

Research limitations/implications: In translation, nuances may be lost. A focus on changing families shows that country-specific details in care services have been reduced. For future research, perspectives of “care” need to be studied on different levels.

Originality/value: Using one vignette in three countries with different welfare regimes, discussing changing views on families’, communities’ and societal caregiving is unique. This captures changes in policy, influencing re- and defamilialization.