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This study aims to explore how source type can influence organizational assets proposed by source credibility theory (SCT) when paired with matched situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) strategies for accidental, preventable, and victim crises. Crisis communication delivered online provides an invaluable outlet for organizations to disperse information to stakeholders quickly. It has been shown that receivers of this information have motivational assumptions about sources having their own agenda for producing content. Thus, it is important to explore how sources tasked with delivering crisis responses can influence perceptions of the sincerity and credibility of the message.

The researchers conducted a 3 (crisis response: matched accidental, matched preventable, matched victim) × 3 (source type: organization, CEO, The New York Times) online between-subjects experimental design (N = 623).

By identifying how the source disseminating crisis responses influences message perceptions, findings from this study recognize how the crisis response is situated in a greater context. Since perceived sincerity and credibility were found to influence message acceptance and reputation, making intentional decisions that acknowledge both within a crisis communication strategy may benefit both future practice and research applications.

The current study advances understandings afforded by SCCT, along with SCT, by experimentally testing the influence of these variables within crisis responses on outcomes such as account acceptance and organizational reputation.

The primary purpose of this paper is to provide commentary on “Using Behavioural Contracting to Reduce Behaviours that Challenge in a School Setting: Case Studies” (Hawkins et al. 2025; This issue). The secondary purpose is to provide an introduction and overview of token economies and point and level systems to practitioners and stakeholders.

This paper considers the use of token economies or point and level systems alongside behaviour contracts in school settings.

Behaviour contracts can be used successfully to determine how key components of token economies and point and level systems will be implemented. More research is needed on the use of behaviour contracts within token economies.

This review explores the components of token economies, including the selection of target behaviours, reinforcement pairing and the exchange process. It also highlights the flexibility of these systems to incorporate physical or symbolic tokens and reinforcer preferences. Indirect benefits, such as delaying reinforcement and fostering self-control, are discussed alongside practical implementation strategies. Advanced systems, like point and level systems, are examined for their ability to track progress over time, assist self-monitoring and fade interventions as learners progress towards greater independence.

Despite overall reductions in levels of smoking in the UK, rates of offender smoking remain high. In 2016, it was announced that prisons in England and Wales would gradually introduce a smoking ban. The purpose of this paper is to explore offenders’ perceptions around the upcoming smoking ban.

A total of eight focus groups were conducted in four prisons across the North of England. Both smoking and non-smoking offenders participated in the focus groups, and thematic analysis was used to explore the findings.

Themes generated from the data were “freedom and rights”, “the prison environment” and “guiding support”. Participants discussed how the smoking ban was viewed as a punishment and restricted their freedom, with perceptions as to why the ban was being implemented centring around others trying to control them. Participants expressed concerns around the financial implications of the smoking ban on already stretched prison resources. Participants also recommended improving the nicotine replacement therapy on offer, and increasing the range of leisure activities within the prison to prepare for the smoking ban.

Overall, it was apparent that participants’ awareness of the smoking ban was generally poor. It is recommended that offenders need to be made more aware of the smoking cessation support they will receive and given the opportunity to ask questions about the smoking ban. Increasing offenders’ awareness of the ban may reduce stress associated with a perceived lack of choice around their smoking behaviours.

The aim of this paper is to discuss how theories and practitioner-led theorising allow frontline workers to iteratively co-construct solutions that work in the real world.

This paper addresses the authors’ aim by proposing a social care theorising model

This study adopts a socio-ecological and epistemological lens when describing theorising and unpacks what this means when frontline workers adapt their practice and programs to work effectively with individuals and families. As frontline workers move towards a grand theory that determines their overarching theoretical perspectives through which they interpret their “social work” world, leadership, organisational culture and governance become crucial in supporting their use of discretion. This support is mostly manifested as supervision and coaching, and the authors argue here that a “researcher in residence” narrows the barriers to embedding research and evidence into practice. Discretion implies the choice of a practitioner to deliver program components in a way that fits the family, which may not align with rigid program protocols, and this calls in to question how to measure fidelity and compensate for adaptation. Furthermore, it highlights the limitations of some research methods and suggests that rapid data collection and analysis may be useful during this theorising process.

This paper conceptualises how frontline social care workers theorise in their practice, the ways these theories are shaped and suggests an option to narrow the research–practice gap.

There is currently no case study for how clean language interviewing (CLI) might be useful for journalists. This chapter addresses that gap by discussing the value of CLI in journalistic interviews within the scope of a profile story interview. A profile story is akin to a mini biography, usually of a public figure or an interesting personality. This chapter was written drawing on my experience as an award-winning journalist in Malaysia for 20 years.

The chapter first examines the experience of CLI for both the interviewee and the interviewer. It then considers how the experience is similar to or different from other ‘standard’ media interviews both have been involved in. The chapter concludes that CLI is a method of interviewing that exceeds the criteria for what constitutes a good journalistic interview, within the context of a profile interview.

The quality and market viability of international branch campuses (IBCs) depend upon their integration with university headquarters. Recent trends toward localizing branch-campus hiring have raised questions about the extent to which non-parent-campus lecturers will support global integration pursuits. This paper aims to examine IBC lecturers’ orientations towards global integration, exploring how they identify themselves and their campuses as part of their wider universities.

Employing constructivist grounded theory methodology, 37 lecturers and leaders at four Australian branch campuses in Southeast Asia were interviewed, engaging them in semi-structured discussions of their identities and experiences. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using NVivo in an iterative process of theory development.

Branch-campus lecturers interviewed generally construct their individual and campus identities as separate from their wider universities. Barriers to branch campuses’ global integration include low organizational identification of lecturers, challenges in their relationships with headquarters colleagues and perceptions of cross-campus disparities in resources and students. Branch campuses’ organizationally separate identities are enacted in practice, fueling a self-reinforcing “Othering Loop” that could undermine these campuses’ quality and viability.

This research is the first emic exploration of locally-hired branch-campus lecturers’ views toward global integration. These findings provide an important corrective to the existing literature on this topic, challenging assumptions that localizing branch-campus hiring is the primary risk to integration. Multiple points of potential managerial intervention were identified, highlighting opportunities for university leaders to address contextual barriers and improve international branch campuses’ global integration while continuing current trends toward localized hiring.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework based on an understanding of the principles of popular mobile-enabled games, indicating how organisations in the tourism sector could meet the needs of Millennials and Generation Z through engaging with the existing gamified location-based practice of geocaching as an information and communication technology enabled gamified enhancement to the destination experience.

As a primarily conceptual paper, the authors take an inductive qualitative approach to theory building based on the understanding of an existing practice (geocaching) that is undertaken among a community of practitioners (geocachers), which results in the presentation of a conceptual framework, which is the theory itself that the authors have constructed from the understanding of what is going on and which principles can then be applied across other tourism practices.

Findings indicate that through engaging with geocaching, smaller entrepreneurial businesses even in non-urban destinations that fall outside of the remit of smart city developments, and in tourism destinations on the less technologically enabled or resource-rich side of the digital divide, can reap the benefits associated with employing the principles and practices associated with smart tourism to meet the needs of this new generation of tourism consumers who seek richer digital and often gamified tourism experiences.

This paper fills a gap in the literature regarding the way many different types of tourism destinations could meet the needs of Millennials and Generation Z tourists.