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This paper aims to give the educator's perspective on developing learning and teaching activities within the virtual world Second Life (SL). The purpose of the research was to develop an understanding of the pedagogical issues involved, to introduce avatar‐based marketing into the marketing curriculum, and to evaluate the potential for this new technology to enhance student learning.

The issues educators need to address in setting up such activities are considered, including context, design and pedagogical issues. It was decided to take an experiential learning approach following exploratory research. A mixed methods approach allowed the collection of quantitative data to profile the cohort and qualitative data to provide rich data of both the student and educators experience.

There is a steep learning curve for educators developing such courses particularly as subject specialists rather than computing specialists. Students developed new skills, used knowledge from the wider module and gained a wider perspective of the potential of e‐marketing as a whole.

Experiential learning linked to reflective practice is one way in which learning and teaching in virtual worlds can be integrated into the marketing curriculum. The growth in teenage virtual worlds means the future intake of students may demand new styles of learning and teaching. There was a limited period in which to collect data.

This paper provides original research on developing and evaluating learning and teaching in SL within the marketing curriculum and addresses a gap in the literature on managing large groups in such environments.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the contributions presented in this special section on the selfie phenomenon and its significance for marketing practice and scholarship.

The significance of the topic is reviewed and themes related to the selfie phenomenon and marketplace issues are discussed in connection with extant research. The contributions of each paper are briefly highlighted and discussed.

Although the selfie is a relatively new phenomenon, both marketing practice and scholarship have noticed its prominence in consumer lives and potential for generating marketplace insights. Despite its frequently presumed triviality, the selfie is a multifaceted phenomenon of significance to key marketing areas such as branding, consumer behavior or market research. Possible avenues for future research are outlined.

Key issues relating to research into the selfie phenomenon for marketing scholars are illuminated.

This paper aims to explore if health professionals share understanding of teamwork that supports collaborative ward rounds.

A purpose-designed survey was conducted in two acute medical and two rehabilitation wards from a metropolitan teaching hospital. Medical officers, nurses and allied health professionals participated. To understand characteristics that support collaborative ward rounds, questions developed from literature and industry experience asked: what are the enablers and challenges to teamwork; and what are clinicians’ experiences of positive teamwork? Descriptive and thematic analyses were applied to the dimensions of effective teamwork as a framework for deductive coding.

Seventy-seven clinicians participated (93% response rate). Findings aligned with dimensions of teamwork framework. There was no meaningful difference between clinicians or specialty. Enablers to teamwork were: effective communication, shared understanding of patient goals, and colleague’s roles. Challenges were ineffective communication, individual personalities, lack of understanding about roles and responsibilities, and organisational structure. Additional challenges included: time; uncoordinated treatment planning; and leadership. Positive teamwork was influenced by leadership and team dynamics.

Ward rounds benefit from a foundation of collaborative teamwork. Different dimensions of teamwork present during ward rounds support clinicians’ shared understanding of roles, expectations and communication.

Rounds such as structured rounding, aim to improve teamwork. Inverting this concept to first develop effective collaboration will support team adaptability and resilience. This enables teams to transition between the multiple rounding processes undertaken in a single ward. The emphasis becomes high-quality teamwork rather than a single rounding process.

This paper aims to conceptualize and characterize service ecosystems, addressing calls for research on this important and under-researched topic.

The authors draw on four meta-theoretical foundations of S-D logic – resource integration, resource density, practices and institutions – providing a new integrated conceptual framework of ecosystem well-being. They then apply this conceptualization in the context of a complex healthcare setting, exploring the characteristics of ecosystem well-being at the meso level.

This study provides an integrated conceptual framework to explicate the nature and structure of well-being in a complex service ecosystem; identifies six key characteristics of ecosystem well-being; illustrates service ecosystem well-being in a specific healthcare context, zooming in on the meso level of the ecosystem and noting the importance of embedding a shared worldview; provides practical guidance for managers and policy makers about how to manage complex service ecosystems in their quest for improving service outcomes; and offers an insightful research agenda.

This research focuses on service ecosystems with an illustration in one healthcare context, suggesting additional studies that explore other industry contexts.

Practically, the study indicates the imperative for managing across mutually adapting levels of the ecosystem, identifying specific new practices that can improve service outcomes.

Examining well-being in the context of a complex service ecosystem is critical for policymakers charged with difficult decisions about balancing the demands of different levels and actors in a systemic world.

The study is the first to conceptualize and characterize well-being in a service ecosystem, providing unique insights and identifying six specific characteristics of well-being.

Tests the feasibility of an outreach clinical librarian service in an acute hospital setting, providing quality filtered research evidence at the point of clinical need. The design was based on a six‐month pilot with professional librarians attending clinical meetings responding to information needs raised there by providing appraised summaries of the published evidence, with full text and bibliographic material as appropriate. The main outcomes were usage statistics and clinicians’ evaluation via a 23‐question questionnaire completed each month seeking overall views of the service. Practical issues regarding the provision of the service were tested. Concludes that an outreach information service in the clinical setting can meet the clinical governance agenda of the Trust by supporting evidence‐based practice, teaching and learning and continuing professional development. Earlier models of service are adapted to make the service cost‐effective.

Methodological traditions are like any other social phenomena. They are made by people working together, criticizing one another, and borrowing from other traditions. They are living social things, not abstract categories in a single system.– Andrew Abbott (2004, p. 15)

Hospitals are constantly redeveloping to improve functioning and modernise the delivery of safe and high-quality care. In Australia, it is expected that different stakeholders have the opportunity to contribute to the design and planning of hospital redevelopment projects. The purpose of this study is to examine the potential for misalignment between policy (“work as imagined”) and staff experiences of a hospital redevelopment (“work as done”).

A case study of a large Australian hospital in a capital city undergoing redevelopment. Forty-six semi-structured interviews were conducted with hospital staff. Staff experiences were identified in corroboration with additional data: key-informant discussions with members of the hospital executive; document analysis (e.g. hospital and government documents) and survey responses about experiences of the hospital redevelopment.

A disjuncture was identified between policy and the experiences of hospital staff. Over one in every three (36.0%) staff felt uninformed about the redevelopment and 79.4% were not involved in decisions throughout the process of design and redevelopment, which contradicted the procedure laid out in policy for hospital development.

Despite the seemingly “good news story” of allocating billions of dollars to redeveloping and modernising health services in Australia, the experiences of staff on the front lines suggest a lack of consultation. Rectifying these concerns may be integral to avoid fragmentation during the challenging circumstances of hospital redevelopment.

This study is a follow‐up to a previously published paper, by Ball et al. in 2004. The purpose of the study was to examine the factors that influenced the discharge outcomes and duration of stay over the three years since the introduction of the National Framework for Continuing Health Care (CHC) provision in October 2007.

This study examined consecutive dementia patients (n=175) admitted to an organic elderly mental health assessment ward over a three‐year period between January 2008 and December 2010. The majority of patients in the study had vascular dementia (34 per cent) or Alzheimer's disease (31 per cent) with an average score of 11.5 in the Mini‐Mental State Examination. The assessment tools used in this study were good indicators as part of the dementia care pathway to predict the rehabilitation outcome.

The mean duration of stay of patients was 8.4 weeks but this was extended to 18.3 weeks for the 15 per cent of patients subject to CHC funding. Patients who require CHC funding can expect to stay in hospital for more than ten weeks before a placement is made. Duration of stay was longer for those patients with behavioural and psychological complications, but the strongest independent predictor of duration of stay was CHC funding which accounted for 23 per cent of the duration of stay in hospital, independently of any clinical parameters in the patient.

This study provides evidence of the effect of current funding procedures in the discharge of inpatients with dementia from an assessment ward.

This paper aims to explore the unintentional formation of internal functional barriers, (organisational silos) during moves towards departmental efficiency, within an acute trust, and the subsequent effects on the discharge process in elderly patients.

This paper presents some of the findings from a qualitative study examining the role of the nurse in the discharge process. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with a purposively selected cohesive sample of 28 registered nurses, from the medical and elderly care wards in an NHS Acute Trust. The interviews were taped, transcribed and their content analysed.

The problems associated with patient discharge were frequently operational. Each part of the process was hindered, often inadvertently, by attempts on the part of individuals, departments and services to make themselves efficient, without regard for the resulting organisational consequences. This left the ward nurses attempting to overcome the obstacles in an attempt to effectively discharge patients, within a required period of time.

It is recognised that, the perceptions of those not participating in the study may have been different to those who did participate. As a small study in one trust the results may not be generalisable.

It is imperative that evaluation of operational changes is undertaken, with particular regard to the consequences of change, for other services, patients and clients.

This type of study can provide a method of diagnosing organisational problems, especially in areas that are reliant on inter‐professional and departmental collaboration