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We conducted consumer research with more than 2,000 adults and more than 100 representatives from retirement housing providers from across the UK to identify the “perception gap” and gathered high-profile representatives from across the retirement housing sector to discuss the data.

Our research shows that the public are unsure about the benefits and services provided by retirement housing schemes – often confusing them with care homes and nursing homes to the detriment of the sector.

We identify an untapped referrer market for retirement living, that men should be targeted with entry-level information and people should be targeted before retirement age when perceptions are less “fixed”.

We show the services that matter most to ABC1 demographic and the sources they use to find information.

We outline how the sector can make retirement housing a model of “want” instead of a model of “need”.

The purpose of this paper is to chart a novel approach to customer‐service training at Origin Housing, using forum‐theater techniques in which the trainees can decide where the action goes next.

Explains the background to the program, the form it takes and the results it has achieved.

Reveals that forum theater has two key differences from ordinary theatrical performances. First, the action periodically stops to give the audience the chance to discuss it. And second, a facilitator encourages the audience to speak to the characters in the play during these breaks, enabling them to attempt to influence the characters' behavior and change the outcome of the drama.

Explains that, because the audience watches a play in which characters struggle with the dilemmas of the trainees' everyday working life, they are able to think about and comment on those dilemmas in a free and unthreatening way. They relate closely to the experience of the drama, but without any feelings of exposure and nervousness which participating in a role‐play can bring.

Highlights how such training is helping to ensure that Origin Housing serves its customers better.

Discusses an unusual form of theater training, in which the drama highlights many of the problems that employees encounter in their everyday work.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understandings of how documents are experienced by looking to work in reception studies for methodological examples. Based on a review of research from literary studies, communication studies and museum studies, it identifies existing approaches and challenges. Specifically, it draws attention to problems cited in relation to small-scale user studies and suggests an alternative approach that focusses on how infrastructures influence experience.

This paper presents data collected from over a year of ethnographic work at a cultural archive and exhibition space and analyses the implications of infrastructural features such as institutional organization, database structures and the organization of physical space for making available certain modes of reception.

This research suggests that infrastructure provides a useful perspective on how experiences of documents are influenced by larger systems.

This research was conducted to explore the implications of an alternative research methodology. Based on the ethnographic study presented, it suggests that this approach produces results that warrant further work. However, as it is intended only to be a test case, its scope is limited, and future research following the approach discussed here should more fully engage with specific findings in relation to the experience of documents.

This paper presents an alternative approach to studying the experience of documents that responds to limitations in previous work. The research presented suggests that infrastructures can reveal ways that the experience is shared across contexts, shifting discussions from individuals and objects to technical systems, institutions and social structures.

Over the twentieth century, the relationships between the home and the school have been considered from a number of perspectives. These include social class and children’s education (David, 1993; Halsey et al., 1980; Utting, 1995); the language of the home and school (Bernstein, 1971); involving parents in their children’s learning (David, 1993; Mortimore & Mortimore, 1984; Sylva, 1987; Wolfendale, 1983); parents’ political participation in their children’s education (Ball, 1990; David, 1993; Deem, 1989; Golby, 1989; Macleod, 1989); home-school relations and minority ethnic families (Tomlinson, 1984); gender and home-school issues (David, 1993); family structure and children’s education (Cockett & Tripp, 1994; Utting, 1995); the treatment of family in the school curriculum (Cockett & Tripp, 1994; DfEE, 2000; OFSTED, 2002; Utting, 1995); the role of school in addressing students’ family problems (Cockett & Tripp, 1994; Rodgers & Pryor, 1998); and home-school contracts (Bastiani, 1991; David, 1993; Macbeth, 1989). The range of areas outlined above alone highlights the complexities of the issues surrounding home and school.

This paper aims to examine the lives of early twentieth century opera star Louise Homer and her composer husband Sidney, and their attempts to manage two successful careers and a family of six children. Almost 100 years ago, the Homers – a rare example of a two‐career family – employed several adaptive strategies that academic researchers later suggested for twenty‐first century dual‐career couples.

Considering the work‐family literature, two modern models of managing and coping with the stresses of dual careers were examined and the Homer family were then considered to determine whether they employed similar strategies. Letters were used from the Homers and their children, other original documents and secondary research in investigating the couple's efforts to handle the challenges of dual‐careers when the concept of a woman pursuing a profession outside the home was a novelty.

Several adaptive strategies recently “discovered” to be used by upper‐income dual‐career couples with children seem just as applicable to 1911 when the Homers' fifth child was born. The findings underscore the idea that challenges perceived as unusual and unique to one generation have been dealt with successfully by past generations.

The paper provides an historical perspective on newly suggested strategies for dual‐career couples in the work‐family literature. Such strategies have been used for at least a century even though the dual‐career concept only became prominent in the last four decades. This paper is one of a few that examines dual‐career couples in an historical context, and indicates how the past can inform those who face contemporary workplace phenomena.

The Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), a South African based business school and one of the top ranked business schools in Africa, was yet again facing a crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Having emerged out of an extraordinary year of strict lockdown regulations and having managed a rapid shift to emergency remote teaching. GIBS had managed to maintain its academic programmes, ensuring the completion of the curriculum within the academic year whilst maintaining the exceptionally high standards and quality learning experience it was known for. As 2020 drew to a close, the academic programmes team and the students looked forward to starting the new year in a more “normal” mode of operation. GIBS closed for Christmas holiday with the intent on returning, in early 2021, in some form of face-to-face teaching. However, on the 27th of December 2020, the President of South Africa announced a return to level-3 lockdown as the second wave of infections swept through the country. Strict measures were once again enforced, significantly impacting GIBS’ possible return to campus in January 2021. Reflecting on the lessons learnt over the past year, the Executive Director: Academic Programmes, Professor Louise Whittaker, yet again faced the challenge of deciding how best to proceed given the circumstances. The case illustrates the need for effective change management through the application of Kotter’s 8 steps to transformation, whilst demonstrating the complexity of change management during a crisis. A particular focus on the importance of communication during a change management process in a crisis is illustrated through this case.

The learning outcomes are as follows: students need to understand that in a crisis, change management will be emergent and requires flexibility and adaptability; students will determine what concrete actions may be required during a change management process in a crisis; students will need to discern that theoretical models do not necessarily fit real world contexts, particularly in a crisis situation; and students will identify aspects that might be missing or inadequately formulated in standard models of change management.

The case is positioned at a post-graduate level and would be ideal as a teaching case for business school students on a Master of Business Administration programme, a specialised business masters programme or selected executive education programmes for general managers or senior executives. The case can be taught in a course in the following fields, namely, change management, leadership or strategy.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to share the learning concerning how services and the paid carers working in them can support people living with dementia (PLWD) and their unpaid carers to overcome social isolation. This learning comes from the key findings from a Social Return on Investment (SROI) evaluation of a Shared Lives (SL) Day support service, known as TRIO.

SROI is a form of cost-benefit analysis that captures and monetises stakeholder outcomes. The SROI evaluation included a rapid evidence review, an interview study and a questionnaire study. The learning shared is drawn from the interview and questionnaire data that explored the reported outcomes relating to social connection, which included data related to participating in meaningful activities, confidence and independence.

PLWD who accessed the SL Day support service experienced better social connection, a sense of control over their activities (including their social activities) and community presence. A key foundation of these outcomes was the meaningful relationship that developed between the PLWD, their unpaid carer and the paid carer.

This evaluation was a pilot study with a small, albeit representative sample size.

The learning suggests feasible and effective ways for paid carers to support the social connection of PLWD and their unpaid carers with their wider community.

There has been little exploration of how community-based short breaks (like SL Day support) can enhance social connection. The authors drew on a social relational model lens to illustrate how this service type had supported successful outcomes of community and social inclusion for PLWD.