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The financial crisis demands that we in the business academy raise our game: we either caused it by training the generation of “greed is good” MBAs who designed those financial instruments of mass destruction, or failed to prevent it by not equipping them with appropriate caution and ethical standards. In short, we are either complicit or irrelevant. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Michael Thomas anticipated both the causes and the lessons of the financial crisis, and made a robust call for change long before this became a mainstream concern.

The paper discusses the work and ideas of Michael Thomas in the context of the current financial crisis.

The paper concludes that we can respond to Michael Thomas' vision with a combination of muscular game keeping and intelligent poaching.

Michael Thomas's thinking has profound implications not just for marketing but the whole business sector. The newly established Stirling Institute for Socio‐Management (SISM) is responding to his call to look critically at current business models and completely reengineer our processes and procedures. SISM also argues that lessons learnt about influencing consumer behaviour can be applied to other parts of life such as social and health behaviours.

The paper highlights Michael Thomas's notions of a new, “social capitalism” founded on trust and transparency.

COVID-19 is bringing hardship and tragedy. Health workers are having to take appalling risks; loved ones are being lost; lockdown is causing great distress. And, as always in testing times, the disadvantaged are being hit worst. As we emerge from the shadows, the call from the vested interests, from the systems current winners, will be for a rapid return to business as usual. We must resist this; business as usual got us into this mess.

COVID-19 is trying to tell us something; we health educators and social marketers must listen, think and, above all, take action.

Evidence-informed decision-making is considered best practice when choosing interventions in applied settings across health, social care and education. Developing that evidence base, however, is not straightforward. The pupose of this paper is to describe the process implemented by the Sharland Foundation Developmental Disabilities Applied Behavioural Research and Impact Network (SF-DDARIN) that systematically develops an evidence base for behaviorally based interventions.

In this case study, the progressive research steps undertaken by the SF-DDARIN to develop the evidence base for an online reading intervention, the Headsprout® Early Reading programme (HER®), which uses behavioural principles to promote learning to read, are described.

A series of discrete projects targeting gaps in the evidence base for HER^® led to funding two randomised controlled trials in England, one in education and one in health and social care.

This case study illustrates an original, creative and effective way of collaborating across academic research departments and applied settings to extend the evidence base for a chosen intervention systematically.

Children with developmental disabilities (e.g. learning disability and autism) often struggle with handwriting skills. This study aims to implement an adapted handwriting programme for children with developmental disabilities to improve their handwriting skills.

Six children with developmental disabilities aged 9–15 years received an adapted Handwriting Without Tears® (HWT) programme in small groups over eight weeks. The programme was delivered by typical teaching staff (i.e. paraprofessionals) at a special education school following a brief training session and with ongoing supervision. A range of measures assessed the children’s handwriting and related skills. Social validity interviews were conducted with school staff following the intervention to evaluate the programme’s acceptability.

Typical teaching staff implemented the handwriting programme with 92.3% average fidelity and delivered a minimum of three sessions per week. Social validity interviews demonstrated the acceptability of the intervention to school staff. After eight weeks of intervention, all children improved their handwriting on various assessments. Improvements were only partially maintained at follow-up.

This study supports the feasibility of using an adapted HWT programme to teach handwriting to children with developmental disabilities in special education settings. Typical teaching staff can be trained to support the delivery of the programme to children in small groups.

Departing from a so-called “modern civil service” as an ideal type, this chapter evaluates the status of public personnel management in Latin America. Such an ideal model is considered a mix between the organizational principles of the traditional civil service and those of the new public management perspective. First, the chapter presents the different phases that public management practices have undergone in some developed countries. Secondly, following several studies and data provided by the IADB, the level of development of several civil service systems in Latin America is analyzed and several of their construction–destruction–reconstruction patterns are presented. Lastly, the cases that most approach a modern civil service are discussed and some recommendations offered to reformers in this region.

This chapter explores the case of post-socialist education transformations in Nicaragua. While less commonly known to have been a full participant in the Cold War, Nicaragua's conflict with the United States during the 1980s was underlain by a socialist/capitalist struggle. Education reforms in Nicaragua thus present an important example of a complex interplay between socialism and post-socialism in the context of Latin America. The case of Nicaragua is also significant because of its recent reelection of the same government that was in power during the socialist period, thus reflecting a reemerging mix of capitalist and socialist elements in education. The analysis focuses on important political periods in the last 30 years and responds to the following questions: What are the post-socialist education transformations that have occurred in Nicaragua? And, how have the directions of the reforms been shaped by international, national, and local political and economic factors? Drawing on qualitative policy analysis and interviews with various groups of education stakeholders, the findings highlight three specific dynamics of reforms. These dynamics highlight the complex nature of the reform processes, including the Nicaraguan government's relationship with and the role of international donor organizations, differing notions of “local participation” that signify the shifting role of civil society, and continuities and discontinuities in policy processes.

Administrative reforms in Argentina have followed an irregular trajectory as a result of the penetration of patronage in the state apparatus. Extensive politicization has impeded the development of a univocal and stable civil service at the national level.

In this context, the goal of this chapter is to analyze the characteristics of the federal civil service in its interaction with actors and institutions of the political system during the 2004–2014 period. The study reveals two main findings: (1) a diversity of bureaucratic formats coexist in the country, both formally and informally; and (2) the relationships between the administration and the political system vary according to the predominant bureaucratic format.

This paper aims to examine the effect of communication, resources, disposition and bureaucratic structure to the success of energy subsidy policy, to examine the effect of moderation of variable scenario of renewable energy policy on the influence of communication, resources, disposition and bureaucracy structure on the success of energy subsidy policy.

This study was purposively (based on specific objectives) conducted in Jakarta, which is associated with the implementation and subsidy policy scenario, the study focused on the center of government, namely, the capital city, Jakarta. Collection of data in this research survey was conducted in June-August 2017. The sampling technique was proportional stratified random sampling that took up most of the 770 members of Masyarakat Peduli Energi dan Lingkungan and Masyarakat Energi Terbarukan Indonesia using a representative sample of results that have the ability to be generalized. Based on the formula Slovin (Solimun and Fernandes, 2017), a sample of 145 respondents was obtained. The research approach used was a quantitative with the analysis tool called the generalized structure component analysis.

This paper exhibited that all relationships between variables have a p-value of 0.05 except the third moderation and fourth moderation relationship. So it can be said that all relationships between variables are significant except the relationship between the variables of moderation to the relationship between the disposition variable (X3) on the successful implementation of subsidy policy (Y) and the relationship between the moderation variable to the relationship between bureaucracy structure variable (X4) to the successful implementation of subsidy policy.

The originality of the research refers to the following: The Policy Theory described by Edwards III (1980), and reinforced by the findings of Ratminto and Winarsih (2005), and Bloom et al. (2009), that communication, resources, dispositions and bureaucratic structures affect the success of the energy subsidy policy. This becomes the formulation of a hypothesized research problem whether communication, resources, disposition and bureaucratic structure affect the success of the energy subsidy policy. In fact, the conditions in Indonesia are quite different from the Western world, and the system in Indonesia has embraced subsidies. Therefore, this study also examines the moderating effects of renewable energy policy scenarios in the relationship between communication, resources, dispositions and bureaucratic structures on the success of the subsidy policy energy. Given that there is no strong theory that examines the effects of moderation of these four factors on the success of the energy subsidy policy. Therefore, as the development of Edward III Theory, this study examines the proposition of whether renewable energy policy scenarios reinforce or weaken (moderation effects) on the effects of communication, resources, dispositions and bureaucratic structures on the success of energy subsidy policies.

Agricultural intensification is central to the Green Revolution (GR) programme. This initiative, which dates back to the early 1940s, revolves around the development of high-yielding and disease-resistant seed varieties that aims at bringing about efficient and secure food production. The purpose of this paper is to present a brief genesis and thrust of the GR. Focusing on Nigeria as a typical African case, the discourse addresses the political economy of the Nigerian agriculture, outlines the features of the Nigerian GR and highlights some crucial issues debated during the 2008 Salzburg Global Seminar (SGS) conference for a uniquely African GR as a pro-poor development strategy.

Using a critical discourse analysis and case study design, the paper analyses the political and bureaucratic lapses associated with the introduction and implementation of the reform.

Although wary of some of the socio-political and environmental issues surrounding the production of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) and high external inputs (HEIs) in the push for a new African GR, the paper reports the proceedings of the Salzburg conference as a likely platform for the formulation of new pro-poor policies in the context of the African GR. If sincerely and properly implemented, the paper argues that an African-oriented GR framework is conceived as a possible policy window to address the challenges of the continent ' s poor majority.

The policy issues raised in the paper would serve as a pool of information from which policy conceptualisation, formulation and implementation could be derived for the good of the African agrarian economies and poor majority.

Highlighted issues on the debates on a “uniquely” African GR during the SGS conference provide original insights to the implementation of agrarian reforms in Africa. The paper is valuable to policy makers and other stakeholders in re-shaping the agricultural sector in the continent.