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The purpose of this paper is to outline how personal health budgets and a universal, integrated model of support, can positively transform the way in which individuals with a learning disability experience their health and support needs.

The review recognises that Integrated Personal Commissioning, as a policy approach, provides the framework to offer personalised care, and enables people to live an independent, happy, healthy and meaningful life.

Evidence suggests that a personalised and integrated approach to both health and social care not only offers better outcomes on all levels for the individual, but also benefits the system as a whole.

The study reveals that a personalised care leads to people to have choices and control over decisions that affect in better health and wellbeing outcomes for people.

This chapter weaves the finding from the previous chapters together to explain how perceptions of and responses to a pandemic are not static but change over the course of the pandemic and in between the governance and social welfare structures of the nations they affect. We consider the cross-national differences in outcomes and relate these to a variety of strategies used to curb the pandemic’s spread. We then conduct a series of analyses that examine our underlying arguments using data collected in November 2023, approximately 6 months after the pandemic was declared to be over. We find that compliance with health-protective recommendations is correlated with positive health outcomes. Specifically, we investigate how compliance correlates with the number of times an individual became ill with COVID-19. We then use variables discussed throughout the book to investigate how these factors correlate with complying with protective health measures, including being vaccinated and wearing face coverings during the pandemic. We find that collaborative factors are good predictors of compliance with health-protective recommendations. We then investigate how factors such as planned behavioral changes to mitigate the pandemic’s effect, attitudes toward government spending, media consumption, political party, and exposure to hate materials relate to the compliance factors. Ultimately, we demonstrate how the behavior of elites and the perceptions and attitudes of citizens during the initial stages of the pandemic shaped the pandemic’s long-term consequences. The chapter concludes by summarizing the findings from the previous chapters to set the stage for the concluding chapter.

This chapter conceives social entrepreneurship as acts of solidarity to unpack new patterns of social interaction and novel outcomes that ensue from lowering of societal barriers and inclusive participation immediately following a disaster. As members of the affected community unite against a common threat, we see different types of social enterprises born out of cooperation across social or religious divisions, attenuation of preexisting power differentials, and relaxation of traditional class barriers. Social enterprises as acts of solidarity function to meet critical and noncritical needs, increase persistence of authentic cohesion, promote community resilience, and help cope with disaster-induced stress.

Telework has been widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, distance work performed through teleworking may hinder organisational operations in public services owing to lower-than-expected work performance. This research paper aims to explore how teleworking relates to work performance and flexibility during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sample included 178 managers and employees in public services. The relationships between the variables were evaluated using linear regression.

The findings indicated that telework affected work performance in public services in different ways. This research also explored the relationship between work performance and work flexibility. The findings revealed that telework had not improved the efficiency of public service work performance; however, the implementation of flexible work schedules owing to teleworking has improved the work performance of public services.

This study only focussed on organisations operating in the public services in Greece.

Teleworking in public services may negatively affect organisational operations due to lower-than-expected work performance.

This study could assist managers by showcasing that telework may be better implemented to improve work performance through work flexibility rather than as organisational change.

This novel research aims to gain a better understanding of the impact of telework on factors such as work performance and flexibility.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a practical means of incorporating ecological capital into the framework of business entities. Investors and shareholders need to be informed of the viability and sustainability of their investments. Ecological (natural) capital risks are becoming more significant. Exposure to material risk from primary industry is a significant factor for primary processing, pharmaceutical, textile and the financial industry. A means of assessing the changes to ecological capital assets and their effect on inflows and outflows of economic benefit is important information for stakeholder communication.

This paper synthesises a body of literature from accounting, ecological economics, ecosystem services, modelling, agriculture and ecology to propose a way to fill current gaps in the capability to account for ecological capital. It develops the idea of the ecological balance sheet (EBS) to enable application of familiar methods of managing built and financial capital to management of ecological assets (ecosystems that provide goods and services).

The EBS is possible, practical and useful. A form of double-entry bookkeeping can be developed to allow accrual accounting principles to be applied to these assets. By using an EBS, an entity can improve its capability to increase inflows and avoid future outflows of economic benefit.

Although major efforts are under-way around the world to improve business impact on natural resources, these efforts have been unable to satisfactorily help individual businesses elucidate the practical economic and competitive advantages conferred by investment in ecological capital. This work provides a way for businesses to learn about what the impact of changes to ecological assets has on inflows and outflows of economic benefit to their enterprise and how to invest in ecological capital to reduce their enterprise’s material risk and create competitive advantage.

No one has synthesised knowledge and practice across these disciplines into a practical approach. This approach is the first demonstration of how ecological assets can be managed in the same way as built capital by using proven practices of accounting.