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The purpose of this paper was to help the reader understand how technology is crucial to the effective management of non-traditional workforces. Over the past year, the UK labour market, much like the rest of the world, has found itself dealing with challenges at every turn. Whether significant interest rate hikes in response to surging inflation, the energy crisis and global supply chain issues largely influenced by the escalation of the war in Ukraine or rapid changes in working attitudes and cultures, businesses are increasingly under a lot of pressure.

This paper was designed and written based on the findings of Magnit’s Winter 2023 Europe Labour Market Report.

Consequently, organisations have to adapt their attitudes to the hiring and management of staff, whether that be leveraging temporary workers, re-evaluating pay rates or expanding benefits.

Critical to this endeavour is to implement an effective workforce management strategy that is embedded into all decision-making processes.

Understanding and preventing prison-based violence remains a challenge for both prison professionals and academic researchers. Alongside the rising tide of prison violence, the contemporary researcher views prison violence as a social problem and something that needs to be understood from an ecological viewpoint before violence prevention strategies can be implemented. The purpose of this study was to present an exploratory investigation into the causes of violence within a Category B UK prison, its impact and the factors that contribute to violence prevention.

Adopting an ethnographic, qualitative methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six prisoners to gather their individual perspectives on prison violence. Interview transcripts were analysed by the researcher using grounded theory analysis.

Results revealed that participants perceived debt as a catalyst for violence and associated a sense of “loss” with emotional violent outbursts. Furthermore, participants placed responsibility on other prisoners and staff to facilitate violence prevention outcomes by making positive changes (prisoners) and being honest, and moral within the workplace (staff). Emphasis was placed on cultural maintenance factors that appeared to promote, reinforce and maintain a violent cultural environment.

Including the prisoner voice in prison violence research is fundamental to understanding the complexity of the problem. Understanding the cultural environment within which violence occurs strengthens the ecological perspective. Violence prevention strategies identified in this research requires change from prisoners, staff and ultimately the wider prison system if it is to succeed in preventing violence.

Results are discussed considering their implications for future policy and practice in the context of violence prevention.

The venture capital industry is of vital importance to many entrepreneurial firms, as well as to those interested in economic development. Research on the venture capital industry generally treats it as a single, homogeneous industry. However, the industry is actually made up of a variety of sub‐groups. An understanding of these sub‐groups is important to venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, public policy makers and academics.

This study aims to explore the dynamics enabling strategic account management (SAM) to function as a value co-creation selling model in the pharmaceutical industry.

Using an inductive qualitative research design, data are collected within 11 industry customers in Canada. This work focuses on hospitals as strategic accounts of pharmaceutical companies, exploring SAM value co-creation in the “hospital-pharmaceutical company” relationship.

The findings suggest the presence of two key dimensions that can enable a value co-creation SAM model in the hospital-pharmaceutical relationship: “customer-tailored value-added initiatives” and “relationship enhancers”. Customer-tailored value-added initiatives explain the activities that are central to the hospital-pharmaceutical company relationship and can lead to the provision of value added that is unique to the hospital. Relationship enhancers explain the activities that can help strengthen hospital-pharmaceutical company relations in the pursuit of enhanced value-added interactions between the two parties. The research demonstrates a cyclical relationship between “customer-tailored value-added initiatives” and “relationship enhancers”, leading to value co-creation through a SAM model.

The study informs pharmaceutical industry practitioners on how to improve their value proposition through new, more sustainable selling practices. It offers information on implementing a value co-creation SAM model, which can enable pharmaceutical companies to sustain long-lasting value-added relationships with key accounts such as hospitals.

The study contributes to the field of SAM by conceptualizing SAM as a value co-creation system. It introduces new knowledge in pharmaceutical marketing by offering empirical insight on the applicability and use of SAM in the hospital-pharmaceutical company dyad.

Since 9/11, the world has been on alert and it is just a matter of time before a sports facility is targeted. No empirical studies have examined the stress levels of employees in sports facilities. Tangential studies will show, stress symptoms, changes in behavior and life style continued long after 9/11 to the point that it became a habit and no longer an isolated event. However, there is still the question of a secure work environment for the employees of these sports facilities. The current level of security being implemented in sport facilities is no longer sufficient to ensure the safety of employees, participants and spectators. Recommendations have been chosen carefully and are budget dependent. The implementation of biometrics will potentially reduce the stress levels of the targeted work environments by making it a safer place. The increased level of stress in the work environment has been partially reduced by several stress management techniques that include: task redesign, flexible work schedules, participative management, increased employee autonomy, employee fitness programs and open lines of communication to voice on going concerns to insure the safety of fans, athletes and employees. A conclusion is there is still a major concern of a secure work environment for the employees of these sports facilities at this date. This is the challenge.

Two common documents used by management teams in community relations programs aimed at promotion of service quality are news releases (press releases) and pitch letters. News releases make announcements about the organization; whereas, pitch letters seek media coverage for activities of the organization. Another important function in management teams’ public relations efforts is the preparation of corporate annual reports. Also, the advertising activities of an organization contribute greatly to the community image of that organization. Management teams must be aware that news releases, pitch letters, corporate annual reports, and advertisements are vital to their organization’s community image and to the promotion of service quality. This article presents a detailed, “how‐to” examination of these aspects of media relations as tools for management teams in achieving service quality.

This case introduces offers the concept of cash-to-cash (C2C) and extension of the concept to facilitate supply chain finance improvements between trading partners by harvesting the inherent advantages (lower WACC, lower ICC) of one trading partner to reduce cost and benefit the entire supply chain.

From Dr No in 1962 to Spectre in 2015 the opening themes for James Bond movies have always played an important role in marketing, audience expectation and reception. Whether instrumental or sung, brassy or orchestral, upbeat or mellow, the music and/or lyrics, alongside innovative title sequences, function as key signifiers of gender representation in the ongoing series of spy adventures. Bond’s suave machismo, for example, is immediately set out in the opening titles for Dr No created by Maurice Binder. The iconic image of Bond viewed through a gun barrel as a shot rings out, is punctuated by Monty Norman’s theme music with its swinging brass and the tough, machine-gun like sound of electric guitar being played fiercely with a plectrum. Although this theme became synonymous with the character, there was a shift towards songs written specifically to tie-in with subsequent film titles although the lyrics rarely had anything to do with the narratives of the film. The title sequences themselves also became more provocative, invariably focussing on silhouetted, naked or semi-naked female bodies or their component parts alongside gun barrels and bullets, albeit in a highly stylised and artistic manner. This chapter, then, will consider how the theme music functions with the opening credits sequences in relation to the representation of women, race and the image of Bond himself and how the character has changed over time.