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This paper aims to describe three dementia assessment services for people with intellectual disabilities to provide professionals with insight into planning this type of service.

Three services in England were contacted via email and telephone to collect data on their service provision. They were asked about the average age of individuals when receiving a baseline assessment, frequency of follow-up assessment, assessment instruments used and descriptive aspects of their services.

All three services offered proactive dementia assessment services to people with Down's syndrome (DS), with one service providing systematic screening via the GP. None offered proactive screening to people with intellectual disabilities who did not have a diagnosis of DS. All offered reactive assessment to this population if they experienced a decline in function. Services differed in terms of age at which baseline assessments were offered, frequency of follow-up and instruments used.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to compare dementia assessment provision between different services in England.

The purpose of this paper is to reflexively examine the challenges of implementing a community dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) service for adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) and describes the practical lessons learned about how to maximise the effectiveness of DBT with this client group.

A brief overview of DBT is provided and reference is made to literature which highlights the potential benefits of providing a DBT service to clients with an ID. This is followed by a discussion of the clinical presentation of the clients receiving DBT in the service that is the focus of this case study. Using a reflexive approach, a detailed discussion follows of the challenges faced in implementing a community DBT service for the clients served.

Solutions to a variety of challenges faced in four years of service delivery are described, key lessons learned are highlighted, together with issues meriting further research.

This case study and its implications are limited to community DBT services. Another limitation is that, although outcome data have been collected over the past two years, the dataset is not yet large enough to draw statistical conclusions.

The paper describes adaptations to treatment structure and strategy which the authors believe are necessary to improve treatment outcomes in community DBT services for adults with ID. In particular, the practical experience suggests that a didactic approach to teaching DBT skills is not effective and should be replaced by the “community of learners” approach that involves the trainer contingently responding to client input. Pre-set lesson plans inhibit the trainers’ ability to respond contingently.

The existing literature on providing a DBT service for people with an ID has principally focused on providing a rationale for providing this type of intervention, and on assessing outcomes. Given that this is still a relatively new type of provision for this client group, a detailed examination of process issues is called for.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of a six-and-a-half day, Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) informed training course on staff’s self-efficacy and outcome expectations of managing challenging behaviour (CB). Training programmes for other non-psychology staff were deemed necessary due to the high demand for services and the specialist knowledge held by other professionals or carers.

A repeated measures design was used to capture changes in specific self-efficacy and outcome expectations before and after the training programme. A questionnaire methodology was employed.

Staff self-efficacy and positive outcome expectations increased on all four measured variables following training: understanding of CB, working out the functions of CB, developing and implementing a PBS plan, and managing CB for the benefit of the service user.

These findings are considered in light of previous research suggesting an impact on staff practice and burnout.

The findings suggest that the training model delivers changes in staff cognition and may be useful in other locations where demand for services is likely to increase in the future.

This research considers the impact of a medium length PBS training on staff cognition, evidencing the model’s utility in the current service context.

Considers the concept of the “listening” organisation and its influence on service and business performance. Specifically reports on empirical research which investigated the link between service quality information practices, the listening organisation and service and business performance. In this respect, builds on an earlier model of service management developed by the London Business School and Warwick Business School in the UK. This extended model employs two composite performance indexes as moderator variables. Surveyed 438 service organisations in the Republic of Ireland; the loglinear model used to analyse the data shows a clear pattern. By taking listening practices, including information technology, as a holistic view of a constellation of information‐related practice type factors, demonstrates that there is a close relationship with service performance, which in turn influences business performance. Furthermore, technology type and competitive intensity, moderate this relationship. Establishes that the relationship between listening practices and service performance is much more important for the sophisticated task technology sector and that competitive intensity has a very minor interactive effect on the relationship. The results of the survey mirror recent empirical research in market orientation and organisational learning.

The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate how the business orientations of customer orientation (CO) (represented by responsiveness to customers) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) (represented by proactiveness, innovativeness and risk‐taking) impact the growth of SMEs.

This study uses a quantitative empirical approach, using structural equation modeling with the software package AMOS to analyze the results of 660 surveyed SMEs from Austria.

This analysis reveals that EO is positively related to SME growth but CO shows a negative association with growth. Moreover, this analysis suggests that SMEs grow the most if they exhibit high EO and low CO.

This analysis shows that CO, interpreted as a purely responsive and reactive construct, cannot be considered a strategy that leads to sustainable SME growth. If an SME desires growth, EO is needed to fuel these growth aspirations. In spite of these findings however, this study shows that SMEs tend to respond to a scarcity of financial resources with more CO and less EO, which then leads to less or even negative growth.

Sustainable firm growth seems impossible without an EO. However, this does not mean that CO is not of any value for SMEs. Being non‐entrepreneurially oriented does not mean that a firm is automatically customer oriented. So, it is not only about implementing CO or EO since there is still the third option: implementing neither.

This paper contributes to the ongoing scholarly conversation on the value of different orientations to firms and takes the view that the conversation on CO and EO has mis‐specified business performance in seeking to understand their performance consequences. By looking at firm growth, relevant to the longer‐term performance of a firm, EO might drive growth because of its emphasis on innovation to renew the firm's growth trajectory whereas CO might stifle growth owing to its myopic focus. Thus, this study addresses calls in the business and entrepreneurship literatures to more fully understand how SMEs can capture value from their customer and entrepreneurial orientations.

Purpose – To explore how young men negotiate the matriarchal domain of fashion consumption and self-presentation, observing techniques adopted by these men to navigate this feminized space and construct their identity project.

Methodology/approach – Engaging Foucauldian theory, a constructionist approach is followed to analyze qualitative interview data with the understanding that a consumer's narrated experience is embedded in a social web of possible interpretation. Rather than seeking to discover a respondents “essential self” within interview data, this research takes a narrative analysis approach, considering individuals storytelling within the context of circulating discourses and power relations.

Findings – As young, fashion-forward men navigate new configurations of power relationships and adopt new modes of performing masculinity, they come to legitimate themselves by forging new categories of existence. They engage various techniques to include the arts and the art of irony in an effort to constitute their masculine subjectivity within discourses of fashionable self-presentation practices.

Social implications – By exploring the social context wherein consumer choices are made, we see consumer identity projects are in fact constricted and influenced by a myriad of sociocultural forces.

Originality/value of paper – Within consumer culture theory, there is much focus on the agency of consumers and their identity projects. However, there is a dearth of work that considers the social and cultural context wherein these identity constructions take place. This study makes a contribution toward addressing this gap.

To take a more holistic and integrated view than in existing studies of export capability among small and medium‐sized enterprises, by exploring the key components of marketing management, and the blend of processes, practices and activities most closely associated with high levels of overall export performance.

The principal research instrument is the export marketing profiling system developed by the authors over a five‐year period, which provided the framework for data collection and analysis. Findings are derived from 250 semi‐structured interviews conducted in SMEs in the Yorkshire and Humber region of the UK.

The study identified 17 key practices, processes and activities that, taken together, are closely associated with export performance. They relate primarily to export marketing strategy, and suggest that a blend of capabilities in the areas of knowledge management (including market research and marketing intelligence), relationship‐building, product strategy and pricing are most closely associated with success.

The study has particular implications for business‐support providers. The findings could be used to assess and evaluate export capability in a wider sense. The conceptual framework could serve as a diagnostic tool for the identification of the areas of operation in which support, intervention and investment might have the greatest impact on overall export capability. Further research in these areas would be of particular importance in the drive to understand the relationship between export capability and performance.

This study's holistic approach to identifying the blend of capabilities most closely associated with high levels of export performance could inform national and local government policy in respect of the role of support agencies in improving the export performance of SMEs, in the UK or elsewhere. It offers a template for further research into key practices, processes and activities.

Use of digital media channels is growing in public communication. Given the importance of public trust in government figures and agencies, combined with the risk and fear of misrepresentation inherent in online interaction, it is important to develop theoretical frameworks for investigating the ways in which authenticity is constructed in online public affairs communication. The purpose of this paper is to produce a preliminary model of authenticity in online communication, with particular emphasis on public institutions.

The paper first develops a theoretical model of authenticity from existing literature in various disciplines. It then uses that model to explore a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the comments on the US State Department blog, DipNote, from its inception to the end of the Bush Administration.

Despite limited interactions between DipNote authors and commenters, the types and quantity of responses to posts indicate a desire by some readers to discuss the topics raised in the blog space. These responses also suggest that at least some commenters find that the blog meets their criteria for authenticity to the extent necessary to engage in community‐type interaction within its virtual boundaries. A functional‐structural analysis of the blog responses supports the essential components of the theoretical model proposed, which suggests that DipNote presents a mixed form of authenticity.

Authenticity is particularly important in the public sphere, and public institutions are increasingly engaging with social media as a means of connecting with constituencies. This paper proposes a starting‐point for theory development regarding this significant emerging area of communication.