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The purpose of this study was to utilise a lived experience (LE) informed/co-designed approach to explore the service-user experience of using the reasons for use package (RFUP) within a youth residential rehabilitation mental health setting.

LE researchers (those who have lived through mental illness or distress), Master of social work students, a community of mental health service manager, community of mental health researchers, dual diagnosis service researchers and university-based researchers collaborated on the project. The study used an exploratory, qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews to invite young people's experiences of the resource. The research team conducted a collaborative thematic analysis drawing on the range of perspectives.

Through five interviews with young people, key themes identified included: client factors and extra-therapeutic events, relationship factors, technique/model factors/delivery and outcomes/things noticed.

The RFUP was a useful clinical tool with the young people in this pilot as it improved awareness of reasons for drug use and impact on mental health, service user to staff relationship, quality of the resource, mode of delivery and participant self-knowledge.

Young people valued the supportive role that the RFUP played in facilitating positive relationships with their workers.

Perhaps the greatest peril to civilisation is the fragmentation of knowledge. Science often lends itself to easy application to technology and our economic systems are the result of applying this knowledge to our resources. But our knowledge of how societies work lags significantly, and the economic system frequently multiplies our social problems. At the heart of the problem is the distinction between knowledge of universals – scientific laws for example – and knowledge of people, who are unique particulars. The paper examines some recent disputes in the social sciences and suggests how the gap might be filled and economic systems made more responsive to social problems.

States that change is a topic of crucial concern to all organizations in these turbulent business times. Its impact increasingly leads to business demise, in spite of the wealth of information purporting to help managers solve change‐related problems. Contends that, in dealing with change, and ultimately in ensuring business survival, the mindsets of the organization’s managers are the most critical factor. Approaches influencing management thinking positively based on two simple notions: first, that the best way to deal with mindsets is to keep them from hardening; second, that by changing activities and tools we can change habits of thinking and learning. Calls an organization operating according to these principles an evolutionary organization (EVO). Illustrates that the EVO flourishes in the region of disequilibrium between an organization’s formative and normative operating modes. The key to maintaining this balance in the EVO is the judicious exercise of leadership and strategy. Explores literature relevant to the EVO and describes systemic initiatives designed to renew mindsets and confer high potential for business competitiveness. Illustrates the approach by detailing the case of a major financial service organization.

This study aims to assess the facilities management (FM) strategies used in multi-tenanted purpose-built office buildings (Mt-POBs) in Ghana and the drivers that influence the decision to use such strategies.

This study was conducted via a survey and key informant interviews. The survey was conducted using a questionnaire targeted at 65 multi-tenanted office building owners in the Greater Accra region. The data from the survey revealed the views of building owners on FM strategy and the extent to which 20 facility management decision drivers influenced their decisions to use a particular strategy and the responses were descriptively analysed. The key informant interviews were conducted among six leaders of the property owners’ association who use in-house FM to further understand their perspectives and decisions on using such strategy. The interviews were conducted over telephone using an interview guide and analysed using thematic analysis.

The results showed that 88% of Mt-POBs in Ghana are managed in-house. The results also showed that the decision to use the in-house strategy was driven by the innovative, strategic and cost-saving advantages associated with the in-house strategy.

This study shows the factors that drive the decision of multi-tenanted office building owners in Ghana to use the in-house strategy. The findings of this study will be useful for prospective owners of office buildings in Ghana.

Purpose – This chapter aims to show how media law strongly contributed to shape in Hungary what has been pictured as a U-turn. This illiberal trend was subsequently strengthened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Methodology/Approach – It considers that law also constitutes and not only orders political and social relationships. Law, including media law, has been in Hungary one of the main factors of change or rather of political-social construction. This chapter therefore moves from the study of positive law and analyzes Hungarian media laws within the theoretical framework of illiberal democracy, drawing from contributions to political science and socio-legal studies. Findings – This chapter demonstrated that media laws have outlined in Hungary a centralized regulatory system with broad powers, which lacks political independence, therefore encouraging self-censorship and limiting freedom of expression and pluralism. These laws contributed to shape the illiberal U-turn occurred in the country before the pandemic, but the coronavirus offered the occasion to reinforce government powers, giving the leeway to rule with no or minimum scrutiny for an indefinite period and further limiting dissent. The analysis enabled to argue that neither the media regulation established during the past decade nor the laws adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic are compatible with a modern democracy. Originality/Value – Based on existing literature, little research has been conducted on the appearance and endurance of non-democratic regimes, and supposedly even less within the context of the coronavirus pandemic which started only a few months ago, compared to the contributions available on democratization processes and democratic consolidation.

Civil engineering projects around the world have been underperforming for a long time. While the complexity of these projects will continue to increase, there is an urgent need to perform better. Although the integrated design process is critical for project success, the literature lacks studies describing the link to project performance. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the dominant variables that affect the integrated design process and consequently project performance.

A multiple case study was conducted to determine the dominant variables that affect the integrated design process and project performance. The research included four projects. Semi-structured interviews were the main source of data.

The cases indicated that the extent to which an integrated approach is achieved in the design process is essential for project performance. This applies to the integration of stakeholders’ interests as well as the integration of disciplines. Above all, it was concluded that the project team participants’ competencies for integration are a dominant factor for project performance, as the integrated design process has changed from a technical challenge to an integrative one.

This study provides insights into the dominant variable of the integrated design process that affects project performance, which is underexposed in the literature. The study results reveal the importance of competencies related to integration and adoption of the design problem context, which are not yet included in civil engineering design methods. In this respect, empathy is introduced as a new and critical competence for the civil engineering industry, which needs further research.

Tariffs for international mobile roaming (IMR) are often viewed by governments as an additional tax on international trade and on tourism. IMR customer bills may appear to be arbitrary and sometimes excessive. The purpose of this paper is therefore to set out a pragmatic approach to assessing international charges for mobile roaming, making use of a realistic cost model of the international roaming process and its cost elements, at a level that is useful to regulatory authorities and operators.

The discussion presented is based on industry practices for handling voice calls and data sessions with the mobile network operators (MNOs) business model, based on industry sources. The basic mechanisms use two common constructs from business analysis – business processes and use-cases – to provide a simplified form of activity-based costing. This provides a model suitable for national regulatory authorities to move towards cost-based IMR tariffs.

Using a perspective on costs based on a bottom-up survey procedure for elucidating the key information, the paper presents the cost elements for the various IMR network components and business processes, with an approach suitable for analysing both wholesale and retail pricing.

The method is specifically designed to overcome the key problem of such approaches, the limitations set by differences in network technologies, network topology, operational scale and the engineering, as well as MNO business model and accounting practices, which otherwise would preclude the method presented here from being vendor neutral.

Vendor and network engineering neutrality implies the approach can be used to compare different MNOs in terms of the validity of their IMR charges and whether they are cost based.

Impacts on society of so-called “bill-shock” have become quite common, increasingly for data sessions. The cost model presented here was developed with the intention of improving the accountability and transparency of the mobile roaming market. It thus assists in the introduction of cost-based tariffs over an economic region, such the European Union.

The paper examines the practical implications of building large-scale cost models for assessing the real IMR costs, a modelling exercise that has not been seen elsewhere in terms of its approach and neutrality as to MNO structure and assets.

The aim of this study is to examine the agency problems that arise between retail property owners and outsourced facility management (FM) service vendors in Ghana.

This study was carried out using telephone and face-to-face interviews. Nine facility managers (n =9) and six retail property owners (n = 6) purposively selected participated in the interviews. The responses from the interviews were analysed using content analysis. To begin with the analysis, the recorded audio for each respondent during the interviews was transcribed to augment what was written during the interviews. The next step was the development of a coding framework where each of the agency problems was assigned unique codes and grouped under themes. Each response was assigned a predefined code based on the agency problems identified in the literature. The research team discussed the consistency of the thematic codes assigned to each of the responses to ensure that each response was captured under the appropriate agency problem theme it best represents.

The results showed that agency problems in FM outsourcing in the Ghanaian retail sector are related to disagreement on expenditure associated with maintenance and repairs and improper tenant information sharing and use by FM service providers. Based on the findings, it is recommended that property owners explore the mixed approach to FM to mitigate the risks of complete outsourcing of FM services. It is also recommended that a clear path on how tenant information can be shared be pre-agreed in FM contracts.

This study provides new literature relating to agency problems in outsourcing and may be the first of its kind for FM in the Ghanaian retail industry. The findings could serve as a starting point for service providers and their principals to find common grounds to understand each other and mitigate the agency problems that could arise and their overall impact on performance.