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Food handlers are often a major source of norovirus transmission in the UK. Considering key behaviours of food handlers that lead to norovirus transmission would help prevent the spread. The purpose of this paper is to examine the key risk behaviours of food handlers that lead to norovirus transmission, and to recognise important prevention strategies.

A narrative review of the literature summarising the main risk behaviours of food handlers that lead to norovirus transmission.

Suboptimal personal hygiene such as poor hand washing compliance, working while ill or returning to work too early and not adhering to cleaning and disinfecting protocols were the main risk behaviours of food handlers identified. To prevent the transmission of norovirus within UK food establishments, environmental barriers such as limited access to cleaning products and facilities, workload and pay concerns should be resolved, and a theory-based approach should be used when developing training programmes to improve food handlers’ knowledge and behaviour. Systematic monitoring adhered to ensure food safety protocols should be regularly carried out.

A limited number of qualitative studies assessing food handlers’ attitudes and beliefs concerning norovirus transmission are available. Gaining more detailed and in-depth information on what food handlers perceive are the main barriers when it comes to adhering to food safety guidelines, would aid in the development of effective norovirus mitigation strategies.

This review discusses the main risk behaviours of food handlers associated with norovirus transmission. It highlights the need for more qualitative research on exploring the attitudes and beliefs of food handlers with regard to norovirus transmission.

Housing quality across the life course is an important health determinant. The purpose of this paper is to profile the current housing conditions of older adults in Ireland, and to investigate the association between housing conditions and heating problems and two types of non-communicable diseases: respiratory health problems and bone and joint conditions.

Data are from the Healthy and Positive Ageing Initiative Age-friendly Cities and Counties Survey, a random-sample, population representative survey of 10,540 adults aged 55 and older collected in 2015–2016. Mixed-effects logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the association between poor housing (leaks, rot and damp) and poor heating (unable to keep the home adequately warm) and the likelihood of having a respiratory health problem or a bone or joint condition. Results are reported as odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals.

Overall, 10.2 per cent had poor housing and 10.4 per cent had poor heating. Poor housing and poor heating were strongly associated with respiratory health problems and there was a strong association between poor housing and bone and joint conditions. These associations were not explained by health behaviours or socio-demographic characteristics.

Despite a number of publicly funded schemes available to assist in upgrading and maintaining housing, a considerable number of adults aged 55 years and older continue to report problems which are associated with an increased likelihood of respiratory health problem and bone and joint conditions and present a considerable threat to healthy ageing in place.

Much has been written about the impact of emergency service work on personnel, but very little is known about the lives of personnel once they have retired. The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences and assess the quality of life (QoL) of emergency service retirees (ESRs) and to ascertain the possible longer term effects of emergency service work.

A series of one-to-one interviews was conducted with ESRs (n=10). These were then transcribed and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.

A number of key emergent themes and associated sub-themes were identified from the analysis including: retirement as a major life change; potential impact of working role and unique aspects of emergency service work; trauma; and health and ageing more generally. Overall, the findings highlight the unique experiences of ESRs and the potential longer term impact of emergency service work on QoL in retirement.

In an under-researched area, the findings point towards a need to improve the transition to retirement for ESRs and, in particular, to enhance available supports, information and guidance for retirees, both prior to and following retirement.

The analysis of previous studies showed that research pertaining to the examination of the crime scene and Modus Operandi variables in intimate partner homicide (IPH) is scarce. Additionally, to our knowledge, there are no studies investigating sexual homicide perpetrated by intimate partners. This study aims to address that void. Thus, the study examined various components of the crime event and as such, it was exploratory in nature.

The study consisted of male sexual killers, who perpetrated against pubescent female victims (14 years old and over) and served a custodial sentence within Her Majesty’s Prison Service in England and Wales. Variables for the study were chosen on the basis of previous research examining IPH and sexual homicide. Descriptive analyses were used in this exploratory study.

Descriptive analyses indicated that the most prevalent aggravating circumstances in the lead up to the killing included conflict with the victim before the offence and substance use by the perpetrator around the time of the killing. Stalking was present in approximately a quarter of cases. The results of the analyses of sexual behaviours showed that in 54.9% of the sample the act of killing was purely instrumental whereas in 39.4% of the sample the underlying drive of the act of killing was closely related to the sexual aspect.

This is a unique study on a topic not yet explored.

Whilst e‐procurement has significant potential to reduce the purchasing costs of an organisation, the realisation of these savings requires user compliance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which user‐perceived e‐procurement quality (EPQ) (operationalised through the dimensions of professionalism, processing, training, specification, content, and usability) influences both system and contract compliance.

User perceptions of EPQ were examined in four UK organisations using survey data from 274 respondents.

Strong evidence was found of a positive relationship between user‐perceived EPQ and both system and contract compliance. System compliance was most strongly influenced by professionalism and content dimensions, whilst contract compliance was most strongly influenced by processing, specification, and content dimensions.

Data were collected from e‐procurement users in four organisations, which may limit the extent to which findings can be generalised.

User perceptions of e‐procurement provision significantly influence system and contract adoption. Practitioners should pay attention to management of different dimensions of perceived quality as they may have different effects on both contract and system compliance.

This paper is the first to empirically assess the relationship between user‐perceived EPQ and compliance. Its findings challenge the assumption that the monopolistic dynamics common within internal services, such as e‐procurement provision, are sufficient to ensure compliance. Dissatisfied individuals invariably find ways to circumvent mandatory systems and contracts.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a study undertaken in Ireland to develop a set of local age-friendly indicators which have been used to support the Age-Friendly Cities and Counties Programme.

A concept-validation approach was used to translate the principles and domains of age-friendly communities into a quantitative indicator set. This iterative process involved five steps: identifying potential indicators; consultation; survey testing; data collection and fieldwork; and finalising the indicator set. A participatory approach was also taken to involve local stakeholders in the development and subsequent use of the indicator set and associated data set. A multi-arm approach to communicating and translating these indicators was taken in order to build capacity within multi-stakeholder groups to engage with and appraise quantitative local evidence in this field.

A set of 120 local age-friendly indicators that can be reported nationally and disaggregated to the local authority level was developed. There were challenges faced in communicating the results and supporting the translation of these indicators into local actions. These challenges included indicator, user, and policy factors and involved instrumental, conceptual, and political issues.

The resulting indicator set is the first of its kind in Ireland and fills and important data gap in the local data landscape. Future work will focus on planning for sustaining collection of local data and building capacity among local stakeholders in the management and use of these indicators.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of protean and boundaryless career attitudes in early career employees during a time of economic recession in Ireland, specifically regarding their relationship to work characteristics, job satisfaction and career satisfaction.

Using a quantitative design, data were obtained from a variety of Irish organizations. Employees in the trial career stage (aged between 18 and 29) responded to questions pertaining to their career attitudes, perceived work context and satisfaction.

Skill variety was related to higher job satisfaction for those with a strong organizational mobility preference, and skill specialization was related to lower job satisfaction for those with a weak organizational mobility preference. Autonomy and skill specialization were positively related to career satisfaction for those who held a strong self-directed career attitude.

For researchers, this study contributes to our understanding of the boundary conditions of the work design-satisfaction relationship, and provides further insights into how these findings extend to career satisfaction.

For managers, they demonstrate the importance of considering career attitudes when considering the relationship between job design and satisfaction during recessionary times.

The research extends past findings on careers attitudes during times of recession, and provides insights into psychological and contextual variables that contribute to satisfaction during such economic periods.

This monograph reports on the strategic and operational roles of learning and development (L&D) professionals in Irish, UK European and US organisations including multinational corporations, small to medium enterprises, the public sector and not for profit organisations. This paper aims to investigate the contextual factors influencing L&D roles in organisations, the strategic and operational roles that L&D professionals play in organisations, the competencies and career trajectories of L&D professionals, the perceptions of multiple internal stakeholders of the effectiveness of L&D roles and the relationships between context, L&D roles, competencies/expertise and perceived organisational effectiveness.

The study findings are based on the use of multiple methods. The authors gathered data from executives, senior managers, line managers, employee and L&D professionals using multiple methods: a survey (n = 440), Delphi study (n = 125) and semi-structured interviews (n = 30).

The analysis revealed that L&D professionals increasingly respond to a multiplicity of external and internal contextual influences and internal stakeholders perceived the effectiveness of L&D professionals differently with significant gaps in perceptions of what L&D contributes to organisational effectiveness. L&D professionals perform both strategic and operational roles in organisations and they progress through four career levels. Each L&D role and career level requires a distinct and unique set of foundational competencies and L&D expertise. The authors found that different contextual predictors were important in explaining the perceived effectiveness of L&D roles and the importance attached to different foundational competencies and areas of L&D expertise.

This is one of the few studies to have investigated the L&D professional role in organisations from the perspective of multiple stakeholders using multiple research methods.

With the rapid development of paid online social question and answer (Q&A) communities, monetary social functions have been introduced and have potential benefits for both platforms and users. However, these functions' impact on knowledge contribution remains uncertain. This study proposes a conceptual model based on the stimulus–organism–response framework, according to which monetary and non-monetary social functions can help nurture short-term and long-term relationships among community users, and thereafter improves social identity and knowledge-sharing intentions.

This study selects Zhihu, a famous online social Q&A community in China, and conducts an online survey to collect data from its frequent users. A sample of 286 valid questionnaires was collected to test our research model by using a structural equation modeling method. In addition, a bootstrapping approach is used to test the mediation effect.

Results indicate that monetary social functions help nurture short-term and long-term relationships among community users. However, non-monetary social functions only affect short-term relationships directly. Short-term and long-term relationships both have a positive relationship with social identity and thereafter improve users' knowledge-sharing intentions.

This study focuses on users' knowledge-sharing intentions in Q&A communities from the perspective of social. Specifically, we separated social functions in Q&A platforms into monetary and non-monetary ones and explored their impact on the development of short-term and long-term relationships. Results demonstrate the importance of monetary social functions and explain how monetary and non-monetary social functions affect users' knowledge-sharing intentions in different approaches.