Search results

The authors wanted to provide an enriched understanding of how lawyers keep up-to-date with legal developments. Maintaining awareness of developments in an area (known as “monitoring”) is an important aspect of professional’s information work. This is particularly true for lawyers, who are expected to keep up-to-date with legal developments on an ongoing basis.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with a group of lawyers who authored and published current awareness content for LexisNexis – a large publishing organisation. The interviews focused on identifying the types of electronic, printed and people-based current awareness resources the lawyers used to keep up-to-date with legal developments and the reasons for their choices.

The lawyers mostly used electronic resources (particularly e-mail alerts and an electronic tool that alerted them to changes in website content), alongside interpersonal sources, such as colleagues, customers and professional contacts. Printed media, such as journals and newspapers, were used more rarely and usually to complement electronic and person-based resources. A number of factors were found to influence choice. These included situational relevance, presentation, utility and trustworthiness, the speed of content acquisition and interpretation facilitated by the resource.

The authors' findings enrich their understanding of lawyers’ monitoring behaviour, which has so far received little direct research attention. Their design suggestions have the potential to feed into the design of new and improvement of existing digital current awareness resources. Their findings have the potential to act as “success criteria” by which these resources can be evaluated from a user-centred perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to review evidence about the role of education in supporting ex-service personnel to move to social care work with older people. Social care has long-standing, well-recognised problems of staff recruitment and retention in many jurisdictions. Within ageing societies, the need for more social care staff is predicted to rise. Therefore, policy makers and employers are exploring if there are untapped sources of potential employees. Some ex-service personnel may be interested in exploring a move to social care work with older people but may need to gain additional qualifications.

Databases and grey literature were searched systematically to provide an overview of the evidence on this topic. Six articles were included in the review.

A narrative analysis revealed two themes: preparing ex-service personnel for enrolment onto health and social care programmes, and supporting ex-service personnel during health and social care programmes.

This review was confined to English language studies published between 2008 and 2018. Few mentioned specific user or client groups.

This review identified evidence gaps relating to whether the skills, education, training and experience gained in the armed services are transferable to civilian social care work with older people; the types of support which are offered to ex-service personnel who are interested in completing qualifications necessary for social care roles and the views of ex-service personnel about their experiences of completing educational courses to facilitate a transition into social care work with older people.

This study aims to explore how the absorptive capacity of emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) facilitates increased acquirer performance in industry exploration and technology exploration cross-border acquisitions (CBAs).

The research context for this study is Brazilian EMNEs and their CBAs. The final database contains 101 CBAs.

The authors find that industry exploration strategies negatively affect financial performance, but technology exploration strategies have a positive effect. The acquirer’s absorptive capacity can exacerbate the negative effects, except in instances of technology exploration strategies, where there is a demonstrable benefit from the acquirer’s absorptive capacity.

The study contributes first by providing a more nuanced understanding of the effects of absorptive capacity on postacquisition performance, depending on the type of knowledge explored. Second, by drawing on EMNE learning perspectives, the authors demonstrate the versatility of absorptive capacity in emerging markets.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to enhance the understanding of non-profit marketing and consumer identities by exploring volunteering as a form of symbolic consumption. Specifically, it seeks to examine how young people – both volunteers and non-volunteers – understand and relate to volunteer stereotypes, and how they manage stigma in negotiating their social identities in relation to volunteering.

Grounded in consumer culture theory, the study uses mixed qualitative methods, incorporating focus groups, paired and individual interviews and a projective drawing task.

Five volunteering-related stereotypes were identified: the older charity shop worker, the sweet singleton, the environmental protestor, the ordinary volunteer and the non-volunteer. Participants related to positive and negative attributes of these stereotypes in different ways. This led volunteers and non-volunteers to engage in a range of impression management strategies, some of which bolstered their own identities by stigmatising other groups.

The sample was drawn from 39 individuals aged 16-24 years and living in Scotland.

Because stereotypes are acknowledged as a major barrier to volunteering, particularly among young people, a greater understanding of how these stereotypes are understood and negotiated can assist non-profit marketers in recruiting and retaining volunteers.

This paper draws on theories of consumer culture and stigma to explore volunteering as a form of symbolic consumption, examines volunteering stereotypes among both volunteers and non-volunteers and uses multiple qualitative methods to facilitate articulation of young people’s experiences in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of donors to a UK-based contemporary music organisation fundraising scheme through the theoretical lens of liminality.

In-depth interviews with 16 members of the Sound Investment scheme investigated the motivations and experiences of individual donors to the commissioning of new music. Thematic analysis suggested parallels with the framework of “liminality,” which shed new light on the ways in which membership changed donors' relationships with the organisation and audience.

Motivations for supporting contemporary music commissioning included personal interest, cultural responsibility and alignment to the values of the organisation. Tangible benefits, particularly access to rehearsals, brought donors into closer connection with the creative and managerial working of the organisation.

The sample did not include any lapsed donors, or people who had chosen not to participate. Future research could test the liminal framework in different artforms and through different tangible benefits.

Understanding donors as liminals could help arts organisations to develop membership schemes that more effectively sustain individual giving. Key elements of involvement and access are identified that could engage audiences more widely.

This case study foregrounds lived experience of arts donors where previous literature has primarily focussed on motivations for donating. It highlights the liminal elements of becoming an individual donor, namely, the integration and socialisation processes, the space-and time-bound interactions with the organisation and the alignment of values with the organisation. This framework offers a new way for arts organisations to understand and enhance individual giving in a time of austerity.

Our understanding of the drivers of information sharing in export supply chains (ESCs) in general, and in agri-food ESCs in particular, remains scarce. In response, the authors’ paper seeks to explore the drivers of information sharing between two key members of an agri-food ESC (producers and exporters) in Jordan and investigate the link to export performance.

The authors use a two-stage qualitative approach. They initially interview seven ESC experts and a comparative case study across ten producer-exporter relationships follows. The latter involves 40 interviews (four per case) with producers and exporters in these relationships, supplemented with archival material and non-participant observation.

Specific transaction, relationship and network drivers are found to support information sharing in these relationships and information sharing is linked to export performance. In higher performing cases, information sharing is triggered by integration-focused drivers, where the emphasis is on long-term and joint planning, based on sharing wider types of information. In lower performing cases, information sharing is triggered by more individualistic drivers and producers and exporters are sharing logistics-related information with a short-term perspective.

This study extends current literature by identifying how different drivers influence information sharing in producer-exporter relationships and are linked to differences in export performance.

The purpose of this study is to analyze one Instant Messaging (IM) reference service to determine to what extent instruction is or can be offered in this medium and whether patrons want or expect it.

The authors surveyed IM patrons over a seven week period to determine whether they felt they could and did learn from chat transactions. Transcript content was analyzed to find out whether and how instruction is being offered.

Results show that patrons overwhelmingly welcome instruction and that it is provided in a large majority of cases, using a variety of bibliographic instruction techniques. The way the question is phrased, however, affects the likelihood of instruction to some extent.

The results of this study indicate that librarians should make a habit of practicing instruction in IM reference even when patrons do not appear to be asking for it.

The relationship between instruction and virtual reference has not been fully explored in the literature. Reference and instruction librarians will benefit from this study's exploration of instruction in the IM medium.

The purpose of this paper aims to examine differences in measures of and relationships between visitation and quality of life (QOL) among older and younger jailed adults. The authors also explored the contribution of visitation to QOL among adults in this setting. The authors anticipated fewer visits and lower QOL among older adults. Framed by psychosocial developmental theory, the authors also anticipated a larger effect in the relationship between visitation and QOL among older rather than younger adults and that visitation would contribute most readily to psychological QOL.

Cross-sectional data from a large US jail were used (n = 264). The authors described the sample regarding visitation and QOL measures among older (≥45) and younger adults (≤44) and examined differences in measures of and relationships between visitation and QOL using independent sample t-tests and bivariate analyses. The authors explored the contribution of visitation to psychological, social relationships, physical and environmental QOL among jailed adults using hierarchical multiple linear regression.

Older adults had fewer family visits and lower physical QOL than younger adults, disparities were moderate in effect (d range = 0.33–0.35). A significant difference also emerged between groups regarding the visitation and environmental QOL relationship (z = 1.66, p <0.05). Visitation contributed to variation in physical and social relationships QOL among jailed adults (Beta range = 0.19–0.24).

Limited research exists among jailed older adults and scholars have yet to examine the relationship between visitation and QOL among persons in these settings.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the experiences of non-clinical staff working in psychiatric settings, particularly in relation to exposure to context-specific hazards, and perceived safety.

Qualitative interviews with 23 administrative and operational staff were analysed using a framework approach.

Analysis demonstrated extensive exposure to occupational violence, including assault and verbal abuse within and/or beyond the workplace and concern about infectious disease. Impact of exposure was wide ranging, dependent on type and circumstances of violence and personal resources, with several participants experiencing ongoing psychological distress. Participants employed a range of problem- and emotion-focused strategies, typically seeking support from peers, to manage work-related stress but felt neglected by the organisation. They sought inclusion in or access to processes, such as supervision and debrief, routinely available to clinicians and to information about risk associated with patients.

Generalisability is constrained by conduct of this study in a particular setting with non-random sample.

The findings of this paper indicate a pressing need for administrators to ensure efforts to address safety encompass all staff, and the need for further research. Particular attention should be given to enabling non-clinical staff to examine ethical questions, ensuring access to support mechanisms and development of an inclusive culture.

While exposure to, and impact of workplace violence on clinical staff have been extensively studied, this paper is the first to qualitatively examine the safety of a commonly forgotten workforce.