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Error reporting by healthcare staff, patient-derived complaints and patient-derived medico-legal claims are three separate processes present in most healthcare systems. It is generally assumed that all relate to the same cases. Given the high costs associated with these processes and strong desire to maximise quality and standards, the purpose of this paper is to see whether it was indeed the case that most complaints and claims related to medical errors and the relative resource allocation to each group.

Electronic databases for clinical error recording, patient complaints and medico-legal claims in a large NHS healthcare provider organisation were reviewed and case overlap analysed.

Most complaints and medico-legal claims do not associate with a prior clinical error. Disproportionate resource is required for a small number of complaints and the medico-legal claims process. Most complaints and claims are not upheld.

The authors have only looked at data from one healthcare provider and for one period. It would be useful to analyse other healthcare organisations over a longer time period. The authors were unable to access data on secondary staffing costs, which would have been informative. As the medico-legal process can go on for many years, the authors do not know the ultimate outcomes for all cases. The authors also do not know how many medico-legal cases were settled out of court pragmatically to minimise costs.

Staff error reporting systems and patient advisory services seem to be efficient and working well. However, the broader complaints and claims process is costing considerable time and money, yet may not be useful in driving up standards. System changes to maximise helpful complaints and claims, from a quality and standards perspective, and minimise unhelpful ones are recommended.

This study provides important data on the lack of overlap between errors, complaints and claims cases.

This paper critically examines the influence of information technology (IT) on women’s career structures. Globalization is forcing an increasing inter‐dependence of radically re‐engineered labour forces and the further “internal” exploitation of the internationalization of the dual labour market many women have endured. The global trend is towards further fragmenting a shrinking, gender‐based set of career opportunities and creating an increasingly marginalized, part‐time, “pink collar” labour force, associated with the putative revolution of the tertiary sector transforming out of industrial, manufacturing economies. The implications of the emergence of a “pink collar” labour force largely go unexamined. The much heralded argument that IT will transform “coercive” organizational structures and work practices needs, yet again, to be critically examined in the context of the further destruction of professional opportunities for women in radically re‐engineered public sectors, aggressively “micro‐economized” labour forces and rapidly dissipating organizational and social contracts.

It has been noted for some time now that the field of technology as an area of work, has been, and continues to be gender imbalanced and gender stratified This persistent trend has led to a growing body of theorisation and to the (re‐) evaluations of the inter relationship between gender and technology. It is beyond the scope of this article to review the rich theoretical work on gender and technol ogy, and instead the “essentialist” and “constructivist” approaches are briefly discussed here, since they offer a useful frame work within which to look at the case study policy of this article. This policy, as will be shown in the following sections, adopts an “essentialist” stance by seeing women’s under‐representation as resulting from gendered technologies and the obduracy of masculine values associated with technology, and by focusing on girls’ interests as distinct from those of boys. It adopts at the same time a “constructivist” approach through the strategy’s ability to reshape technology through girls’/women’s wider appropriation and use of technology, whereby technology is seen as socially constructed . Before exploring this dualism in more detail, it is helpful to develop a little the theoretical foundations of essentialism and constructivism.

This paper revisits the claim of Vinten (1993) in this journal that whistleblowing is achieving prominence as a question of social policy.

It examines literature from social and health policy to focus on the importance of whistleblowing and the policies that may encourage whistleblowing. However, it finds little extant academic literature in social policy, and so it turns to examine documents on whistleblowing in the British National Health Service such as NHS Inquiries, Parliamentary Debates, Parliamentary Committee Reports and government documents.

It is found that whistleblowing has not achieved prominence as a question of social policy in nearly 30 years since Vinten's argument. However, it argues that whistleblowing should be an issue for social policy as it is clear that whistleblowing can save lives.

It supports the growing Parliamentary agenda for legislative change for whistleblowers.

This is one of the first articles on whistleblowing in a Social Policy journal for nearly 30 years and provides an argument that the discipline should pay more attention to a topic that can save lives.

Organizations and their actors are increasingly using video surveillance to monitor organizational members, employees, clients, and customers. The use of such technologies in workplaces creates a virtual panopticon and increases uncertainty for those under surveillance. Video surveillance in organizations poses several concerns for the privacy of individuals and creates a security-privacy dilemma for organizations to address. The purpose of this paper is to offer a decision-making model that ties in ethical considerations of access, equality, and transparency at four stages of video surveillance use in organizations: deployment of cameras and equipment, capturing footage, processing and storing data, and editing and sharing video footage. At each stage, organizational actors should clearly identify the purpose for video surveillance, adopt a minimum capability necessary to achieve their goals, and communicate decisions made and actions taken that involve video surveillance in order to reduce uncertainty and address privacy concerns of those being surveilled.

The paper proposes a normative model for ethical video surveillance organizational decision making based on a review of relevant literature and recent events.

The paper provides several implications for the future of dealing with security-privacy dilemmas in organizations and offers structured considerations for corporation leaders and decision makers.

The paper includes implications for organizations to approach video surveillance with ethical considerations for stakeholder privacy while balancing security demands.

This paper offers a framework for decision-makers that also offers opportunities for further research around the concept of ethics in organizational video surveillance.

The purpose of this paper is to document the results and the impact of the ESRC-funded High Street UK 2020 (HSUK2020), a project designed to take the existing academic knowledge relating to retail and high street change directly to UK High Streets, to improve local decision-making and, ultimately, their vitality and viability.

Through a systematic literature review, and by following the tenets of engaged scholarship, the authors identified 201 factors that influence the vitality and viability of town centres. Through the consensus-building Delphi technique, a panel of 20 retail experts identified the top 25 priorities for action.

Taking a place management approach led to the development of a more strategic framework for regeneration, which consisted of repositioning, reinventing, rebranding and restructuring strategies (4R’s of regeneration). Collaboration with the project towns resulted in identification of the strategy area that would add the most value, and the impact of the 4R’s and the top 25 priorities is demonstrated via numerous town examples.

Knowledge exchange projects, such as High Street UK2020, have an important contribution to make, not by developing even more theory that is unlikely to get utilised, instead their contribution is to bring existing theory into practical use.

Drawing on evidence from ten towns (across England, Wales and Northern Ireland) participating in the High Street UK 2020 (HSUK2020) project, the purpose of this paper is to reveal how local stakeholders involved in place management respond to high street decline through a strategy of repositioning.

This paper identifies the challenges faced by the towns considering repositioning, and highlights examples of good practice of relevance to the practitioners. First, it outlines the perspectives on repositioning from the academic research and theory, before drawing on evidence from across ten UK towns that participated in the HSUK2020 project, to reveal how repositioning involves more than just taking a snapshot profile of a place.

The research revealed major challenges faced by local stakeholders in clearly identifying and communicating their market position, in particular, the maintenance of up-to-date information on catchments was lacking at all the locations. Despite having local knowledge and some data, stakeholders still did not possess a clear (or shared) understanding of the identity or function of their towns. This evidence reflects the complexity of analysing and understanding repositioning and developing coherent strategies.

Knowledge exchange between stakeholders involved in place management can help inform the identification of new strategic objectives, appropriate interventions and project planning and delivery. Where resources are limited, particularly in smaller towns and settlements, the research demonstrates the significance of collecting and sharing data and analysis with other stakeholders, because this can generate positive outcomes for all.

By offering empirical evidence based on the experience of local practitioners, this paper provides valuable insight into how town centre stakeholders collect, interpret and analyse data, revealing the challenges, opportunities and practicalities involved in developing and implementing repositioning strategies.

This paper aims to compare the accepted techniques of location analysis in the food sector with the realities of “real world” forecasting in convenience store (c‐store) retailing. To offer a conceptual framework for c‐store operators intending to become more strategic in their small store location planning but currently lacking established expertise or extensive research budgets.

Outlines potential best practice based on industry experience, and contact and discussion with location analysts and retail consultants, as well as a wide ranging examination of the academic literature in this area.

Finds that the traditional techniques of market analysis for large‐scale food stores will become largely redundant; that neighbourhood retailers are likely to manage their location decision‐making by incremental steps; that the requirements of convenience store forecasting inevitably read to a “back to basics” approach to market analysis; that the use of site visits in combination with more quantitative techniques will provide the most effective solutions; and that reconciling human institutions and their environment is key to effective site research decision‐making.

Academic conceptualisations of location planning in the convenience store sector are largely absent from the literature. This paper adopts a practical perspective.

The purpose of this paper is first, to explore the role of institutional theory constructs in a case of international retail divestment. Second, to examine the potential of constructed metaphors as a means of analyzing and communicating the findings of managerial research.

The data were generated from participant observations and interactions with stakeholder groups during a three‐month ethnographic study based in a Sainsbury store in Egypt. Data were analysed and presented via a constructed metaphor – namely Robert Louis Stevenson's story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

The case illustrated an apparent paradox between Sainsbury's technical superiority as a retail operator in the Egyptian market, and its social inferiority in its interactions with a variety of stakeholders, primarily customers and employees. The use of the metaphor to organize, analyse and present the findings proves to be a fruitful way to illustrate this issue, and parallels between the two “stories” provide further insights into behaviour – the denial of responsibility for (and the existence of) social inadequacies; and the implicit (and inevitable) existence of the capacity for social inadequacy in any business organization.

The potential to communicate managerial lessons by telling “stories” (the case) through well‐known “stories” (the novel) is highlighted.

The use of the constructed metaphor to analyse a case of international retail divestment is, to the authors' knowledge, unique and enhances the understanding of the legitimisation process and the role of socio‐moral codes in this process.