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Reports a postal survey of NHS staff in six Districts in the North Western Region. There were 3,525 replies, from staff in five main occupational groups, with clear social gradients in respect of health status, smoking and exercise, but a more complex picture in respect of diet, stress and uptake of preventative services. There were no significant differences in respect of alchohol consumption. Previous research showed social class differences in mortality of NHS staff; this study documents aspects of lifestyle consistent with that. Although the importance of socio‐economic circumstances and social support should not be disregarded, the survey results emphasize the need for NHS managers to reduce the inequality in health experienced by NHS staff, working with ancillary staff as a priority.

The University of Central Lancashire's ‘Health Promoting University’ initiative has adopted a ‘settings‐based’ approach to health promotion, aimed at embedding within the organisation an understanding of and commitment to holistic health and to development of its healthpromoting potential. Action to promote mental well‐being is one of the initiative's priority foci, overseen by a multidisciplinary inter‐agency working group. Experience to date suggests that the university is an important setting for the protection, promotion and maintenance of mental well‐being. It also suggests that the Health Promoting University offers a robust theoretical framework that can enable the practical development and implementation of a holistic, comprehensive and integrative approach to promoting mental well‐being. This paper provides an overview of the Health Promoting University initiative, describes work carried out on mental well‐being and explores the challenges and opportunities involved in seeking to use the Health Promoting University framework to promote mental well‐being.

To present ways for empowering contractors in improving environmental performance particularly to meet the requirements defined in ISO 14000.

To review the traditional methodologies for protecting the environment in undertaking construction activities, investigate the limitations of these methods and the associated reasons, and apply the principles of ISO 14000 environmental management system (EMS) to develop an effective framework for helping contractors to become competent in implementing environmental management.

The major methodologies developed for protecting the environment in construction include governmental regulations, economic measures, and EMSs. However, the applications of these measures are limited. The typical causes contributing to the limitation include the clash between cost and environment, environmentally passive culture within construction industry, lack of cooperation among project parties, and clash between contract time and implementing environmental management methods. Furthermore, the practice of environment management is mainly driven by external impetus such as legal enforcement incentive programmes from government. However, the effectiveness cannot be gained if internal motivation does not exist. This paper introduces a framework to help a contractor to cultivate an environmentally friendly culture within its organization.

This paper proposes a framework for empowering contractors in improving environmental performance by identifying the weaknesses of the existing practice and applying a systematic approach of implementing environmental management approaches.

Health at Work in the NHS was launched at the same time as Health of the Nation, in July 1992. There is good national and local evidence identifying ancillary staff as a priority for health promotion. Despite the evidence, and a regional drive to make work with ancillary staff a priority, a recent audit made clear that very little has happened. Market testing seems to have excluded ancillary staff health from senior management responsibility. Discusses possible reasons and the implications.

Despite the well-documented importance of empathy and mentoring in entrepreneurship, there is a need for a deeper understanding of how empathy influences individuals’ “willingness to be mentored”.

This paper investigates gender differences in “Willingness to be mentored” based on the mentor’s types of empathy (cognitive vs affective) and entrepreneurship (social vs for-profit). Drawing on the personal identification and the entrepreneurship literature, we measured the respondents’ “Willingness to be mentored” by manipulating the type of empathy and entrepreneurship and comparing its effect between male and female respondents. Primary survey data were collected from master’s degree students in entrepreneurship from diverse business schools. An explanatory qualitative study on female start-uppers complemented the findings.

The results from the quantitative study show that female respondents prefer to be mentored by an entrepreneur who exhibits some affective empathy rather than only cognitive empathy, with a preference for a social entrepreneur. The qualitative study confirms the evidence. This research contributes to the discussion on developing social capabilities to succeed in new ventures. It extends our understanding of the importance of empathic entrepreneurs as mentors to foster entrepreneurship among women.

Theoretically, we demonstrate the existence of a gender difference in “Willingness to be mentored” based on the type of empathy displayed by the entrepreneur. Additionally, we introduce a new construct in the entrepreneurship literature, “Willingness to be mentored”, and differentiate it from “Attitude toward entrepreneurship”.

The Social Services Department of Waltham Forest is of an average size among the London boroughs with a workforce of 1,450 and a budget (in 1985) of about £20 million. In the autumn of 1983 the department was unexpectedly faced with sudden and fundamental changes to the senior management team. The Director who had formed and led the department since its inception in 1971 with a highly personalised and positively directive style, was retired on health grounds following a protracted illness and almost simultaneously one of the Assistant Directors elected for early retirement.

As settings‐based health promotion has gained ascendancy within the field, there has been increased interest in applying the approach within a diversity of contexts, one of the most recent being higher education. The University of Central Lancashire became one of the first few universities in Europe to establish a Health Promoting University initiative when it appointed a co‐ordinator in 1995. This article critically discusses the emergence of the settings‐based approach to health promotion and its application to the higher education sector. Focusing on the University of Central Lancashire as a case study, it considers the development of Health Promoting Universities. It is argued that while the settings‐based approach still faces the challenge of establishing clarity and consistency, the Health Promoting University does have the potential to provide a robust conceptual framework that can enable the practical development and implementation of an holistic, comprehensive and integrative approach to promoting health. The article ends with some reflections on challenges, opportunities and future directions.