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This paper aims to report findings of a service evaluation using a human rights-based approach in the training and education of staff in palliative settings.

A non-randomly sampled, uncontrolled, pre- and post-test design. Data was collected at three points over a six-month period during the period April 2017 to September 2019. As a service evaluation no ethical approval was required. Consent was implied by self-completion and submission of questionnaires. In total, 1,402 people attended the training, 480 completed pre- and post-training questionnaires (146 completed the questionnaire at six months), with 86 completing a questionnaire at all three data collection points.

Findings show increased levels of self-reported knowledge and confidence at two weeks and six months post-training. Implementing human rights in the workplace is complex. Difficulties maintaining knowledge and keeping up to date with changes in legislation and traditional ways of working were cited as barriers to service users’ human rights.

More evaluation is required to ensure the positive elements in this evaluation can be applied more widely.

Human rights education has a contribution to make in supporting staff to manage the challenges involved. It may also increase the complexity of decision-making. Training needs to incorporate systems wide approaches and its benefits measured.

The aim was to provide staff with the knowledge to make objective and proportionate decisions about personalised care. The assumption was this would help improve the experience of end of life care.

This is the first evaluation in the UK that we are aware of that has examined the impact of human rights education on end of life care.

To propose a conceptual structural equation model to demonstrate the direct and indirect impact of supply chain participation strategy (SCPS), information technology application (ITA), manufacturing participation strategy (MPS) on customer satisfaction (CS) and organizational performance (OP) from a strategic perspective.

An empirical study is conducted through surveys of 109 senior managers from the top 800 manufacturing firms in Taiwan and the data collected are used to test the relationships expressed in the proposed structural equation model.

MPS planning plays a pivotal role in achieving OP in implementing the supply chain system. This demonstrates the strategic importance of integrating manufacturing (operations) with suppliers and customers in a supply chain system.

The current data were collected in Taiwan, and the distribution of the scale of the firms surveyed may be quite different from that in other countries. But it can be useful for managers' reference, especially for those whose firms are located in other countries where the circumstances are similar to those in Taiwan.

This application of conceptual structural equation model is a very useful source of information and a notice for managers to achieve greater success in implementing the supply chain systems.

This paper provides a useful conceptual structural equation model and points out a critical pivotal variable for managers to implement SCM more effectively to enhance the competitive advantage.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The connectivity between society, global events, current philosophy and trends.

How each period is characterised by available technology, knowledge and globalisation relevant to the time?

How culture is shaped by societal philosophies?

Emerging characteristics that capture the ‘zeitgeist’.

Much of the current literature on category construction and maintenance has focused primarily on the disciplining effect of audiences that evaluate for conformity. This literature often characterizes categories as benign organizing devices that bring order to social life. However, categories are also contentious political and cultural productions. This is especially so, when the categories are hybrid. Employing a qualitative case study of an impact investing organization operating in Sub-Saharan Africa, we illustrate how the construction and maintenance of hybrid categories can have potentially advantageous effects for certain actors by shaping the architecture of knowledge and transferring legitimacy to otherwise illegitimate actors or nascent practices. The findings of this study highlight how some hybrid categories can be used to create and maintain unequal relations of power.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

The purpose of this study is to propose a framework depicting the dynamic links between a firm’s external environment, competitive strategy, manufacturing strategy, competitive advantage and firm performance. This is followed by articulating expected differences among the the content and process dimensions dimensions of a manufacturing strategy for different competitive strategies.

Today, manufacturing is widely recognized as one of the most important means of creating and sustaining a competitive advantage. This paper studies the emerging broader view of the strategic role of manufacturing by offering a manufacturing strategy model, showing its impact on competitive advantage and, ultimately, firm performance. This is accomplished by identifying and defining major content and process dimensions of manufacturing strategy and relating them to a firm’s strategic type. The paper uses an integrative competitive strategy typology (Segev, 1989) to clarify differences in manufacturing strategy dimensions and different competitive strategies. The concept of “fit as gestalt” among the dimensions of manufacturing strategy is also introduced. This study presents the implications of fit between manufacturing and competitive strategy and the contribution of content and process dimensions of manufacturing strategy to firm performance and concludes by providing implications for executives and future research issues.

Differences in content and process dimensions of manufacturing strategy for different competitive strategies are clarified.

Other researchers may propose different frameworks for linking manufacturing and competitive strategies.

This paper presents an integrative view of competitive and manufacturing strategies. It highlights the numerous choices companies must make to ensure fit among the competitive strategic types and their corresponding manufacturing strategies. This integration adds coherence and parsimony to the literature. It provides a basis for conceptualizing manufacturing strategy, thus reconciling different strategic perspectives and reducing a potential source of conflicting research results.

How can organizations use strategic frames to develop support for illegal and stigmatized markets? Drawing on interviews, direct observation, and the analysis of 2,497 press releases, I show how pro-cannabis activists used distinct framing strategies at different stages of institutional development to negotiate the moral boundaries surrounding medical cannabis, diluting the market’s stigma in the process. Social movement organizations first established a moral (and legal) foothold for the market by framing cannabis as a palliative for the dying, respecting moral boundaries blocking widespread exchange. As market institutions emerged, activists extended this frame to include less serious conditions, making these boundaries permeable.

Social media, network capabilities, and digital communication technologies are changing the nature of work for individuals in WIL programs; further challenging the connections between industries and universities in their efforts to ensure individuals are work ready. However, digital technologies have provided new resources to help individuals socialize into the workplace and develop new skills for meeting the challenges of the information age that will also impact on how they get a job, and then do that job. The current literature on WIL, organizational behavior, and remote working, provides a theoretical framework for identifying the key points on the transitions experienced by individuals through WIL using the prism of social media, digital technologies, and the changes in work culture through remote working. Key issues in relation to transition are illustrated using two examples: one French and the other Canadian. The French study examines the effects of social media and digital technologies on individuals in WIL programs in relation to developing work readiness skills and communicating with supervisors and coworkers. The Canadian example examines the challenges internship students face when their workplace is predicated on remote working. The impact of social media, digital and communication technologies present new challenges for fulfilling the objectives of WIL programs and ensuring students are ready for work now and in the future.

There has been very little qualitative “fieldwork” of audit practice. This is especially the case in relation to investigations into how audit engagements proceed. The purpose of this paper is to engage with audit practice in order to explore and explain the internal dynamics and paradoxical conditions within audit engagement teams.

The research adopts a qualitative methodology, framed around an intensive case study that involves several methods of data collection and analysis including interviews, observation and document analysis. The authors observe audit team practices, work programmes and organisation including observations of individual and teams involved in audit engagements.

Using the lens of paradox theory, the authors explore the backstage of audit work, where audit teams are challenged with recurring contradictory requirements and opposing demands. The authors provide insight on the complexity associated with inadequate resourcing and planning that tend to stimulate the emergence of paradoxes in audit engagement work in a government audit context. As a result, the authors identify the occurrence of cascading reduced audit quality practices (RAQP) as the teams respond to the paradoxes they face.

The authors reveal the interlinked and cumulative coping strategies, namely, downplaying responsibility and downscaling audit processes. These strategies are performed concurrently by team leaders and audit members to manage paradoxical tensions. The authors also identified superficial audit supervision as another type of RAQP performed by team leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to document the coping styles of first tier managers in English further education (FE) colleges, in relation to the most significant stressors and to create an original, grounded scale of coping based on the data.

This study adopted a qualitative approach to coping strategies and involved semi‐structured interviews with 23 first tier managers in four colleges.

The study identified 16 distinct coping strategies employed by the first tier managers that ranged from “compliant” strategies, such as increased effort and self‐coaching, to “affective” strategies, such as exercise and tension reduction; and finally, those strategies that were “non‐compliant” such as escape and dissent.

This research presents a tentative coping scale for first tier managers that could potentially inform the design of structured development programmes according to their particular needs.

This is the first coping scale of first tier managers in FE and its findings may have implications for first tier managers in other organisational settings.