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This study aims to show how cost savings can be achieved through optimizing the scheduling of e-commerce enablements. The University of California is one of the largest, most prestigious public education and research systems in the world, yet diminished state support is driving the search for system-wide cost savings.

This study documents the preparation for and rollout of an e-procurement system across a subset of campuses. A math programing tool was developed for prioritizing the gradual rollout to generate the greatest expected savings subject to resource constraints.

The authors conclude by summarizing the results of the rollout, discussing lessons learned and their benefit to decision-makers at other public institutions.

The pilot program comprising three campuses has been predicted to yield $1.2m in savings over a one-year period; additional sensitivity analysis with respect to savings, project timelines and other rollout decisions illustrate the robustness of these findings.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

Ethnic minority entrepreneurs (EMEs) are traditionally associated with lower growth industry sectors. The purpose of this paper is to draw on the theory of mixed embeddedness to determine if more recent EMEs have been able to break out of lower growth sectors and if break out varies across ethnic minority groups. It also compares entrepreneurial quality in terms of weekly hours worked, weekly earnings and job satisfaction.

Quantitative inferential statistical analysis is undertaken on data drawn from the large scale, social sciences data set for the UK, Understanding Society.

The study finds that break out is not associated with being a recent EME but does vary across ethnic minority groups. Break out is found to be associated with gender, education, English language proficiency and occupational status. Some variation in entrepreneurial quality is found for both recent EMEs and across ethnic minority groups.

Understanding the nature and quality of ethnic minority entrepreneurship is important since it informs public debate about migration, informs policy and shapes activities of future EMEs.

The study provides a theoretically grounded interpretation of the explanatory variables associated with EME break out and entrepreneurial quality. Second, it provides a large confirmatory study of break out and finally, it also finds an important empirical nuance to the concept of opportunity structure by identifying a variation over time in both external and socio-demographic factors.

This paper aims to address the knowledge gap, by exploring the attitudes and experiences of mediators relative to the process, based on research with practitioners in Scotland. Recent research on construction mediation in Scotland has focused exclusively on construction lawyers’ and contractors’ interaction with the process, without reference to the views of mediators themselves.

The entire research design of this research was constrained by the small population of practising Scottish construction mediators (thought to be circa. 20 in 2013). The design encompassed a literature search, participant interviews, questionnaire survey and qualitative and quantitative data. The research questionnaire was designed to capture data related to the biography, training and experience of those interviewed before their opinion on the benefits of, and problems with, mediation were sought.

The results indicate that mediations failed because of ignorance, intransigence and over-confidence of the parties. Barriers to greater use of mediation in construction disputes were identified as the lack of skilled, experienced mediators, the continued popularity of adjudication and both lawyer and party resistance. Notwithstanding the English experience, Scottish mediators gave little support for mandating disputants to mediate before proceeding with court action. A surprising number were willing to give an evaluation of the dispute rather than merely facilitating a settlement.

There are few experienced construction mediators in Scotland, and the continued popularity of statutory adjudication is a significant barrier. Mediators believe that clients’ negative perceptions of mediation are a bigger barrier than lawyers’ perceptions. The mediators wanted judicial encouragement for mediation backed by some legislative support, mediation clauses incorporated into construction contracts and government adoption of mediation as the default process in its own contracts.

The purpose of this paper is to profile the development of a bicycle parking hub at the University of Tasmania to illustrate how the Academic Operations Sustainability Integration Program promotes real change through the engagement of stakeholders from across an institution to deliver campus sustainability. This case study outlines one example of how place-based learning initiatives focused on campus sustainability challenges have delivered authentic education for sustainability in the Australasian higher education setting.

This case study outlines the process through which a cross-disciplinary place-based learning initiative was designed, implemented and evaluated over a three-year period. The evaluation of the project was designed to assess the impact of this education for sustainability approach on both operational and student learning outcomes, and to make recommendations on the continuation of place-based learning initiatives through the Academic Operations Sustainability Integration Program.

This case study illustrates how learning can be focused around finding solutions to real world problems through the active participation of staff and students as members of a learning community. This experience helped the authors to better understand how place-based learning initiatives can help deliver authentic education for sustainability and the success factors required for engaging staff and students in such efforts.

The case study highlights an example of an education for sustainability initiative that was mutually driven by the operational and learning objectives of an institution, and specifically the ways in which the engagement of staff and students from across an institution can lead to the successful integration of these two often disparate institutional goals.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

People experiencing homelessness often have complex needs requiring a range of support. These may include health problems (physical illness, mental health and/or substance misuse) as well as social, financial and housing needs. Addressing these issues requires a high degree of coordination amongst services. It is, thus, an example of a wicked policy issue. The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenge of integrating care in this context using evidence from an evaluation of English hospital discharge services for people experiencing homelessness.

The paper undertakes secondary analysis of qualitative data from a mixed methods evaluation of hospital discharge schemes and uses an established framework for understanding integrated care, the Rainbow Model of Integrated Care (RMIC), to help examine the complexities of integration in this area.

Supporting people experiencing homelessness to have a good discharge from hospital was confirmed as a wicked policy issue. The RMIC provided a strong framework for exploring the concept of integration, demonstrating how intertwined the elements of the framework are and, hence, that solutions need to be holistically organised across the RMIC. Limitations to integration were also highlighted, such as shortages of suitable accommodation and the impacts of policies in aligned areas of the welfare state.

The data for this secondary analysis were not specifically focussed on integration which meant the themes in the RMIC could not be explored directly nor in as much depth. However, important issues raised in the data directly related to integration of support, and the RMIC emerged as a helpful organising framework for understanding integration in this wicked policy context.

Integration is happening in services directly concerned with the discharge from hospital of people experiencing homelessness. Key challenges to this integration are reported in terms of the RMIC, which would be a helpful framework for planning better integrated care for this area of practice.

Addressing homelessness not only requires careful planning of integration of services at specific pathway points, such as hospital discharge, but also integration across wider systems. A complex set of challenges are discussed to help with planning the better integration desired, and the RMIC was seen as a helpful framework for thinking about key issues and their interactions.

This paper examines an application of integrated care knowledge to a key complex, or wicked policy issue.

A narrative review of existing research literature was conducted to identify practices that are likely to improve the quality of de-escalation and use-of-force training for police officers.

Previous reviews of de-escalation and use-of-force training literature were examined to identify promising training practices, and more targeted literature searches of various databases were undertaken to learn more about the potential impact of each practice on a trainee's ability to learn, retain, and transfer their training. Semi-structured interviews with five subject matter experts were also conducted to assess the degree to which they believed the identified practices were relevant to de-escalation and use-of-force training, and would enhance the quality of such training.

Twenty practices emerged from the literature search. Each was deemed relevant and useful by the subject matter experts. These could be mapped on to four elements of training: (1) commitment to training (e.g. securing organizational support for training), (2) development of training (e.g. aligning training formats with learning objectives), (3) implementation of training (e.g. providing effective corrective feedback) and (4) evaluation and ongoing assessment of training (e.g. using multifaceted evaluation tools to monitor and modify training as necessary).

This review of training practices that may be relevant to de-escalation and use-of-force training is the broadest one conducted to date. The review should prompt more organized attempts to quantify the effectiveness of the training practices (e.g. through meta-analyses), and encourage more focused testing in a police training environment to determine their impact.

The authors track the well-being of individuals across five European countries during the course of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and relate their well-being to working from home. The authors also consider the role of pandemic-policy stringency in affecting well-being in Europe.

The authors have four waves of novel harmonised longitudinal data in France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Sweden, covering the period May–November 2020. Well-being is measured in five dimensions: life satisfaction, a worthwhile life, loneliness, depression and anxiety. A retrospective diary indicates whether the individual was working in each month since February 2020 and if so whether at home or not at home. Policy stringency is matched in per country at the daily level. The authors consider both cross-section and panel regressions and the mediating and moderating effects of control variables, including household variables and income.

Well-being among workers is lower for those who work from home, and those who are not working have the lowest well-being of all. The panel results are more mitigated, with switching into working at home yielding a small drop in anxiety. The panel and cross-section difference could reflect adaptation or the selection of certain types of individuals into working at home. Policy stringency is always negatively correlated with well-being. The authors find no mediation effects. The well-being penalty from working at home is larger for the older, the better-educated, those with young children and those with more crowded housing.

The harmonised cross-country panel data on individuals' experiences during COVID-19 are novel. The authors relate working from home and policy stringency to multiple well-being measures. The authors emphasise the effect of working from home on not only the level of well-being but also its distribution.

This research bridges disparate research on servitization, namely product–service systems (PSS) and integrated solutions (IS), to provide valuable insights for the progression of the field. It acts as a reconciliation of these research streams and offers a reconceptualised agenda incorporating recent research on platforms, ecosystems, modularity, risk and governance as key conceptual themes to synthesise and build theory.

This is a conceptual, theory development article focused on advancing thinking on servitization by identifying systematic and theoretically informed research themes. It also proposes future research opportunities to advance theoretical contributions and practical implications for servitization research.

By reviewing and synthesising extant PSS and IS research, this article identified five core themes – namely modularity, platforms, ecosystems, risks and governance. The importance of these five themes and their linkages to PSS and IS are examined and a theoretical framework with a future research agenda to advance servitization is proposed.

This paper considers the similarities and differences between PSS and IS in order to develop a theory and to reconcile formerly disparate research efforts by establishing linkages between core themes and identifying valuable synergies for scholars. The importance of the core themes and current gaps within and across these themes are shown, and a mid-range theory for servitization is positioned to bridge the servitization-related PSS and IS communities.