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The aim of this study is to describe placement learning opportunities for student dietitians related to future fields of work.

An online questionnaire determined the variety and duration of pre-qualifying practice placements across Europe. Responses from members of the Thematic Network DIETS2 in Europe (n = 39) were analysed.

A response rate of 61 per cent from 19 countries (39 higher education institutions or national dietetic associations) is reported. Four sub-types of placement are used by the respondents for pre-qualifying dietetic students. Placements are in public health, education and social care (28 per cent); clinical (27 per cent); catering (20 per cent) and others (25 per cent), including the food industry. Median number of weeks in the location was 12 for clinical settings; 5 for health, education and social care; 4.5 for in catering and up to 7 weeks in other locations.

If dietitians and nutritionists are to contribute fully to Health 2020 and Europe 2020 agendas for improving the health of the workforce, which is fundamental to improve productivity and lessen absenteeism, then alerting them to diverse strategies and practical implementation as seen in practice is highly important. Developing competence, brought about by engaging in a diversity of practice-based learning, would enable dietitians to meet multidisciplinary and multidimensional roles required to improve European nutritional health.

Clear learning outcomes and competence statements are critical for guiding practice-based learning.

The diversity of locations of placements needs to be promoted and exploited by higher education for health improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the quality of dietetic practice placements in European higher education institutions (HEIs).

An online questionnaire was used to investigate adherence to the European Dietetic Practice Placement Standards. Supporting documents were assessed against the “Guide to best practice” criteria.

The questionnaire response rate was 39 out of 67 DIETS2 partners, representing 19 European countries. According to the questionnaire, the majority of HEIs have a formal agreement regarding roles and responsibilities on practice placement. They have clear learning outcomes, policies, standards and procedures to test, approve and monitor practice placements. However, less than half HEIs provide support and training for supervisors. Practice placement documentations from 16 European HEIs were assessed against the 15 “Guide to best practice” criteria. Only 1 HEI met all 15 criteria. The range of the rest HEIs fell between 1-14 criteria, the mean being 10 criteria. The least met criterion concerned appropriate support and guidance for supervisors, which was met by 18.8 per cent of HEIs.

Promoting high-quality practice placements is crucial for the preparation of the dietetic workforce to meet changing societal needs of the dietetic profession, impacting on European nutritional health and productivity.

This study is the first attempt to specifically address quality measures on dietetic practice placements in HEIs across Europe and highlights the issues that need improvement to prepare students for their new roles as dietitians in Europe.

A New Centre for Food Research was created in September 1993 at Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh. Its main purpose is to promote research into food choice, particularly factors influencing choice such as sensory, socio‐cultural and nutritional aspects. Research undertaken involves a multi‐disciplinary approach by bringing together expertise from various disciplines including consumer sciences, dietetics and nutrition, food science, social sciences and hospitality studies. A one‐day symposium “Food research in Europe” was held in 1994 to mark the Centre′s official launch. The symposium was well attended, with delegates representing a wide range of organizations in the UK and other EU countries. Presentations were given by eminent speakers and researchers – Dr David Lindsay, MAFF; Dr Ronan Gormley, The National Food Centre in Dublin; Dr David Kilcast, Leatherhead Food Research Association; Dr Wendy Brown and Dr Richard Shepherd, both from the Institute of Food Research, Reading. The centre′s major research interests and activities are related to fruit and vegetable consumption (sensory qualities of apples; barriers to consumption); the relationship between snacking, body weight and physical activity; healthy eating award schemes in the UK.

Snacking is commonly regarded by the general public as unhealthy, believing that it is more beneficial to stick to an eating pattern of three meals a day. Similarly anyone on a weight reduction programme will avoid snacks, reducing the frequency of eating occasions to two to three times a day. However there is evidence to suggest that snacking is not the evil once thought and individuals that snack throughout the day have positive advantages over individuals who conform to a rigid pattern of three meals a day. Increasingly western populations appear to be moving away from the “gorging” to the “nibbling” pattern of eating, probably as a direct result of the increased availability of fast foods and snacks. Reviews the literature in the area of snacking and frequency of eating with respect to energy and nutrient intakes, body weight, body composition and energy balance and indicates the direction for further research.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the effect of different forms of service supplier involvement on the service business dimensions necessary for servitisation and on the resulting servitisation performance.

Three different configurations of service supplier involvement are considered in this study: black box (service design and execution driven by the service supplier), grey box (joint service design) and white box (service design driven by the product firm). The study analyses their contribution by means of a cross-sectional quantitative survey with 104 Brazilian and Italian firms using multivariate analysis of variance.

Companies that adopted the grey box configuration presented the best results in servitisation. White and black box may offer different benefits depending on the service business dimension that the company chooses to emphasise.

The results show which type of service supplier involvement is more effective for servitisation. The empirical data demonstrate that a joint service design (grey box involvement) is the best approach, but the paper discusses limitations for its implementation and alternatives regarding the two other types of service supplier involvement. The findings contribute to the discussion on the role of service suppliers in servitisation and provide empirical evidence to support operations managers in deciding on how to organise their service supply chain when aiming for servitisation.

The value chain is an essential management tool for the elaboration of strategic organizational planning. However, there are few published works providing methods for the development of value chains. This research aims to present a model to develop the value chain for the public sector.

Action research was used with case study in the evaluation step.

This research presents a model for value chain development along seven steps, covering data collection planning to the formalization of final product acceptance. The model suggests executing these seven steps in three iteration levels: operational, tactical and strategic. Through case studies, six practical insights were also highlighted in this work.

Given the absence of related work, one of the limitations is the lack of comparison with other methods of value chain development in the public sector.

There are practical guides to value chain development in the public sector; however, to the best of authors’ knowledge, such guides have not been developed using research methods. In the literature, no works provide details on how value chain can be developed in the public sector. In addition, the constraints of face-to-face contacts during the COVID-19 pandemic led the research team to conduct remotely the model's development and evaluation in the case studies. The model presents elements that enable value chain development without face-to-face contact between the execution team and public institution's stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interplay between firm boundary decisions and the management of both efficiency and flexibility and the implications this has for modular design in the provision of advanced services.

A single case study in the defence industry employs semi-structured interviews supplemented by secondary data. Data are analysed using thematic analysis.

The findings provide a process model of boundary negotiations for the design of efficient and flexible modular systems consisting of three phases; boundary ambiguity, boundary defences and boundary alignment.

The study provides a process framework for boundary negotiations to help organisations navigate the management of both-and efficiency and flexibility in the provision of advanced services.

Drawing upon modularity, paradox and systems theory, this article provides novel theoretical insight into the relationship between firm boundary decisions and the management of both-and efficiency vs. flexibility in the provision of product upgrade services.

Current research suggests culture as a driving force of successful digital innovation (DI) that may not only built an organization's capability to digitally innovate but also reduce impeding factors within the organization. Only few empirical accounts support this hypothesis so far. Details of how culture supports DI are yet under-researched. This article aims to investigate the relationship between culture, organizational DI capabilities and DI barriers.

The authors address this issue by using survey data from German municipalities (n = 668), build a structural equation model (SEM) and analyze data using partial least squares SEM.

Results indicate that the business process management (BPM) culture dimensions continuous improvement and process innovation support DI capabilities. Barriers exist that partially mediate the impact of culture on capabilities.

The results of this study show that BPM culture is not a uniform construct and that its dimensions have both positive and negative impact on the building of organizational digitalization capabilities.

We investigate the impact of Absorptive Capacity (ACAP) for SMEs embedded in Collaborative Networks (CNs) on innovation performance, considering the network stages and the influence of partnership quality.

We use a mixed methodology consisting of a qualitative than a quantitative phase. The first stage relies on an in-depth literature review and 22 interviews with 17 manufacturing SMEs having operated in collaborative innovation projects to characterize the potential and realized ACAP of such SMEs in the creation and operation stages of a CN. The second phase aims at testing four hypotheses through a hierarchical regression based on 74 responses to a survey involving SMEs with prior CN experience.

Our results explain how an SME’s ACAP in the creation stage affects its ACAP in the operation stage. We also demonstrate that this latter capability contributes positively to innovation performance in the CN. Furthermore, partnership quality was found to have counterproductive effects regarding potential ACAP.

We provide manufacturing SMEs with guidance to deploy ACAP throughout their collaborative experience and overcome the potential pitfalls of good partnership quality.

We operationalize ACAP of manufacturing SMEs to contribute to mutual innovation goals in CNs and uncover its properties. We explain how this dynamic capability accumulates over the CN stages to result in higher innovation performance and show how it helps in striking a balance between the “dark” and “virtuous” sides of partnership quality.

Embracing a large set of innovation objectives and collaborating with diverse partners have been promoted as a means to improve innovation performance. However, empirical evidence on the relationships between breadth of objectives, breadth of cooperation and innovation performance is limited, particularly in the context of emerging economies. A larger number of objectives and cooperation partners inevitably increases the complexity in organizational alignment, and cooperation eventually leads to diminishing returns. This study adds to the debate on the costs and benefits of cooperation for innovation. Understanding the optimal levels of the breadth of objectives and cooperation supports managerial decision-making and productivity in the practice of cooperation for innovation.

Operationalizing breadth of innovation objectives and cooperation via the Turkish Community Innovation Survey data, self-reports reflecting 5,863 firm-level responses between 2006 and 2008 are analysed using tobit and probit models. The maximum likelihood estimator is used to find the optimal levels for breadth of objectives and cooperation.

Firms with greater breadth of innovation objectives experience higher innovation performance; those with greater breadth of cooperation also experience higher innovation performance, but our results indicate the existence of optimal levels of breadth for both innovation objectives and cooperation.

The authors extend the logic that there is no safety in numbers in cooperation for innovation. If the aim is to enhance innovation performance, managers and policymakers need to pay attention to the number of innovation objectives and the amount of cooperation pursued by firms. However, innovation success may be closely associated with a firm's dynamic capabilities and ability to mobilize its resources. Drawing on organizational learning theories, future research could explore why a lower than maximum level of cooperation may be more conducive to reaching levels of enhanced innovation performance and whether this level is influenced by cognitive processes.

The authors draw attention to the ideal number of innovation objectives and number of cooperating partners required to enhance innovation performance, thus contributing to the debate on the complex relationships between innovation, performance and cooperation in the unique setting of a large developing economy.