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Background: Rising food bank usage in the UK suggests a growing prevalence of food insecurity. However, a formalised, representative measure of food insecurity was not collected in the UK until 2019, over a decade after the initial proliferation of food bank demand. In the absence of a direct measure of food insecurity, this article identifies and summarises longitudinal proxy indicators of UK food insecurity to gain insight into the growth of insecure access to food in the 21st century.

Methods: A rapid evidence synthesis of academic and grey literature (2005–present) identified candidate proxy longitudinal markers of food insecurity. These were assessed to gain insight into the prevalence of, or conditions associated with, food insecurity.

Results: Food bank data clearly demonstrates increased food insecurity. However, this data reflects an unrepresentative, fractional proportion of the food insecure population without accounting for mild/moderate insecurity, or those in need not accessing provision. Economic indicators demonstrate that a period of poor overall UK growth since 2005 has disproportionately impacted the poorest households, likely increasing vulnerability and incidence of food insecurity. This vulnerability has been exacerbated by welfare reform for some households. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically intensified vulnerabilities and food insecurity. Diet-related health outcomes suggest a reduction in diet quantity/quality. The causes of diet-related disease are complex and diverse; however, evidence of socio-economic inequalities in their incidence suggests poverty, and by extension, food insecurity, as key determinants.

Conclusion: Proxy measures of food insecurity suggest a significant increase since 2005, particularly for severe food insecurity. Proxy measures are inadequate to robustly assess the prevalence of food insecurity in the UK. Failure to collect standardised, representative data at the point at which food bank usage increased significantly impairs attempts to determine the full prevalence of food insecurity, understand the causes, and identify those most at risk.

The students should go through the concepts of motivation, leadership, organisational communication, organisational culture, organisational conflict, power and politics and organisational change and development from their course on organisational behaviour.

In Business Communication, the students could review effective communication skills, the process of communication and barriers to communication to prescribe suitable recommendations for the organisation.

In Financial Accounting, the reader should revise the income statement and balance sheet. They can undertake financial analysis on the data presented in the case to analyse the performance of the organisation. The participants may be asked to identify future possible financial risks that may arise.

The Dattopant Thengadi National Board for Workers Education and Development (DTNBWED) was an autonomous body under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India. It had been responsible for creating a disciplined and skill-oriented workforce for the organised, unorganised and rural sectors in India. In the past, DTNBWED undertook training programmes to educate and improve the quality of life of workers. However, the objectives were far from being fulfilled because of challenges such as an acute shortage of education officers, a slow recruitment process, communication issues between the ministry and the DTNBWED and a large part of the budget being spent on salaries. The main challenges faced by DTNBWED were the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission and the higher contribution of the Government under a new pension scheme. The DTNBWED faced audit issues, including the absence of an inventory register, non-compliance with accounting rules and statutory norms and inadequate internal audit. The DTNBWED could not shift its headquarters from Nagpur to Delhi because of office politics and differences between the staff and the ministry. The organisation needed a complete reorganisation using principles of change management and agile management. It was recommended that departmental promotion committees review promotions immediately; recruitment of education officers should be done along with post-revival with the Ministry of Finance; rental of offices should be from Government departments only; and the administrative manual and recruitment rules should be revised. These measures would help to overcome the challenges faced by DTNBWED, such as low expenditure on training, poor communication between the ministry and headquarters, vacant top-level posts and low motivation levels among existing officers.

The case is appropriate for MBA students, executive MBAs, and those working in government organisations.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/TCJ-04-2021-0056/

This paper aims to inform the discussion on why and how non-profit organizations can experience a hybridization process to address the criticism that would assume hybridity as an intrinsic characteristic of all organizations. Specifically, by referring to the academies of intellectuals as the non-profit setting in which investigating the emergence of hybridity takes place, this paper aims at exploring, first, to what extent this emergence could be induced by institutional conditions, and, second, which structural innovations could sustain the academies’ “motion” towards hybridity.

This paper relies on the institutional logics perspective and adopts the case study method applied to a historical context. The case under analysis is the Academy of “the Immobili”, which, in spite of its name, experienced a hybridization process in 1720 because of the decision to involve an impresario in the management of its theatre.

The findings highlight the significant role played by institutional conditions in inducing the emergence of hybridity, even in presence of internal resistance to any “motion” from the non-profit setting. Moreover, the analysis of the innovations associated with this emergence detects the intertwined action of the different decision makers involved in the hybridization process, in spite of their formal separation. These findings strengthen the conceptualization of hybridity within non-profit organizations.

Besides referring to a historical period that is still little explored in terms of hybridity within organizations, the paper focuses on an original context, i.e. academies, representing an ancient typology of cultural organizations. Therefore, the paper also provides the first insights into the hybridization process of cultural organizations from a historical perspective.

This paper aims to explore the lived experiences of key stakeholders working with homeless people during the implementation of universal credit during the austerity years.

The literature on austerity reveals welfare reforms’ impact on support services staff. Service providers’ perceptions of the impact of austerity-led policies and welfare reform via nine interviews with people working in homelessness organisations in Brighton and Hove in the UK. Service providers see the situation for their service users has gotten worse and that the policies make it more difficult to extricate themselves from their current situation. Three central themes relating to the impact of austerity-led welfare reforms were, namely, Universal Credit: the imposition of a precarious livelihood on welfare claimants; a double-edged sword: “If people are sanctioned: people can’t pay”; and “Hard to maintain my own mental equilibrium”.

More precisely, this paper captures service providers’ perceptions and experiences of the impact of austerity-led policies on their services and how they believe this, in turn, impacts their clients and their own lives.

The dimension cuts across service provision to vulnerable people and is intertwined with health and well-being outcomes. Austerity is detrimental to the health of service users and their clients. It is known that when it comes to the health and well-being of the most vulnerable, who have suffered most from the impacts of austerity policies. However, in times of open austerity, it falls also on those trying to ease their suffering.

The data suggest that policies were developed and accentuated by austerity, which led to the stripping of welfare support from vulnerable people. This process has impacted the people who rely on welfare and service providers.

This empirical chapter explores the case of Baltic Creative Community Interest Company (BC CIC), a creative hub that enabled and demonstrated intrapersonal entrepreneurial capitals (Pret et al., 2016) to adapt quickly and develop novel offers for their tenants during an unprecedented period of crisis and change in the wider ecosystem. BCCIC is a community-owned property development company established to regenerate an underused post-industrial area in Liverpool and support the Creative and Digital community. Over the past decade, they have become a creative hub where small, unique micro-businesses thrive alongside more established enterprises.

Using an organisational ethnographic approach, the authors highlight the complexity in the conversion of entrepreneurial capitals and how this has demonstrated resilience and adaptability in the CIC during the global coronavirus pandemic in the 2020s. During the first coronavirus lockdown in 2020, The CIC responded swiftly to tenants by providing a wide variety of business support initiatives. Regular communications on sector-specific COVID-19 operational guidance and a support programme to help tenants apply for Liverpool City Council Small Business Support grants.

The establishment of this hub for creative entrepreneurs prior to the recent disruption proved invaluable. Although they were severely tested, emerging behaviours, such as agility, adaptability, and resilience during periods of crisis, were identified. This chapter offers key insights for scholars and those leading on creative hubs and cluster policy development and economic initiatives for creative sector support regionally, nationally, and internationally.

The role of local authorities is crucial in addressing the essential needs of communities, and they possess the right to impose property taxes on all properties within their territory. Property taxes are levied on all properties, contributing to approximately 60% of the local authority’s finances. However, their role in this policy is not frequently understood, primarily in executing property tax reassessment. Hence, this paper aims to reveal property tax reassessment implementation and identify its key challenges.

The latest tone of the list record was extracted from the local government division, Ministry of Housing and Local Government Malaysia, to answer the research objective. The data were received on November 2021 by email. Furthermore, through the literature review, the most significant challenges in property tax reassessment were identified, compared and presented.

The results highlight that property tax reassessment implementation in West Malaysia is at the level of concern where only two councils have the latest tone of the list. However, larger councils have a higher performance compared to smaller councils. The findings also reveal various challenges in property tax reassessment, such as insufficient human resources, inadequate property systems and software and lack of financial capacity. Others include a shortage of competent assessors, lower public education, political interference and socioeconomic uncertainty.

This study offers practical implications to policy and decision-makers in the West Malaysian local authorities. Despite inferior performance by West Malaysian local authorities, there is a need for conducting property tax reassessment activity to ensure the quality and uniformity of the assessment. This study suggests that local government stakeholders and managers should devote more attention to formulating long-term plans and promoting the property tax reassessment practice. The property tax reform could solve the current situation of substandard reassessment activity.

This study explains, compares and interprets the actual statistical data through the figures and summarises the challenges of property tax reassessment activity among local authorities.

Policy brief on how to mitigate the negative impacts of Universal Credit on financial insecurity and crime based on the paper d’Este, R. and Harvey, A. (2022), “The unintended consequences of welfare reforms: Universal Credit, financial insecurity, and crime”, The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization.

Globally, hepatitis C treatment uptake is lower among people who are homeless or unstably housed compared to those who are housed. Understanding and addressing this is essential to ensure no one is left behind in hepatitis C elimination efforts. This study aims to explore peoples’ experiences of unstable housing and health care, and how these experiences influenced engagement in hepatitis C treatment.

Purposive sampling was used to recruit people with lived experience of injection drug use, hepatitis C and unstable housing in Melbourne, Australia. In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted and a case study approach with interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to identify personal experiential themes and group experiential themes.

Four people were interviewed. The precarious nature of housing for women who inject drugs was a group experiential theme, however, this did not appear to be a direct barrier to hepatitis C treatment. Rather, competing priorities, including caregiving, were personal experiential themes and these created barriers to treatment. Another group experiential theme was “right place, right time, right people” with these three elements required to facilitate hepatitis C treatment.

There is limited research providing in-depth insight into how personal experiences with unstable housing and health care shape engagement with hepatitis C treatment. The analyses indicate there is a need to move beyond a “one size fits-all” approach to hepatitis C care. Instead, care should be tailored to the needs of individuals and their personal circumstances and regularly facilitated. This includes giving greater attention to gender in intervention design and evaluation, and research more broadly.

This study aims to investigate the impact of housing knowledge, housing challenges and housing policy on the renting intention and satisfaction of young people.

A questionnaire survey helped collect data from young people in the study area, which were then analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 27 software. A descriptive analysis and the Cronbach’s alpha test were adopted to analyse the data. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a significant relationship between housing knowledge, housing challenges and housing policy and renting intention and satisfaction.

The overall findings revealed that most young people intend to own a home one day, and a minority of them decided to continue renting. The findings suggest that there is a significant relationship between housing knowledge and housing intention. However, housing challenges and housing policies do not appear to impact renting intentions. On the other hand, housing knowledge and housing challenges were found to be associated with housing satisfaction, while housing policy does not show a significant relationship.

This study, however, poses limitations as it uses a limited model and location and involves only a cross-sectional study. Future studies can use the methodology used in this study to conduct further investigations on housing intention and satisfaction in other regions of the country, thereby validating the findings of this study.

In terms of practical implications, this study has made a valuable contribution to the field of housing literature by shedding light on two crucial elements, namely, housing intention and satisfaction, which have been understudied. Understanding the determinants of housing intention and satisfaction is vital in efforts to implement appropriate policy reforms.

Findings from this study offer valuable insight related to managerial and practical implications, with the former implicating a need to prioritise initiatives that enhance renters’ housing knowledge. Implementing educational programmes and providing accessible resources can empower renters with a better understanding of the rental process and other important housing information.

This paper is relevant because it provides a guideline for policymakers to initiate regulations concerning housing and implement appropriate policy reforms. This study can also help housing providers develop more affordable housing that meets the needs of young people currently renting because most have expressed their housing intentions. Understanding housing intention and satisfaction determinants is vital to implementing appropriate policy reforms.

The learning objectives (or expected learning objectives and outcomes) are to be achieved by linking them with particular concepts, theories and models. These include conducting a situational analysis of the social business, namely, Lilly Apartments’ Welfare Association; explaining the characteristics and mindset of the leadership, particularly the social entrepreneurial leaders; analysing the conflict among the team members; and designing strategic solutions for combating crises and attaining operations’ effectiveness.

Lilly Apartments’ Welfare Association Karachi was registered under the Act of 1860 of the Government of Pakistan. The members established this Association to oversee the affairs of the maintenance of the apartments, including the provision of utilities, particularly water, sanitation, lifts, generators, parking, security and a park with a small play area for children. The front-burner issue of the Association consisted of mis-governance (causing underperformance), including maintenance of buildings within apartments; recovery of funds from the past executive committee (EC) members due to their massive corruption; managing defaulters’ issues (i.e., the members who did not pay their monthly maintenance fees) and deficiency of funds; inefficient and corrupt practices of the majority of the employees, including one manager and two supervisors; and task-related and personal conflicts between the leadership members. The EC of the Association was elected every year and presently it had only four months left. The research design used for this case study involved conducting 12 interviews, four each involving EC members, former EC members and senior residents, which were analysed to learn the challenges and achievements of the Association. Moreover, pertinent records of the Association were reviewed. The canons of research ethics and soundness were applied.

This case study is suitable for the students of social entrepreneurship or strategy or strategy and leadership. The study level is for graduates in management science, including MBA and EMBA students. This case study is suitable for teaching at any point but ideally near the middle or end of the aforementioned courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.