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Recruitment to social care roles can be the weakest link in many integrated systems, with vacancy rates being very high compared to other sectors, especially in remote and rural places. Analysis of Employer Value Propositions (EVPs) in social care can capture and challenge perceptions of care work.

This study of EVP in four organisations in a rural setting in Scotland focussed on young people as a target demographic. This study interprets recruitment challenges in social care in three contexts, the technical-instrumental, the hermeneutic and the emancipatory.

EVP articulation is at present not effective. Refreshed and new messaging has potential to attract, employ and nurture young people to the social care sector in remote and rural places.

Recruiting to social care vacancies is crucial for sustainable social care. Improving the recruitment of young people is a key part of the longer-term solution. More studies on recruitment in a variety of remote and rural contexts, with a range of demographics, are needed.

The potential impact is attracting more young people to the social care workforce, enhancing capacity for integrated care improving lives for people who receive care and for paid care workers and unpaid carers.

Remote and rural areas often feature a generational imbalance, with more older people from in-migration and fewer young people from out-migration. Employment in social care has the capacity to redress that to some extent.

This study is original in outlining the messages and methods that can be adopted to boost recruitment to social care.

This qualitative study set within Northern Ireland aims to explore professional perspectives on the application of evidence-informed practice to the adult safeguarding threshold screening process.

Data was gathered from seven social workers in one health and social care trust area, who perform the designated adult protection role, through individual semi-structured interviews in one region of Northern Ireland. The interview schedule comprised of a series of questions examining the role of the designated adult protection officer and included three vignettes (Appendix). A thematic analysis was undertaken using NVIVO software.

This paper reports main findings under the themes of: the role of the designated adult protection officer, threshold decision-making, evidence-informed practice and service improvement. One of the main findings was that professionals viewed the current process as too bureaucratic, and there was a desire to engage in more preventive safeguarding in collaboration with service users. There was a need to promote awareness of evidence-informed practice as it applies to the threshold screening process. Furthermore, the study raised the question of the need to consider the application of models or methods of assessment to the threshold screening process.

This in-depth exploration of the role of designated adult protection officers in Northern Ireland provides a valuable insight into the complexity involved in managing adult safeguarding referrals and investigations. This study adds to the existing knowledge base, identifies potential service improvements and highlights the gap in evidence-based practice as it applies to the threshold screening process. Threshold screening of adult safeguarding referrals remains a subjective process and is open to interpretation and differences in professional judgement. The study highlights the need to consider the application of quality improvement methodology to the threshold screening assessment and the need to promote the exchange of safeguarding knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze to what extent and in what ways signaling theory has been explored within the field of international marketing. This paper systematically reviews the use of signaling theory in the field of international marketing. Communication is a core aspect of the international marketing process. Research in this field has explored effective and unique ways of improving the communication flow to reduce the asymmetry of information between international consumers and the firm. This notion is adopted, enhanced and strengthened by signaling theory. Signaling theory has recently received the attention of international marketing scholars.

The systematic review methodology was applied for the purpose of identifying the relevant studies. We extracted academic articles over the last 23 years from the domain of international marketing that directly contribute to signaling theory based on 57 journal articles extracted through the systematic review process.

Based on systematic research the results reveal that the topic has grown and continues to expand within the broader international marketing field. We offer a theoretical conceptual framework to better understand signaling theory in the context of international marketing.

The authors map and critically evaluate the use of signaling theory in international marketing. Relevance of signaling theory in international marketing is growing and authors present an integrative framework that organizes the existing literature, and provides scholars to further expand on emerging themes of the domain. The paper offers some useful future research directions.