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The purpose of this paper is to review and compare the implementation of “arts inclusion” policies (AIPs) by 14 different public administrative systems around the world. It aims to provide a consolidated source which informs further studies in this field, and to develop a framework to compare AIPs at a global level.

Using “arts inclusion policy” as the search term, academic journals from a wide spectrum of fields were reviewed. A data set was extracted from the Compendium of Cultural Policies and Trends’ online database which provided real-time information of national cultural policies. Another data set is from the United Nations’ Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, as the geographic scope of the review – largely focussing on UK, US, Australian, Scandinavian and Asian contexts. Using existing policy-making literature as benchmark, the authors designed and applied a comparative framework dedicated to AIPs which focussed on “policy-making structures” as the main ground of comparison.

An important finding is that the policy development and implementation of AIPs often underscore inter-sectoral involvement in many public administrations in this study. With policy leadership and financial incentives pivotal to effective AIPs, central governments should take a more concerted leadership role to include AIPs in national inter-sectoral policies, encourage evidence-based research, expand funding and advocate the recognition of the impacts of arts inclusion. It is concluded that AIPs in western countries remain more developed in targeted scopes and programme diversity compared to those of Asian countries and regions. Continued studies in this field are encouraged.

This review is the first of its kind to include a number of Asian and western countries within its research scope, allowing it to offer a more holistic outlook on the development and implementation of AIPs in different countries and regions. A common critique with all relevant existing literature was usually their lack of concrete comparative grounds, and the present study’s all-encompassing review of literature from across different levels and sectors of respective public administrative systems contribute to a unique and comprehensive perspective in the arts and health discourse.

The purpose of this paper is to study performance and market timing ability of equity real estate investment trusts (REITs).

The authors use classical regression‐based framework and their multi‐index, multifactor, and conditional extensions to jointly detect asset selectivity and market timing ability of equity REITs and their subcategories. These results are then validated by a nonparametric test.

It is found that equity REITs in aggregate have some housing market timing ability. Various equity REIT subcategories perform differently: office REITs can discover underpriced properties, while retail, industrial, and office REITs have poor timing ability. Nonparametric tests confirm that equity REITs do not have ability to predict real estate market movements.

Research in REIT performance evaluation is still limited to the asset selectivity aspect. This paper intends to fill this gap by providing empirical evidence of market timing ability of equity REITs using an array of parametric and nonparametric methods.

Mergers have become an influential part of public hospital development, and the successful implementation of such mergers requires skillful management. Recent studies have pointed to the impact of the distribution of leadership tasks amongst employees for implementing planned radical changes, yet this lacks examination with regard to hospital mergers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emergence of distributed leadership and this leadership’s influence on the implementation of a hospital merger.

The emergence of distributed leadership is examined through a qualitative case study of two Danish hospital units in the context of a large hospital merger. The data consist of 21 interviews and documents collected over a three-year period.

The findings suggest dynamics of widened and restricted distributed leadership being influenced by and influencing the merger at hospital and local-unit levels, respectively. Importantly, the perceived purpose of widened and restricted distributed leadership mediated the actual effects of widened and restricted distributed leadership on the implementation of a merger. Moreover, the findings show that mergers on both the hospital and local level lead to variations in top-down and bottom-up distributed leadership across pre-merger organizational boundaries.

Perceived purposeful widening and restriction of distributed leadership at various hospital levels enables merger integration and collaboration across organizational boundaries and hierarchies.

The paper addresses the need to understand the complex dynamics of widened and restricted leadership distribution in a merger context.

The authors explore the entanglement of smartphone technology and power in this paper. This paper explores the following question: In what ways does the actualization of smartphone affordances result in empowering outcomes (i.e. increase or reduce oppression) in the daily lives of refugees? Leveraging both affordance and feminist theories, the authors develop a hybrid lens bringing attention to the contextualized relationship between social process goals and affordances for sociality, upon which the authors introduce the notion of “goal-affordance interrelations”. The authors then trace how the actualization of these interrelations increases or reduces oppression.

Using an abductive approach, the authors analyze 32 semi-structured interview transcriptions conducted with Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

The analysis in this study reveals four categories of social process goals (meet financial needs, satisfy security needs, communicate and learn and maintain pre-existing social ties) that are intimate components of contextually meaningful affordances. When actualized, the goal–affordance interrelations fundamentally shape refugee experiences of power outcomes. The findings suggest forms of empowerment where powerlessness, marginalization, violence and exploitation are perceived to be reduced. Actualization outcomes are also found to increase perceived oppression. Additionally, the findings reveal that not all interrelations are actualized, such that the anticipation of an oppressive power outcome may limit the actualization of affordances for sociality.

This research raises considerations concerning technology and oppression, and that efforts to empower refugees through technology should critically question whether the lived experiences of oppression will be reduced. The findings of this study reveal various forms of less empowering (i.e. oppressive) outcomes for the refugees sampled, they also point to the potential politicization of the actualization of goal–affordance interrelations.

This chapter is a comprehensive discussion of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) across the globe (e.g., United States, China, Brazil, Japan and Turkey). Topics that are discussed include the following: diagnostic criteria and approaches; international perspectives of ASD; western and eastern assessment practices; cultural considerations of assessment of ASD; educational and medical interventions; behavioral and emotional interventions; complementary and alternative medical interventions; variations in educational services among countries; early intervention practices; adult services; national and international resources; and current needs and future directions.

This chapter investigates knowledge and practices relating to the ‘right timing’ in reproductive biomedicine in Switzerland. More precisely, it focuses on the effects of an anticipatory regime (Adams, Murphy, & Clarke, 2009) on women's experiences of age-related infertility. As assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) promise to intervene in the fixed ‘biological facts’ of fertility decline to render reproduction and the timing of motherhood more flexible, manageable and controllable, this chapter explores the effects of anticipation on women's experiences and negotiations of age-related infertility and ARTs. It sheds light on an anticipatory regime which can be called ‘motherhood as right timing’. It shows how, in this regime, the temporality of the lifecourse is brought back to a biological temporality and how expectations and injunctions towards managing and controlling time contain the possibility of their failure, as they are associated with a multiplication of uncertain, complex and resisting biologies. At the core of the practices and politics of anticipating fertility decline, there is a tension between acting upon and being acted upon time, which are embedded in a moral economy of responsibility and volition in which women are blamed, or blame themselves, for not anticipating what is by definition beyond individual control and anticipation.

There is an identified need in higher education research for methods which have the capacity to generate conceptual insights grounded in concrete local practice but with wider applicability in understanding and facilitating research-based change. This chapter outlines an intermediate approach to qualitative data analysis which can support theoretical knowledge advancement from practice-based research, which I call the difference-within-similarity approach. It involves a particular way of conducting dialogues with our data: of interanimating similarities and differences within our qualitative datasets. The approach outlined involves first identifying a similarity, then systematically examining differences within that similarity to generate theoretical explanations. Drawing on sociocultural theorising, particularly dialogic theory and cultural–historical activity theory, the approach is based on the idea that new meanings arise from a comparison of multiple perspectives on the ‘same’ phenomenon. The tensions between such perspectives are seen as a key driver for change in educational practice. Therefore, articulating and examining such tensions in our data gives an opportunity to simulate the possibility of change in our analysis and, hence, develop insights which can inform change beyond local settings. Important here is that the differences examined are bound together by an analytically productive similarity. Through multiple research examples, the chapter identifies and illustrates a range of ways of articulating productive analytical similarities for comparison in our data: through theory/literature, through forward and backwards processing of data itself and through a process termed ‘weaving’.

The purpose of this paper is to offer insights into the processes associated with promoting volunteer engagement adopted by a large UK heritage attraction during a period of significant change. Engaged volunteers were regarded as essential to sustain, and where appropriate, to enhance the customer experience.

A case study approach was adopted. This involved review of relevant documentation and interviews and focus groups between researchers, managers and volunteers.

Working from the philosophical stance that information and involvement are strong predecessors to “buy-in”, the managers of the attraction used a series of initiatives that kept volunteers both informed and involved. These initiatives include a values-based induction programme, information and communication, training and development, and creating new narratives.

Volunteer engagement influences volunteer commitment to the organisation. This case study offers some insights into initiatives adopted in one heritage organisation to promote volunteer engagement, and thereby provides a basis for other organisations to reflect on their practices in this area.

Current approaches to measuring family business performance have limitations: failing to acknowledge the entire family business holistically, and lacking recognition of the idiosyncratic nature of family business goals. By applying organizational effectiveness and the achievement of desired organizational outcomes, the purpose of this paper is to develop a scale to measure performance based on a family business’ idiosyncratic goals.

This study applies mixed methods, including qualitative research, two surveys and structural equation modeling.

The authors develop a scale employing 21 items, representing six goal dimensions, to measure the family business performance.

The family business performance measurement scale from this study responds to multiple calls for a scale gauging family business performance in a manner including both financial and non-financial outcomes.