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Offender-led dog-training programmes (DTPs) are increasingly used throughout US correctional facilities. The rather sparse literature on these programmes is outlined in this manuscript, including the reported benefits of participation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the opinions of programme coordinators and staff from 13 programmes.

The perceived effects were measured using an open-ended questionnaire, with attention paid to those benefits reported in the extant literature.

Respondents noted improvements in several factors including impulsivity, self-efficacy, empathy, social skills, emotional intelligence, and employability.

It is argued that DTPs should be implemented in other countries including the UK, and that well-designed, larger scale evaluations are needed.

Though potentially limited by sample size and self-selection biases, these findings expand on the existing literature by supporting existing reports as well as expanding the breadth of the DTPs that have been studied.

A strategic plan is a document used to communicate an organisation’s goals and the actions needed to achieve those goals. Strategic planning in public organisations promotes timely decisions, enhances the management of limited resources in a more rational manner, improves service delivery and induces greater satisfaction of customers. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to critically examine the strategic planning challenges facing the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS), and how these impact organisational performance; second, to identify strategies that can be implemented to enhance strategic planning and performance management in the DTPS.

This paper used a qualitative case study design with the aid of document analysis to provide insight into the research questions.

The paper concludes that public institutions such as the DTPS face a plethora of challenges that militate against successful strategic planning and implementation. A major challenge is resistance to change arising from a desire to maintain the status quo. This paper argues that it is important to promote strategic planning, and aligning organisational objectives with performance in public institutions.

This study is based on documentary research and therefore its findings may lack current findings that would have emerged from direct interviews.

This research contributes towards efforts being made to make strategic planning and implementation effective and credible in public institutions especially in sub Saharan Africa.

In many South African public institutions, strategic planning is viewed as the work of top management, a misconception which compromises service delivery. In addition, strategic planning has been implemented as a direct attempt to inhibit poor budgetary planning and corruption in procurement systems, and in order to effectively manage public resources. There is a need for the department to conduct regular skills development programmes, uproot top-level bureaucracy, and increase innovation, monitoring and evaluation of organisational activities.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of day treatment programmes for adults with eating disorders by comparing, evaluating and synthesizing published pre- and post-treatment outcomes.

A systematic review was undertaken of publications containing quantitative outcome data relating to weight restoration among underweight patients, reduction in binge and purge/vomit symptoms, decrease in eating disorder psychopathology and improvement in psychological functioning.

This systematic review of pre- and post- treatment outcomes from 15 studies revealed large effect sizes relating to increase in Body Mass Index (BMI), reduction in symptoms and decrease in depression. Medium effect sizes were observed for improvement in self-esteem and reduction in anxiety and medium-large effect sizes were generally observed for attitude-change, although a small effect size was identified for perfectionism.

This systematic review indicates that day treatment for adults is effective in increasing BMI among underweight patients, reducing binge, purge/vomit symptoms and eating disorder psychopathology and improving psychological functioning. Further research is required to investigate whether gains are cost-effective and sustainable over the longer term, and how day treatment programmes can improve outcomes for patients who are vulnerable to non-response and drop-out.

To date, reviews of day treatment for adults with eating disorders have focused upon comparisons of treatment approach and structure and neglected to assess outcomes. Therefore this review fills a gap in existing literature

The purpose of this paper is to set out a methodological framework to investigate how the integration of an activity-based costing (ABC) logic into the pre-existent accounting system supports healthcare organizations in identifying the inefficiencies related to their diagnostic therapeutic pathways (DTP) and related reengineering interventions.

The BPM-ABC methodological framework has been applied to the case of a specific surgery pathway, at the Orthopaedic Division of a University Hospital in Italy.

The case-study described in the paper points out: first, how the Business Process Management (BPM)-ABC methodology is able to produce significant information about consumed resources and the costs of the activities, useful to highlight opportunities for DTPs improvement; second, the barriers related to a pre-existing accounting system based on cost centres that can hinder the implementation of the BPM-ABC model.

The case study points out the role of the ABC as a management tool for supporting decision-making processes. The ABC allows inferring information for two purposes. First, ABC supports a cost containment process as it allows highlighting the most cost-consuming activities and resources. Second, the ABC allows identifying reengineering paths, distinguishing between incremental and radical ones.

This study represents a remarkable reference raising the awareness of the pivotal role accounting systems play in the management of the organizational processes.

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a specialist UK day treatment programme (DTP), in terms of whether improvements in eating disorder symptomology and psychosocial impairment achieved at discharge were maintained at 6-month and 12-month follow-ups.

A total of 69 patients (aged 16+) with eating disorders who had received treatment in the DTP were reviewed at 6-month and 12-month follow-ups, using demographic, physiological and psychological measures. Quantitative outcomes were analysed using one-way repeated measures analysis of variance.

Data analysis revealed that significant improvements in eating disordered attitudes, body mass index (among underweight participants), binge frequency (among participants with those symptoms) and psychosocial impairment achieved at discharge, were also maintained at 6-month and 12-month follow-ups, and with large effect sizes. All hypotheses were supported, with the exception that frequency of vomiting symptoms had deteriorated at the 12-month follow-up and was no longer significantly different from vomiting frequency on admission.

Results provide support for the sustained effectiveness of DTPs in improving eating disorder symptoms and psychosocial impairment associated with eating disorders. This is the first study to evaluate the effectiveness of a UK DTP for adults at maintaining improvements to eating disorder symptoms and attitudes at follow-up.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of a day treatment programme (DTP) in reducing psychosocial impairment, changing attitudes, restoring body-weight and decreasing binge/vomit symptoms among 52 individuals (aged 16+) with eating disorders. It was hypothesized that day treatment would result in improvements across all variables measured.

In a within-participants design, demographic, physiological and psychological measures were taken on admission to and at discharge from a DTP in the UK. Quantitative outcomes were analysed.

In total, 40 participants were considered to have received an adequate dose of the DTP, having completed at least four weeks on the programme. Analyses supported all hypotheses, with all improvements being statistically significant. Large effect sizes were evident for all outcomes across the whole sample other than shape concern attitudes and weight concern attitudes, which reduced with moderate and moderate-to-large effect sizes, respectively.

This study provides new evidence of the effectiveness of day treatment in reducing psychosocial impairment resulting from eating disorder psychopathology. It remains for future research to determine whether these outcomes can be sustained over the longer term.

This study aims to assess the nature and scope of dog-based programmes in prisons, assessing critically the potential opportunities, benefits, challenges and risks of developing innovative dog-based programmes for older prisoners in England and Wales. This paper outlines the potential benefits and challenges of developing dog-based programmes for older prisoners and sets out next steps for future research and practice.

This study is based on a scoping review of published research literature on prison dog programmes (PDPs) in the USA, the UK and other countries, with particular reference to older people in prison, followed by semi-structured interviews with six members of an expert advisory group. The literature review and data from the qualitative interviews were analysed thematically.

There is a substantial body of published research literature which supports PDPs as having identifiable positive impacts for people and also dogs, and also published research which highlights the benefits to older people of dog ownership or participation in dog-based activities. However, much of this research is small-scale and qualitative, and it has been argued that there is a lack of a quantitative evidence base. This research concludes that findings from the literature review and the semi-structured interviews support further research and the creation of pilot projects to develop dog-based projects for older people in prison.

This study was small-scale, and the findings need to be approached with caution. The literature review searched a small number of databases and filtered out articles published in languages other than English, and the review of the grey literature focused on reports from the UK. The number of experts interviewed was small and there was no direct consultation with older people in prison nor with older people with recent personal lived experience of imprisonment and community resettlement. A more extensive future study would benefit from a more extensive literature review, a larger group of participants and the inclusion of service users, prison managers and government policymakers, subject to the appropriate ethical and security approvals. At the time the research took place, ongoing COVID-19 restrictions on prison research meant that research with current prisoners and prison managers would not have been approved by the HMPPS NRC.

This research provides a research-based justification for future dog projects for older prisoners, leading potentially to improved well-being for older people in prison.

This study brings together the published research literature on PDPs with the research literature on the needs and experiences of older people in prison for the first time, and identifies potential directions for future research.

This study empirically and theoretically aims to explore the consequences of top management’s dark personality traits (DPT) on organizational injustice, e.g. organizational procedural justice (OPJ), organizational interactional justice (OIJ) and organizational distributive justice (ODJ) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB).

A study was conducted to examine the influence of DPT on CWB among the contractual employees of the land revenue department, Pakistan. The quantitative method was employed using a convenient sampling approach. A designed survey questionnaire was distributed among 1,240 land revenue officials in 13 districts of Pakistan.

The results supported that dark DPT directly, significantly and positively affects CWB. In addition, DPT, except for psychopathy (PSY), significantly and negatively affects OPJ, OIJ and ODJ. Meanwhile, OIJ and OPJ strengthen the negative relationship between CWB and Machiavellianism and narcissism (NAR); however, PSY failed directly to affect OPJ, OIP and ODJ indirectly failed to capture CWB.

Top management/government should pay attention to fair dealings among the contractual employees. Consequently, they would prefer to do well in the workplace. Particularly, top management should avoid practicing DPT, which has ultimate results in CWB.

Public managers should avoid DPT because they are not compatible with public needs. Managers with DPT negatively affect their employees' productivity behaviors. Therefore, managers should focus on positive personality traits to enhance employees' productivity via organizational justice.

This study is unique in the land revenue department of Pakistan, where unfair dealings are being practiced among contractual employees. Surprisingly, CWB is the ultimate consequence of both DPT and top management's dishonest dealings (e.g. organizational injustices).

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This study is of use for organizations as it shows how they can develop an effective DTP which can be customized to fit the needs of their workplace.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format. 10; 10;