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As the result of the increased postal rates and costs of production caused by the war, the Subscription Rates and Sales Prices of the BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL will be raised on June 1st next. The increased prices will be as understated:—

The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate a novel approach to citizen engagement in health priority setting carried out in the context of Primary Care Trust (PCT) commissioning in the English National Health Service.

Four deliberative events were held with 139 citizens taking part in total. Events design incorporated elements of the Twenty-first Century Town Meeting and the World Café, and involved specially-designed dice games. Evaluation surveys reporting quantitative and qualitative participant responses were combined with follow-up interviews with both PCT staff and members of the public. An evaluation framework based on previous literature was employed.

The evaluation demonstrates high levels of enjoyment, learning and deliberative engagement. However, concerns were expressed over the leading nature of the voting questions and, in a small minority of responses, the simplified scenarios used in dice games. The engagement exercises also appeared to have minimal impact on subsequent Primary Care Trust resource allocation, confirming a wider concern about the influence of public participation on policy decision making. The public engagement activities had considerable educative and political benefits and overall the evaluation indicates that the specific deliberative tools developed for the exercise facilitated a high level of discussion.

This paper helps to fill the gap in empirical evaluations of deliberative approaches to citizen involvement in health care priority setting. It reports on a novel approach and considers a range of implications for future research and practice. The study raises important questions over the role of public engagement in driving priority setting decision making.

The digital transformation towards Industry 4.0 (I4.0) has become imperative for manufacturers, as it makes them more flexible, agile and responsive to customers. This study aims to identify the factors influencing the manufacturing firms’ decision to adopt I4.0 and develop a triadic conceptual model that explains this phenomenon.

This study used a qualitative exploratory study design based on multiple case studies (n = 15) from the manufacturing industry in Malaysia by conducting face-to-face interviews. The data were analysed using NVivo. The conceptual model was developed based on grounded theory and deductive thematic analysis.

Results demonstrate that driving, facilitating and impeding factors play influential roles in a firms’ decision-making to adopt I4.0. The major driving factors identified are expected benefits, market opportunities, labour problem, customer requirements, competition and quality image. Furthermore, resources, skills and support are identified as facilitating factors and getting the right people, lack of funding, lack of knowledge, technical challenges, training the operators and changing the mindset of operators to accept new digital technologies are identified as impeding factors.

Due to its qualitative design and limited sample size, the findings of this study need to be supplemented by quantitative studies for enhanced generalizability of the proposed model.

Knowledge of the I4.0 decision factors identified would help manufacturers in their decision to invest in I4.0, as they can be applied to balancing advantages and disadvantages, understanding benefits, identifying required skills and support and which challenges to expect. For policymakers, our findings identify important aspects of the ecosystem in need of improvement and how manufacturers can be motivated to adopt I4.0.

This study lays the theoretical groundwork for an alternative approach for conceptualizing I4.0 adoption beyond UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology). Integrating positive and negative factors enriches the understanding of decision-making factors for I4.0 adoption.

Provides an example of a firm’s use of distinguishing product attributes to engineer and nurture strong consumer‐brand relationships. Ty Inc., manufacturer of the popular Beanie Babies brand, has effectively engineered the brand to incorporate attributes of nostalgic value, personification, uniqueness, facilitation, engagement, aesthetic appeal, quality/excellence, association, social visibility and image congruence, and price risk. By incorporating these attributes and actively nurturing consumer‐brand relationships, Ty has benefited from greater customer satisfaction, which has led to higher purchase volumes, brand loyalty, and positive word‐of‐mouth communications. The straightforward methodology used to examine customer perceptions of Beanie Babies involved asking respondents to rate Beanie Babies on the ten characteristics associated with high‐involvement, relationship‐prone products. The same measurement approach could be easily replicated by managers of other firms to evaluate the relational potency of their own brands.

The worlds of literature and business are as different as they get. While literature often revels in the artistic and abstract aspects, business focuses on the more practical and realistic facets of life. Literature talks ideas, business speaks money. Writers express themselves with words, business men prove themselves through numbers. Former US President Calvin Coolidge once exclaimed, “The business of America is business. Not Art!” (West brook, 1980:1). However, this difference is, at most, on the surface. Literature and business intertwine on more perspectives than one might think. For example, there are traces of corporate capitalism in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in which workers are portrayed as “slaves to the economic system” (Watts, 1982:77). Or Joseph Heller’s Something Happened depicts the harsh rules of business by which any one who is not contributing efficiently to the success of a company will be discarded, also known as corporate Darwinism (Horner, 1992:27). Or in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, with a humourous tone, medieval England is modernised with various economic measures, such as new currency, stock exchange in the court, and full‐time employment for the knights, and hence saved from financial ruins (West brook, 1980:49). In other words, literature has been drawing inspirations from the financial market. Therefore, it might not be surprising if there are major themes in literature than can be applied to the corporate world. In fact, managers at all levels can learn valuable lessons for the many areas of business from literature.

Experience sampling methods (ESM) have enabled researchers to capture intensive longitudinal data and how worker well-being changes over time. The conceptual advances in understanding the variability of well-being are discussed. These emerging forms in the literature include affective inertia, affective variability, affective reactivity, and density distributions. While most ESM research has relied on the active provision of data by participants (i.e., self-reports), technological advances have enabled different forms of passive sensing that are useful for assessing and tracking well-being and its contextual factors. These include accelerometer data, location data, and physiological data. The strengths and weaknesses of passively sensed data and future ways forward are discussed, where the use of both active and passive forms of ESM data in the assessment and promotion of worker well-being is expected.

The ongoing development of new graphic symbol sets in conjunction with a lack of literature supporting professionals in choosing the optimum set(s) for their users was the driving force behind this research project. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that professionals take into consideration when they choose one graphic symbol set instead of another.

Based on the phenomenology of pedagogy, semi-structured interviews were used with three speech and language therapists (SLTs), three special education teachers, one teacher for pupils with hearing loss, one foundation year teacher and one SENCo/deputy head teacher. Thematic analysis was used to process the data.

The results have shown that when professionals choose a graphic symbol set for their user(s), they focus on the iconicity, the software availability and its features. They are also influenced by any existing graphic symbol policies in the area they work. Training and follow-up support also influence professionals’ experiences when choosing graphic symbol sets for their users.

Given the limited literature pertaining to the topic of this paper, it is proposed that further research is conducted in order to build the theoretical and practical frameworks upon which professionals (such as SLTs and teachers), symbols developers and academics can base their future work.

This research aims to contribute to the scant literature regarding the factors that SLTs take into consideration when choosing a graphic symbol set for their user(s).

The purpose of this paper is to examine how doctoral students experienced mentorship in their supervision context and how the mentorship they received impacted their well-being.

An interpretive phenomenological methodology was selected to frame the research design. This research approach seeks to study the individual lived experience by exploring, describing and analyzing its meaning.

The findings revealed three different quality levels of mentorship in this context authentic mentorship, average mentorship and below average/toxic mentorship. Doctoral students who enjoyed authentic mentorship experiences were more motivated and satisfied, students who reported average mentorships needed more attention and time from their supervisors, and students who had below average/toxic mentorships were stressed out and depleted.

A limitation of this study is the lack of generalizability owing to the small sample size typical in qualitative studies. Another limitation is that this research did not include students who quit their programs because of dysfunctional supervision experiences.

Students and supervisors can use the findings to reflect on their beliefs and practices to evaluate and improve their performances. Also, authentic mentors can benefit from the findings to create a positive culture for all students to receive support. Finally, current supervisory policies can be reviewed in light of this paper’s findings.

The findings show the nature of mentorship in an authoritative context, and how it can be toxic when power is misused.

This study provides new knowledge in relation to the different types of mentorship experiences that exist in doctoral supervision, and how each type can influence students’ well-being differently. Additionally, it reveals that doctoral students can graduate, even in the face of toxic mentorship, but at the expense of their well-being.