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The purpose of this paper is to explore the issues and challenges facing employers as they manage degree apprentices in the workplace. It examines the relationship between managers and apprentices undertaking a work-based degree. This research is of particular relevance at this time because of the UK Government’s initiative to expand the number of apprenticeships in the workplace to three million new starts by 2020, inevitably bringing a range of pressures to bear on employers (BIS, 2015). The purpose is to share early experiences of employer management of degree apprenticeships, and provide a range of recommendations to develop and improve employer and higher education institution (HEI) practice.

This paper combines desk research with qualitative data drawn from interviews with a range of cross-sector organisations to investigate the employer’s experience of developing the new degree apprenticeships. Data are explored inductively using thematic analysis in order to surface dominant patterns and considers the implications of findings upon current and emerging HEI and employer practice and research.

There were a number of key themes which emerged from the data collected. These included the need for effective, employer-led recruitment processes, careful management of expectations, sound HEI retention strategies, employer involvement and board-level motivators to ensure organisational benefits are derived from effectively situated workplace learning and a focus upon effective, empowering mentoring and support strategies.

As degree apprenticeship standards and programmes are currently at the early stages of implementation, and opportunities, funding and resourcing are rapidly changing in the context of government policy, so too will employer appetite and strategies for supporting degree apprentices, along with apprentice behaviour. This means that additional findings, beyond those highlighted within this paper, may emerge in the near future.

There are a number of practical implications supporting managerial development and support of degree apprentices in the workplace from this research. These are reflected in the findings, and include the development of flexible and collaborative processes, resources, mentor training and networks.

This paper is one of the first published accounts of the employers’ perspective of managing a degree apprenticeship within the new policy context in the UK. As a result, the work offers a unique insight into the emerging challenges and issues encountered by managers working with degree apprentices in the twenty-first century business environment.

The accepted wisdom is that Northern Ireland is a traditional society within which women’s primary role is defined as homemaker and mother. Examines data on the labour market participation of women in Northern Ireland, drawing comparisons with the UK, the Republic of Ireland and the European Union. Examines four hypotheses as possible explanations for mothers continuing in paid employment. Concludes that, despite living in a society seemingly more traditional than that in many other European Union countries, mothers of young children in Northern Ireland may be more likely to be in employment because they can call on a network of family support to provide informal child care.

Watch your language ‐ One of my earliest schoolday memories is of a sweet, angelic little girl who sat behind me in class and at frequent intervals shot her hand in the air to exclaim ‘Please Miss, Allan Bunch swore’. Ever since then I have learnt to mind my language and whenever I felt the need to say ‘bloody’, I made sure it was suffixed by ‘Tower’, which somehow rendered it harmless. I was reminded of this incident by a new pamphlet published by NALGO called Watch your language, which is not about swearing but is a guide to using non‐sexist language for NALGO members. It is a very helpful guide, since it not only points out words to avoid but suggests alternatives or alternative ways of presenting the same information without the male bias. So, ‘manpower’ becomes ‘workforce or staff’ and ‘man‐made’, ‘artificial’. The pamphlet also covers stereotyping of jobs, sex‐typing and patronising married women by such phrases as ‘the better half’,‘the little woman’ and so on. I am less certain of their advice that cartoons should not portray women in the usual stereotyped roles and treat them as objects of ridicule, since the purpose of a cartoon is to ridicule, tosatirizeor poke fun at a person or behaviour and it achieves its effects mainly through exaggeration and stereo‐typing. But the point is taken. I was disappointed not to find the answer to a problem that has bothered me for some time, namely how to address a non‐sexist letter to a corporate body. ‘Messrs’ is out since it's masculine, but ‘Dear Madams/Sirs’ or ‘Dear Mesdames/Messrs’ sound terribly clumsy. Copies of Watch your language are free from NALGO, 1 Mabledon Place, London WC1 9HJ.

Considers the concept of “employee child care” and argues that it is problematic for a number of reasons. An alternative approach is advocated, based on an integrated, coherent and multi‐functional system of early childhood care and education services for all children and their carers, which does not treat children of employed parents in isolation from other children; examples of this broad approach are given. In conclusion, argues that an opportunity has been wasted to review services in the context of a wider consideration of policies to promote the reconciliation of parental employment and caring for children and of the role of employers with respect to reconciliation. Instead, a decontextualized advocacy of “employee child care” has been able to develop, virtually unchallenged, in a climate dominated by labour market concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the effectiveness of cognitive and emotional appeals to mobilize resources in prosocial crowdfunding settings that combine the creation of economic and social value.

The authors quantitatively measure the effectiveness of cognitive and emotional appeals in the entrepreneurial narratives of 2,098 entrepreneurs from 55 countries shared via the Kiva platform by performing multiple regression analysis.

The findings suggest that using cognitive appeals can attract more resources than using emotional appeals. In fact, using affective language in general, and negative emotion words specifically, can be detrimental and attract fewer resources.

The authors contribute to the entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship literature by linking insights from the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion and motivational framing to understand resource mobilization in prosocial settings. This study demonstrates that cognitive and emotional appeals could lead to different outcomes in contexts where entrepreneurial narratives are all framed as “doing good” and individuals allocating resources are highly socially motivated.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the psychological consequences of human trafficking and to reveal the importance of appropriate post-trafficking psychological interventions. Specifically, this study provides a detailed analysis of human trafficking categories, as well as the characteristics of victims and traffickers’ motives. More recent data in the literature show that trauma-coerced attachments and complex post-traumatic stress disorder are also observed among trafficking survivors.

Each of the mentioned mental disorders is presented separately, and results are discussed throughout this study. Consequently, psychological interventions are proposed in accordance with the human trafficking category, survivors’ characteristics and needs and with the relevant personal risk factors determined among victims.

Sex trafficking can have a severe effect on a victim’s mental health, and mental health disorders are substantially higher in human trafficking victims compared to non-trafficked victims or general psychiatric population. Limitations, implications and future recommendations are discussed.

A limited number of past studies evaluated the mental health consequences and identified that survivors have a higher prevalence of anxiety disorders, depression disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.