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In Scotland, the self-directed support (SDS) legislation is a catch-all payment system which brings challenges to local authorities, service delivery organisations and the service users it is intended to empower. Set against a backdrop of cuts to local authorities and third-sector funding, this policy presents third-sector organisations with both the opportunities and challenges of commercialising their activities to become more sustainable. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of the challenges faced by one charity as it engages in a process of hybridity to accommodate changes in its funding due to the introduction of SDS.

The paper utilises a case study approach. The paper captures the experiences and views of managers, staff and parents advocating for their children through interviews with a purposive sample from each group. The challenges of gathering data and giving a voice to caregivers advocating for children with complex needs are discussed, particularly the difficulties in accessing a hard to reach group.

The findings identifies issues which have arisen because of the proposed changed in strategic direction of the organisation due to the introduction of SDS and are all related to hybridity. The findings are arranged in four sub-sections based on the themes that emerged from the qualitative data generated from the interviews: the practical delivery of care; tensions between care and quality, the care workforce, and the parent perspective.

SDS policy has had unexpected impacts and reactions whilst rolling out across regions in Scotland, but policymakers and those involved in the care sector, including consumers, face significant challenges in gathering evidence not only from the vulnerable populations this policy affects but also from organisations already under pressure from austerity-led cuts. This paper presents the challenges to organisations involved in caring for children with complex needs, who are a particularly neglected group of stakeholders.

Organically arising barriers to organisational transition from charity to social enterprise are presented, as staff and caregivers react to the prospect of SDS uptake affecting their organisation. Proactive attempts to embrace a hybrid approach by the organisation are analysed.

Understanding how social care organisations and clients are reacting to the implementation of individual payments as opposed to the previous system of block contracts is crucial as the sector faces very real prospects of organisations closing when individuals are able to pick and choose care. A policy based on choice and control for the consumer risks removing choice through a loss of services in the marketplace, leaving vulnerable populations at risk.

This study is unique. No research has been done exploring the transition of charities servicing children with complex needs in anticipation of self-directed payments creating an open market. The paper further contributes to the existing knowledge regarding hybrid organisations within the third sector.

Building on previous work (Cano and Moyes, 2013; Douglas and Moyes, 2013; Moyes, 2012) this study further develops the proposition that word-of-mouth and customer retention are enhanced through the ‘3 Rs’ of service quality; viz. reliability, responsiveness and recovery. Work to date in this field has developed and tested the model in two different rural locations. However, there may be underlying factors in rural areas which cause the correlation between customer satisfaction and loyalty behaviour to be overstated. Therefore, to control for the possibly distorting effects of rurality, this study examines the loyalty responses of urban service-users.

Using the Critical Incident Technique a study of young, relatively affluent women was carried out in a city-centre in Scotland. The study was carried out in spring 2014 over a one week period. Results were analysed using qualitative analysis software.

Results confirmed the validity of the 3 Rs model. Findings demonstrate that the model is valid for different population densities.

The qualitative method yields rich, insightful data, but the results cannot be generalized to a wider population. The findings provide service providers with a clear set of quality dimensions used by respondents to evaluate their service experiences. Loyalty behaviors were found to be highly responsive to quality evaluations; both repeat purchase intentions and word-of-mouth behaviors are highly quality-elastic.

The results confirm that a business which provides the quality of service which customers expected to receive, which demonstrates responsiveness to customer needs and which remedies failings in service delivery appropriately, will benefit from increased loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendations. Those which fail to provide these three essential elements will suffer loss of loyalty and incur negative word-of-mouth.

A clear set of dimensions is presented which reflect service priorities of consumers.

This paper reports on the perceived effectiveness of 56 fraud‐detecting audit procedures used in the stock and warehousing cycle, and the factors that influence the likelihood of detecting fraud in this transaction cycle in New Zealand. We surveyed New Zealand auditors to ascertain their opinion on the effectiveness of these audit procedures. While respondents perceive less than half of the 56 audit procedures as being “more effective” in detecting fraud, more than half are perceived as “moderately effective”. A total of 15 audit procedures are perceived as being “less effective” in detecting fraud. The perceptions of respondents are not affected by the location of their employers in New Zealand, and the type of audit firm employing them. A logit regression analysis suggests that size of audit firm, auditor’s position tenure, and auditor’s years of experience are statistically significant predictors of the likelihood of detecting fraud in the stock and warehousing cycle.

Football, or soccer as it is known in the United States, is one area in which managerial positions are hugely volatile with what is often called a ‘merry-go-round’ of managers sacked for poor performance at their club and reemployed by another club. Not only does this practice often not increase performance but it is also very costly. Considering the nature of football, that is, the relatively high impact of chance on the rare events that goals are, and the high correlation between success and the wage bill, the influence of managers on performance is often over-estimated. However, potentially better preparation of future managers might help to increase competitive advantages. In this chapter, we are looking in depth at leadership in the context of football and the lessons we can draw for other contexts.

Despite being a widely used management technique, cumulative sum (CUSUM) analysis remains almost unheard of in professional sport. To address this, CUSUM analysis of soccer match data from the English Premier League (EPL) was performed. The primary objective of the study was to evaluate CUSUM as a tool for assessing “on-field” team performance. As a secondary objective, the association between managerial change and team performance was evaluated.

CUSUM was applied retrospectively to goal difference data for six EPL teams (Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham) over 23 consecutive seasons from 1995 to 2018. This was supplemented with change point analysis to identify structural changes in mean goal difference. Succession was evaluated by mapping historical managerial changes onto the CUSUM plots for the respective clubs.

CUSUM analysis revealed the presence of structural changes in four clubs. Two structural change points were identified for both Chelsea and Everton, one for Manchester United and Tottenham and none for Arsenal and Liverpool. Relatively few managerial changes coincided temporally with structural changes in “on-field” performance, with most appointments having minimal impact on long-term team performance. Other factors (e.g. changes in ownership) appear to have been influential.

The study was limited by the fact that only successful teams were investigated.

CUSUM analysis appears to have potential as a tool for executive decision-makers to evaluate performance outcomes in professional soccer.

The study is the first of its kind to use CUSUM analysis to evaluate team performance in professional soccer.

It is important that agency advice and support for SMEs in rural areas is congruent with how business-owners perceive their needs and challenges. To explore how well matched these two sides are, this chapter investigates the difficulties faced by small businesses operating in rural southwest Scotland.

In-depth interviews with business influencers (those whose activities affect businesses either through application of policy initiatives, development of policy or the giving of business advice) and owner-managers of rural businesses compare and contrast the perceptions of the challenges of rurality for small businesses.

Mismatches are revealed between the concerns of rural business-owners and what business influencers understand them to be. Business influencers consider that structural weaknesses and a ‘lifestyle’ business culture in the region inhibit growth, but business owners are strategic in their business aspirations and approaches to growth. However, they are also highly critical of the promotion of the region and concerned about the misunderstanding of potential visitors that the region is remote and difficult to access.

This chapter reports experiences in a particular rural location; such experiences are typical of many rural regions and, thus, the findings should be transferable.

The region’s economic strategy focuses on reducing the significant prosperity gap with the rest of the country. Key to this is the development of indigenous business sectors. However, the policy interventions derived from a misapprehension of the constraints and underpinning culture of indigenous businesses are unlikely to be successful and may be counter-productive.

Contrasting the perspectives of those who do business with those who influence business reveals issues of understanding which need to be addressed.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight and encourage consideration of the ethical and in some instances legal implications of managerial change in the English Premier League (EPL) which often gets overlooked and sidestepped by clubs.

Extant literature relating to managerial change is identified and discussed to provide the foundations of the discussion of whether managerial change in the EPL which is primarily focused on performance outcome, is neglecting ethical and legal issues.

The loophole that exists in the Employment Rights Act (1996) allows clubs to instantly dismiss a manager and consequently not see out their notice period as agreed in their contract or the statutory notice period. Whilst legally clubs are at will to act in this manner, the instability of EPL management evident today appears to have taken away the rights of an employee.

Greater consideration of the current managerial change practices in EPL from an ethical and legal perspective appears warranted. The incomparable rights that a player and a manger have relating to their tenure at a club seem somewhat unfair.

Presents thought-provoking information relating to managerial change in the EPL which appears to have been overlooked in the literature to date which primarily focuses on the impact of change on performance.

In this chapter, each of the completed models of curriculum is presented and evaluated using criteria from the attributes of effective curricula discussed in Chapter 1. Explanations of the design strategies that are used to demonstrate each attribute in a differentiated manner are included. The evaluation process provides an evaluation methodology to demonstrate the effectiveness of each model of a curriculum in a credible and trustworthy way.

In the previous chapters, the individual parts of the curricula were configured, aligned, and interconnected to deliver specific outcomes in each learning module. In this chapter, the components of each curriculum are assembled into one table to exhibit the order contained within each learning module within the overall curriculum. The standards for curricular attributes adopted at the beginning of the design process are the criteria for the evaluation of the completed curriculum. The strategies used to configure the components of each curriculum provide evidence of the curriculum’s characteristics, which demonstrate compliance with each criterion.

The evaluation of these attributes within a curriculum serves several purposes. First, they provide a checklist to guide the design process toward curricula that reflect these standards as developed by the profession of curriculum design in higher education. Second, they provide a measurement of the attributes of the curriculum to demonstrate the compliance of each curricular design with conventional standards. Third, these measurements can be compared with other institutional data to uncover correlations between the design assumptions and learner performance. These correlations often reveal unanticipated results, which inform the effectiveness of the instructional system.

These criteria are applied to the evaluation of the curriculum for each module to demonstrate the diverse manner in which each can be achieved in a discipline-specific manner. The compliance with these criteria is explained to be a matter of demonstration, as used in the discipline of qualitative research. These qualitative evaluations can then be compared with other operational data to understand the effectiveness of the design assumptions for each curriculum.

Rural entrepreneurship research traditionally focuses on the farmer or rural communities. Little work has been done to examine the ways in which small rural firms operating in and around rural towns develop their service quality priorities. This study seeks to examine the approaches to service quality of 12 such businesses and compare their priorities for service quality with the evaluation criteria of rural service consumers.

The paper adopts a multi‐method approach within the qualitative paradigm. A total of 12 business‐owners were interviewed and the critical incident technique (CIT) was employed with 60 rural consumers.

The service priorities of rural service firms and their customers do not match. The businesses privilege tangible aspects of their service delivery, but the primary cause of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction is found to be the behaviour of service staff. The service quality propositions of the businesses are driven by the competencies and priorities of their owner‐managers and are not informed by market research.

A defining feature of small rural firms is their limited resource base. The businesses prioritise quality features which are not highly valued by customers whilst neglecting those which are. Scarce resources could be employed more productively.

For the first time service priorities of rural small firms are contrasted with the evaluation criteria of rural customers.