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The article outlines how the regional northern charity Developing Initiatives Supporting Communities (DISC) and twelve voluntary organisations banded together to win two government‐funded Supporting People contracts to provide flexible housing support in North, West and South Lancashire. It explains who DISC and the 12 Lancashire partners are, and who benefits from the independent living services they offer through one easily accessible service known as Compass. The partnership bucked the trend for large organisations to sweep away small local organisations in competitive tendering bids for public sector contracts. The article summarises the lessons learnt.

The Diagnosis of Sustainable Collaboration (DISC) model (Leurs et al., 2008) specifies five factors (i.e. project management, change management, context, external factors, and stakeholders’ support) which predict whether collaboration becomes strong and stable. The purpose of this paper is to study the dynamics of these factors in a study of multiple partnerships in comprehensive school health promotion (CSHP).

A Dutch two-year DISC-based intervention to support coordinators of five CSHP partnerships in the systematic development of intersectoral collaboration was studied in a pretest-posttest design. To uncover the determinants of sustainable collaboration and implementation of CSHP and to find possible mediators, the authors carried out multi-level path analyses of data on the DISC factors obtained from 90 respondents (response of approached respondents: 57 percent) at pretest and 69 respondents (52 percent) at posttest. Mediation mechanisms were assessed using joint significance tests.

The five DISC factors were important predictors of implementation of CSHP (explained variance: 26 percent) and sustainable collaboration (explained variance: 21 percent). For both outcomes, stakeholders’ support proved to be the most important factor. Regarding sustainable collaboration, mediation analysis showed that stakeholders’ support fully mediated the effects of change management, project management, external factors and context. This indicates that the extent of stakeholders’ support (e.g. appreciation of goals and high levels of commitment) determines whether collaboration becomes sustainable. The authors also found that the extent of stakeholders’ support in turn depends upon a well-functioning project management structure, the employment of change management principles (e.g. creation of a common vision and employment of appropriate change strategies), a favorable organizational context (e.g. positive experience with previous collaboration) and external context (e.g. positive attitudes of financing bodies and supporting health and educational policies). For the actual implementation of CSHP, partial mediation by the support factor was found. There was a direct positive effect of change management indicating that organizational knowledge is also necessary to implement CSHP, and a direct negative effect of project management, probably pointing to the negative effects of too much negotiation in the collaboration.

A design lacking a control group, a small sample and a relatively early assessment after implementation support stopped limit the generalizability of the results.

Strategies targeting the DISC factors can enhance stakeholders’ support and thereby promote sustainable intersectoral collaboration and the implementation of CSHP.

The DISC model provides a fruitful conceptual framework for the study of predictors and processes in public health partnerships. The importance of stakeholders’ support and other factors in the model are demonstrated.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The Commercial Invoice is the first EDI message to gain worldwide acceptance, and it has been registered as a standard by the United Nations. The action was hailed by the Commission of European Communities (CEC) as a significant step towards the international agreement on technical standards needed in order for electronic communications to gradually replace paperwork in world trade.

This chapter traces the history of digital libraries (DLs) in the United States through the funding sources that have supported DL research and development over the past decade and a half. A set of related questions are addressed: How have the mission and goals of funding agencies affected the types of projects that have been funded? What have been the deliverables from funded projects and how have the goals of the funding agencies shaped those deliverables? Funding agencies have exerted strong influence over research and development in DLs, and different funding agencies have funded different types of projects, with varying sets of concerns for driving the various fields that feed into DLs. This chapter will address the impact that DL funding has had on the development of research in the field of Library and Information Science, as well as on the practice of librarianship.

Few issues in recent times have so provoked debate and dissention within the library field as has the concept of fees for user services. The issue has aroused the passions of our profession precisely because its roots and implications extend far beyond the confines of just one service discipline. Its reflection is mirrored in national debates about the proper spheres of the public and private sectors—in matters of information generation and distribution, certainly, but in a host of other social ramifications as well, amounting virtually to a debate about the most basic values which we have long assumed to constitute the very framework of our democratic and humanistic society.

In this book chapter, we analyse social entrepreneurship (SE) development in the Western Balkans and present a regional overview. SE has become a globally known contributor to alleviating societal, economic, social, and environmental concerns. Its influence on increasing people’s quality of life has put the concept on a pedestal, and the Balkans are no different. The new advances have increased the efforts from the third sector in advocating for increased visibility, recognition, and support for social enterprises (SEs) as contributors to the development of resilient communities and facilitating the countries’ recovery from economic, social, and environmental crises. To provide a regional development overview, we use the institutional perspective. We base the analysis on data by applying qualitative methods, including document analysis, conference speeches, round tables, consultations, and other impactful events conducted over the last decade. The evidence suggests that the Western Balkan countries are similar in their development and lack a clear vision, a strategic pathway, and sustainable solutions to accelerate the sector’s growth. The awareness of the SEs’ contributions is still low, hindering their impact and potential scalability. Raising awareness campaigns is much needed to increase SEs’ visibility, recognition, revenues, and financial sustainability. Intersectoral collaboration is not at a suitable level, and the coordination and partnerships between the SE actors are lacking. The region needs to make a significant and consistent effort to facilitate the sector’s development and support SEs to provide the expected societal impact.

In the light of the financial crisis and the radically changed conditions in the market place, international leadership development is facing new demands. The Danish-based International Leadership Institute Mannaz has researched the new conditions in collaboration with the Institute of Executive Development in the United States.

The research, conducted in 2008 and 2009, combines, in an innovative way, quantitative and qualitative inputs, from both current and future perspectives, from some 111 senior Corporate Executives, Heads of Human Resources and of Learning and Organisational Development in large international corporations headquartered in Europe and the United States; together with the thoughts of some 50 experienced practitioners involved in executive coaching as well as in designing, developing and facilitating leadership development programmes. Also we include a section summarising the key findings from recently published research from other leadership development surveys. Conclusions reveal that the crisis has propelled a long-awaited decline of the traditional classroom-based educational approach to leadership development. Instead, effective leadership development is suggested to build on experiential learning approaches rooted in real life, real time and allowing for more immediate impact and providing for considerably higher relevance and motivation. Coaching, leaders teaching leaders, stretch assignments, action learning, peer networking, customer insights and selective use of technology are seen as important contributors to the leadership development process going forward.