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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the complexities involved in implementing continuous improvement (CI) initiatives in public sector organisations.

This paper is based on a case study of a private sector organisation based in New Zealand and its efforts in implementing CI activities in its public sector clients. In total, 12 semi-structured interviews were followed by group model building exercises based on system dynamics that led to the development of a systems model.

CI initiatives using public-private partnerships were successful in steadily improving the operational excellence and end-user satisfaction in this case. But client satisfaction was only increasing at a much slower rate. The underlying structure responsible for this behaviour was captured using a causal loop model and explained using seven interacting feedback loops.

The major limitation of this research is that it is confined to one private sector organisation and its public sector clients. Thus, the generalisability cannot be utilised for future reference.

This paper illustrates the development of strategic initiatives based on a participative model building approach. It provides a practical method for initiating long-term structural changes while managing CI activities in public sector organisations.

This paper contributes a New Zealand case of public-private partnerships for implementing CI initiatives. It illustrates a systems approach to analyse the complexities involved in implementing CI initiatives in public sector organisations.

The paper analyses four different perspectives on well‐being: the medical viewpoint and the hegemony of trauma, the cultural approach and the balance of social, spiritual and natural realms, the psycho‐social position and the scrutiny of the social environment, and multi‐levelled ecological models that integrate multiple layers. The paper advocates a shift away from analyses of localities/phases/contexts and well‐being towards those of processes, predicated on the separation of physical dis(re)‐locations from psychological dis(em)‐placements. When examining processes and negotiations with life events, of which displacement is one, well‐being is understood as a process of being ‘of’ rather than being ‘in’.

This research examines effects on emotional burnout among “maternity support workers” (MSWs) that support women in labor (labor and delivery (L&D) nurses and doulas). The emotional intensity of maternity support work is likely to contribute to emotional distress, compassion fatigue, and burnout.

This study uses data from the Maternity Support Survey (MSS) to analyze emotional burnout among 807 L&D nurses and 1,226 doulas in the United States and Canada. Multivariate OLS regression models examine the effects of work–family conflict, overwork, emotional intelligence, witnessing unethical mistreatment of women in labor, and practice characteristics on emotional burnout among these MSWs. We measure emotional burnout using the Professional Quality of Life (PROQOL) Emotional Burnout subscale.

Work–family conflict, feelings of overwork, witnessing a higher frequency of unethical mistreatment, and working in a hospital with a larger percentage of cesarean deliveries are associated with higher levels of burnout among MSWs. Higher emotional intelligence is associated with lower levels of burnout, and the availability of hospital wellness programs is associated with less burnout among L&D nurses.

While the MSS obtained a large number of responses, its recruitment methods produced a nonrandom sample and made it impossible to calculate a response rate. As a result, responses may not be generalizable to all L&D nurses and doulas in the United States and Canada.

This research reveals that MSWs attitudes about medical procedures such as cesarean sections and induction are tied to their experiences of emotional burnout. It also demonstrates a link between witnessing mistreatment of laboring women and burnout, so that traumatic incidents have negative emotional consequences for MSWs. The findings have implications for secondary trauma and compassion fatigue, and for the quality of maternity care.

Purpose – Studies have described how migrants progressively transform extraneous spaces into familiar, meaningful environments, turning them into ‘homes’. However, in some contexts the opposite process occurs: what once felt like home becomes alien, unrecognizable and extraneous. Building on ethnographic vignettes on the everyday life of immobile young Eritreans, this chapter explores the paradox of ‘not feeling at home’ while being physically there.

Methodology – The chapter builds on three months’ ethnographic fieldwork in Eritrea and extended participant observation among Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia, Sudan and Italy from 2012 to 2014.

Findings – I show how the youth, in a pervasive context of migration culture, articulate a sense of belonging towards what they imagine as the ‘outside world’, while being unable to make sense of their lives in their own homeland. Using the notions of ‘estrangement’ and home-unmaking, it is possible to account for the feelings of those living in conditions of protracted crisis and explore the subjective worlds of prospective refugees.

Originality/Value – The chapter’s originality lies in the uniqueness of the ethnographic material and in the innovative approach to the debate on home-making and refugee studies. Instead of considering refugees’ home-making processes in other countries, this chapter analyses the experience of losing home without moving. By using the concept of estrangement, it investigates the manifold meanings of immobility while adding to the theoretical discussion on home-making/unmaking processes. Moreover, it contributes to the empirical investigation of determinants of asylum flows by investigating the case of Eritrea, a major refugee-producing country.

Library instruction is an important component in developmental programs for high‐risk college freshmen. There is little in the literature to describe information literacy programs for these students. Aims to redress this omission.

This article describes a library instruction component that was included in an English department enrichment skills program for university freshmen with low verbal SAT scores. The library component includes instruments used to evaluate library sessions from the viewpoint of both the English department faculty and library faculty. A pre‐session survey was given to students to ascertain their previous experience with using the library. The results of this indicated that library instruction was needed. An assessment quiz given to students at the end of the session evaluated what they had learned.

Two or three library sessions are required to cover the basic skills of library use. In addition, librarians and English professors need to collaborate closely on assignments for the library sessions so that students will have a practical need to focus on the material presented.

This article adds to the body of literature on information literacy programs for high‐risk students, an often overlooked group.

Purpose – This chapter revisits an archive of life-story interviews of immigrant care workers in Italy in order to map the underlying placements, meanings and emotional connotations of the word ‘home’ (casa). The discursive ways of using this word are connected to the respondents’ shifting life milieus and orientations towards receiving and sending societies.

Methodology – The chapter builds on the content analysis of a subset of biographical interviews of immigrant women employed in live-in care work in Italy.

Findings – Three categories emerge across respondents’ narratives. Their everyday life experience is based in Home_here-and-now (the present dwelling place) and thus depends on its often limited inclusive potential. However, their everyday life experience is also affected by the home conditions in their country of origin (Home_there-and-now) and by their recollections, understandings and revisits of the past home experience prior to migration (Home_there-and-then). These immigrant women are engaged in an ongoing balancing act between different spatial and temporal dimensions of what they frame as home. Critical to their wellbeing is the ability to keep cultivating meaningful connections with Home_there-and-now and to reproduce some patterns of Home_there-and-then.

Originality/Value – As my study suggests, their present dwelling and living conditions remain the central arena for immigrants negotiating a more inclusive sense of home. Reconstructing home-related views and practices is a good heuristic strategy for researchers to illuminate ‘biographies of belonging’ as a whole. An analytical focus on the ways of using the word ‘home’ reveals broader patterns of integration and transnational participation.

This study aims to investigate the aspects of perceived quality differences that influence student satisfaction when the mode of learning is changed from the traditional classroom to online distance learning because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study used an online survey for data collection by distributing online questionnaires to students at a private university in Indonesia. Convenience sampling was applied as the sample method. A total of 253 valid questionnaires were acquired, and all items were recorded on the seven-point comparative scale. Exploratory factor analysis was adopted to identify the dimensions of perceived quality. Then, multiple regression analysis was used to examine the impacts of these dimensions on student satisfaction.

Four dimensions of perceived quality differences were identified, namely, the perceived quality of the campus facilities, learning process, teaching staff and administrative staff. Regression analysis results proved that the perceived differences in the quality dimensions between the traditional classroom and online distance learning had positive and significant effects on student satisfaction.

As a result of using a convenient sample, this study exhibited a limited sample and context. Therefore, the generalizability of these findings is limited. Future research can use a stratified sample with more diverse categories of respondents.

The findings of this study will help universities that plan to change the mode of learning from traditional classroom to online distance learning. Higher education institutions can gain a deep understanding of these perceived quality attributes that have significant impacts on student satisfaction.

To the author’s best knowledge, this study is the first to address the effect of changing modes of learning from traditional classroom to online distance learning because of the COVID-19 pandemic on student satisfaction in the Indonesian context.

For more than 25 years, the National History Day (NHD) program has a number of distinctive features that make it a uniquely powerful collaborative vehicle for information literacy instruction. By requiring that student participants do in‐depth research using primary source materials, NHD strongly encourages integrated learning of historical content and information‐seeking processes, and thus partnerships between history teachers and librarians. Because few middle and high schools have extensive collections of primary source materials, NHD also promotes partnerships between K‐12 schools and academic libraries, public libraries, and museums in making primary source materials available to students. This case study aims to draw on one academic library's three‐year experience of partnering in NHD events in its community.

Describes the NHD program, highlighting the commonalities between NHD learning goals; the National Standards for History: Historical Thinking Standards (Grades 5‐12); the American Association of School Libraries' Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning; and the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.

Shows how one academic library was able to successfully implement NHD programming, especially in the area of library instruction, to engage students in their own learning.

NHD participation by higher education librarians, collaborating with their K‐12 counterparts, can be a powerful learning vehicle for elementary and secondary students to learn historical content knowledge, historical thinking skills, and information literacy skills.