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This paper aims to report the findings of a study that explores the contribution volunteers make to social care for older adults, identifying lessons for the social care sector and policymakers.

An exploratory multiple case study design was used to capture the perspectives and experiences of managers of services, volunteer co-ordinators, volunteers, paid care staff and older people. Seven diverse social care organisations took part in the study drawn from three locations in the South West of England.

This study identified three distinct models of volunteer contribution to social care services for older people. Although the contributions made by volunteers to services are valued, the study drew attention to some of the challenges related to their involvement.

The organisations taking part in this small-scale study were all based in the South West of England, and the findings are therefore not generalisable but contribute to the growing evidence base related to this important field.

This study demonstrates the importance of the volunteer co-ordinator role and suggests that it is properly funded and resourced. It also confirms the importance of volunteers receiving appropriate training and support.

Given the increasing involvement of volunteers in the provision of social care, this paper provides lessons to ensure the role of volunteers in social care enhances rather than diminishes the quality of care provided.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the process of commissioning adult social care services in England. It reflects the literature on commissioning at the strategic level followed by a section on operational or micro-commissioning. The rest of the paper focusses on the emergence of ideas about outcomes-based commissioning (OBC) in the field of adult social care and ends with critical consideration of the effectiveness of OBC in adult social care as applied to support and care provided in extra care housing.

The review of strategic and operational commissioning in adult social care in England (and Scotland in brief) is based on both policy documents and a review of the literature, as are the sources addressing OBC in adult social care particularly in extra care housing settings.

The core of this paper focusses on the challenges to the implementation of OBC in adult social care in the context of provision for residents in extra care housing. Of central importance are the impact of the squeeze on funding, increasing costs as a result of demographic change and the introduction of a national living wage plus the focus on the needs of service users through the idea of person-centred care and resistance to change on the part of adult social care staff and workers in other relevant settings.

Addressing the implementation of OBC in adult social care in England in the context of extra care housing.

This paper explores residents' perceptions and experiences of extra care housing as an integrated model of housing with care.

Data were collected in a longitudinal qualitative study based on four extra care housing schemes. Data from interviews with residents, care workers, managers and local commissioners were analysed thematically.

The integration of housing with care enabled many older people to manage their care proactively. However, the increasing number of residents with complex health and care needs, including chronic illness, led some residents to question the ability of the model to support residents to live independently.

The study struggled to recruit sufficient residents from the specialist dementia setting who were able to communicate their consent to take part in the research. In addition, the quality of qualitative data collected in interviews with participants at this setting reduced over successive rounds of interviews.

The study suggests the need to ensure that residents are fully informed about levels of care and support is available when considering a move into extra care housing.

This paper provides a timely opportunity to consider extra care housing as an example of an integrated housing service, particularly in light of the current challenges facing the sector.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of trust, informational support and integrative behaviors in the effective outcomes of peer conflict in the workplace.

Deidentified secondary data were provided by a human resource management company that offers conflict resolution training. The authors studied a sample of 815 supervisors and middle-level managers (51% female; average age = 40) who reported their primary work experience was in the USA. Each respondent described a workplace conflict with a peer. A regression-based bootstrapping technique was used to test the hypothesized relationships between the constructs of trust, informational support, integrative behaviors and effective outcomes in peer conflict.

The relationship between trust and the use of integrative behaviors during peer conflict is conditional on the availability of informational support, such that those who solicit a third party’s views are more likely to exhibit integrative behaviors during the conflict under study, even at relatively lower levels of trust in the conflict relationship.

In this study, the authors add to social interdependence theory and the role of integrative behaviors by proposing the importance of interpersonal trust and informational support, which may reduce uncertainty during peer conflict. The authors also extend existing literature on cooperation, cooperative approaches to managing conflict and integrative behaviors in the workplace by examining peer-to-peer organizational conflict.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper identifies and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material, in the area of library instruction and information literacy.

The paper provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information in the paper may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

A central question of public administration is how political principals secure the cooperation of administrators within organisational frames and contexts; increasingly, rational influences are being considered alongside bounded rationality and non-rational influences. This paper aims to explore the intent of New Zealand’s Public Service Act 2020 in managing administrative behaviour.

The methodology is primarily ethnographic, combining emic and etic perspectives. A mixed-methods approach comprises participant observer field notes and meeting documentation, substantiated by official documents; documents were analysed thematically and triangulated with other data sources.

The Public Service Act introduces new bounds on administrative behaviour. The stated rationale for these changes reveals an attempt to set limits on the principal–agent relationship between politicians and administrators and causes predictable deviations from rational behaviour by cultivating public service motivation and a unified public service identity.

As the legislation in question was only passed in 2020, it is too early to definitively assess the ultimate impact of legislation on administrative behaviour. This case study demonstrates that behavioural approaches to public administration are being applied intentionally by governments. The choice architecture created in the case study blends rational, bounded, and non-rational influences. Together, this produces a bricolage of semi-relevant theories from other disciplines, especially psychology, to explain administrative behaviour. Further refinement is needed to develop a cohesive and comprehensive theory of administrative behaviour that can account for contemporary practice.

Administrators act as agents of political principals, within ethical and rules-based limitations and influenced by public service motivation and social identity. Shifting from implicit to explicit choice architecture does not negate possible tensions between bounds and can signal them more explicitly. Shared symbols are sometimes intended to influence identity and therefore adherence to behavioural norms.

This paper explores the manipulation of choice architecture as a viable strategy for altering behaviour for the better and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first known instance of choice architecture being “legislated in” rather than merely “showing through”. This study illustrates the blending of rational, boundedly rational and non-rational factors into a choice architecture for public administrators that help mediate the biases and challenges of principal–agent relationships (which form a cascade in New Zealand’s public administration system).