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The aim of this paper is to discuss how theories and practitioner-led theorising allow frontline workers to iteratively co-construct solutions that work in the real world.

This paper addresses the authors’ aim by proposing a social care theorising model

This study adopts a socio-ecological and epistemological lens when describing theorising and unpacks what this means when frontline workers adapt their practice and programs to work effectively with individuals and families. As frontline workers move towards a grand theory that determines their overarching theoretical perspectives through which they interpret their “social work” world, leadership, organisational culture and governance become crucial in supporting their use of discretion. This support is mostly manifested as supervision and coaching, and the authors argue here that a “researcher in residence” narrows the barriers to embedding research and evidence into practice. Discretion implies the choice of a practitioner to deliver program components in a way that fits the family, which may not align with rigid program protocols, and this calls in to question how to measure fidelity and compensate for adaptation. Furthermore, it highlights the limitations of some research methods and suggests that rapid data collection and analysis may be useful during this theorising process.

This paper conceptualises how frontline social care workers theorise in their practice, the ways these theories are shaped and suggests an option to narrow the research–practice gap.

Research pertaining to young people, frontline work and faith is fairly limited. This qualitative article proposes that often faith and “on road” youth work are intertwined. This paper aims to explore the experiences of nine frontline practitioners, those who work with young people in a range of settings. The crux of the discussion is focused on how the religious and cultural views of practitioners impact their frontline practice, as it relates to supporting the young person’s needs. The authors suggest that understanding frontline practice as it relates to faith is imperative to our ability to effectively engage with young people “on road”.

This paper took a qualitative approach, where semi-structured interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. This allowed the formation of the following three core themes: incarceration, religiosity and “on road” youth work; the nuances of religion and identity “on road”; and the “pains of ‘on road’ youth work”.

The findings within this paper suggest that faith and “on road” youth work are intertwined. In that frontline practitioners’ personal religious views, and importantly the understanding they have regarding the array of religious identities adopted by young people (YP) is helpful in engaging YP across the board. This paper highlights the complexities between identity, faith, faith-based support and hard-to-reach communities.

This paper explores the complexities between faith on “on road” criminology/“on road” youth work. This area of study is fairly under-researched. This paper seeks to build on existing research surrounding YP, further exploring religiosity from a UK context.

This paper aimed to explore the lived experiences of frontline practitioners in Birmingham UK, many of whom work with YP from Black, Asian or minority backgrounds. Therefore the findings cannot be generalised.

This paper’s intention is not to stereotype YP, but to raise awareness of the subjective experience of faith and religiosity on the frontline.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are few studies that explore the concept of “on road” criminology and “on road” youth work. Therefore, findings from this study are important to develop further understanding.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a mixed-methods study on the impact that COVID-19 has had on adult safeguarding. The research sought to explore the challenges and opportunities presented by COVID-19 to both frontline and non-frontline professionals working in adult safeguarding.

A mixed-methods project was undertaken comprising a literature review, survey, semi-structured interviews and a small number of freedom of information requests. This paper presents the findings predominantly from the survey and interviews.

Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 has presented a variety of challenges for professionals working in adult safeguarding. The themes that occurred most often were the day-to-day changes and challenges, relationships across sectors, information and navigating the ethical questions in safeguarding.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the findings represent the first focused qualitative mixed-method study aimed at understanding more about the impact the pandemic has had on adult safeguarding through the eyes of those professionals working in that field.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact on manufacturing performance of human resource management (HRM) practices across two job levels within manufacturing firms in Argentina and Uruguay: that of line managers and frontline workers. HRM practices are categorised into three bundles defined by the AMO theoretical framework: ability, motivation and opportunity.

The article uses data from a survey to 301 manufacturing plants in Uruguay and Argentina. Given the characteristics of the dependent variable, linear regression models have been estimated in order to test the hypotheses.

The results show that the ability and opportunity bundles for line managers are positively associated with manufacturing performance. However, only the motivation bundle affects manufacturing performance for frontline workers.

The main limitations are the use of cross-sectional data, the focus on two specific countries and the analysis of two employee categories that are not completely homogenous. The paper extends the contingency perspective in HRM by examining the relevance of job level as a contingent factor in the HRM-performance relationship in the manufacturing industry.

The results suggest that manufacturing companies should target HR investments more towards line managers than to frontline employees. More specifically, they should concentrate efforts on the ability and opportunity bundles.

The article contributes to the very limited empirical evidence on the impact of HRM differentiation on firm performance by analysing sub-dimensions in a context not previously analysed.

El objetivo del trabajo es analizar el impacto sobre los resultados de manufactura de la aplicación de prácticas de Dirección de Recursos Humanos en dos niveles de empleados dentro de las empresas industriales argentinas y uruguayas: los supervisores y los operarios de producción. Las prácticas de DRH son clasificadas en tres paquetes de acuerdo con el marco definido por el modelo AMO: capacidad, motivación y oportunidad.

El artículo utiliza datos procedentes de una encuesta realizada a 301 plantas industriales en Uruguay y Argentina. Dadas las características de la variable dependiente, se estiman modelos de regresión lineal para contrastar las hipótesis.

Nuestros resultados muestran que los paquetes de prácticas orientados a la capacidad y la oportunidad para los supervisores están asociados positivamente con los resultados de manufactura. Sin embargo, solo el paquete de prácticas orientado a la motivación afecta a los resultados de manufactura para los operarios de producción.

Las principales limitaciones son el uso de datos transversales, el enfoque en dos países concretos y el análisis de dos ocupaciones que no son completamente homogéneas. Este trabajo extiende la perspectiva contingente analizando la importancia del nivel jerárquico del puesto como un factor de contingencia en la relación DRH-resultados en la industria manufacturera.

Los resultados sugieren que las empresas industriales deberían dirigir sus inversiones en DRH más hacia los supervisores que hacia los operarios. Más concretamente, deberían concentrar sus esfuerzos en los paquetes de capacidad y oportunidad.

El artículo contribuye a la escasa evidencia empírica sobre el impacto de la diferenciación de la DRH sobre los resultados de manufactura analizando subdimensiones en un contexto no estudiado con anterioridad.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of e-government reforms on street-level bureaucrats’ professionalism and relation to citizens, thus demonstrating how the bureaucratic encounter unfolds in the digital era.

The paper is based on an ethnographic study of frontline work at a citizen service centre in a Danish municipality, and draws on empirical material generated through observations, field notes, interviews and policy documents.

The paper shows that e-government changes the mode of professionalism in citizen service from service to support. An ethnographic account of how digital reforms are implemented in practice shows how street-level bureaucrat’s classic tasks such as specialized casework are being reconfigured into educational tasks that promote the idea of “becoming digital”. In the paper, the author argues that the work of “becoming digital” in client processing entails two interconnected changes in frontline agents’ practice: de-specialization of the task and intensified informality in relation to citizens. As a result, the frontline agent works as an explorative generalist whose professional skills and personal competencies are blurred.

The study contributes to ethnographic research in public administration by combining two separate subfields, e-government and street-level bureaucracy, to discern recent transformations in public service delivery. In the digital era, tasks, control and equality are distributed in ways that call for symmetrical and relational approaches to studying street-level bureaucracy. The argument goes beyond technological or social determinism to find a fruitful intermediary position pointing at technological change as having both constraining and enabling effects.

To investigate the association between implementation of clinical governance and patient safety.

A pre-post study was conducted in an Australian health service following the implementation of clinical governance systems (CGS) in the inpatient wards in 2016. Health service audit data from 2017 on CGS implementation and the rate of adverse patient safety events (PSE) for 2015 (pre-implementation) and 2017 (post-implementation), across 45 wards in six hospitals were collected. CGS examined compliance with 108 variables, based on the Australian National Safety and Quality Health Service standards. Patient safety was measured as PSE per 100 bed days. Data were analysed using odds ratios to explore the association between patient safety and CGS percentage compliance score.

There was no change in PSE between 2015 and 2017 (MD 0.04 events/100 bed days, 95% CI -0.11 to 0.21). There were higher odds that wards with a CGS score >90% reported reduced PSE, compared to wards with lower compliance. The domains of leadership and culture, risk management and clinical practice had the strongest association with the reduction in PSE.

Given that wards with a CGS score >90% showed increased odds of reduced PSE health service boards need to put in place strategies that engage frontline managers and staff to facilitate full implementation of clinical governance systems for patient safety.

The findings provide evidence that implementation of all facets of CGS in a large public health service is associated with improved patient safety.

This paper explores and elaborates on emotions and capability in organizations through the phenomenon of care. Drawing upon multi-disciplinary theory, as well as empirical material from a case study in the hotel industry (involving four organizations), a theoretical framework is offered for understanding the multidimensional, dynamic, social relational nature and role of care in organizations. This is shown through the suggestion of a conceptual framework of four ideal types of practices in frontline work. In the practice of care, emotions are one of the vital parts in a larger whole. Regarding the role of care in organizations, it is suggested that what, and how, one cares for, are continually created, tested, negotiated and/or re-constructed. This paper suggests that the claims regarding care also provide implications for the study and understanding of emotions and capability in organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the introduction of a patient-centered model (PCM) in Italian hospitals affects the pre-existent configuration of clinical work and interacts with established intra/inter-professional relationships.

Qualitative multi-phase study based on three main sources: health policy analysis, an exploratory interview study with senior managers of eight Italian hospitals implementing the PCM, and an in-depth case study that involved managerial and clinical staff of one Italian hospital implementing the PCM.

The introduction of the PCM challenges clinical work and professional relationships, but such challenges are interpreted differently by the organisational actors involved, thus giving rise to two different “narratives of change”. The “political narrative” (the views conveyed by formal policies and senior managers) focuses on the power shifts and conflict between nurses and doctors, while the “workplace narrative” (the experiences of frontline clinicians) emphasises the problems linked to the disruption of previous discipline-based inter-professional groups.

Medical disciplines, rather than professional groupings, are the main source of identification of doctors and nurses, and represent a crucial aspect of clinicians’ professional identity. Although the need for collaboration among medical disciplines is acknowledged, creating multi-disciplinary groups in practice requires the sustaining of new aggregators and binding forces.

This study suggests further acknowledgment of the inherent complexity of the political and workplace narratives of change rather than interpreting them as the signal of irreconcilable perspectives between managers and clinicians. By addressing the specific issues regarding which the political and workplace narratives clash, relationship of trust may be developed through which problems can be identified, mutually acknowledged, articulated, and solved.

Clinical governance has become internationally recognised as a whole‐system framework for the continuous improvement of quality in health service delivery. This study aims to explore the issues in implementing a comprehensive clinical governance framework in an organisation that provides services to children and adults with intellectual disabilities supported by a wide range of clinical interventions and therapies.

This was an action research study that utilised a co‐operative inquiry approach because of its capacity to facilitate engagement in a collaborative “bottom‐up” meets “top‐down” process amalgamating theory with organisational priorities to achieve practical and planned change. Action research methodologies use a problem solving approach, focus on real‐life issues, and are open and inclusive. The study aimed to identify current practices in inter‐disciplinary team working including the measurement and monitoring of quality, and to design collaboratively an integrated team‐based service delivery model that focuses on continuous improvement in the quality of clinical services.

The study highlights the benefit of adopting a co‐operative inquiry approach to the development of a clinical governance framework. Staff at all levels began to take ownership of the clinical governance agenda. The systemic perspective promoted collaboration across clinical and non‐clinical disciplines and it is anticipated that it will result in new approaches to service quality in the organisation in the future.

This case study demonstrates how the practical and participatory approach of the action research and co‐operative inquiry methodologies can contribute to the resolution of a real organisational issue and enable transformational change in the infrastructure of clinical services.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the particular characteristics and strengths of mainstream undergraduate and postgraduate university education for social workers.

A brief summary of the establishment of the honours degree or M-level qualification as the requirement for registration as a social worker in England is followed by a summary of the main aspects of “mainstream” social work courses. The values underpinning a “student” rather than a “trainee” route into social work are explored and some limited comparisons made with recently introduced fast-track specialist programmes. Where relevant, the student experience is contrasted with that of fast-track specialist trainees.

The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential impact on the social work profession and on agencies providing social work services of the cuts over the past few years in the numbers of students on “generalist” mainstream social work programmes.

This is a conceptual paper. It recognises that more information is available on long-established university programmes than on the more recently available fast-track routes into social work and cites relevant research.

The paper points to the changing balance between numbers entering social work in England via mainstream and fast-track specialist programmes and argues for a fuller debate amongst all stakeholders as to whether this change is in the interest of the profession and those who need social work services.

The author argues that the unequal level of funding between the different entry routes into social work is distorting choice (for students and future employers) between fast-track specialist and mainstream social work education. It is hypothesised that differences between the curricula and learning experiences of the two routes may have an impact on the social work service available to vulnerable people across age and needs groups. It also points to a potentially negative impact on social work education and the knowledge base of the reduction in numbers of academics with both social work practice experiences and research qualifications.

This is an original paper that draws on the author’s experience and the published research and grey literature cited.