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The purpose of this paper is to build upon existing knowledge of personalisation through an improved understanding of how the use of personalised social care services can support older people’s sense of self. It contains perspectives that are helpful to the development of personalisation policy and practice and to the future commissioning of social care services.

The research involved a qualitative study with eight participants in two local authority areas in England. A series of three in-depth interviews conducted with each participant over a four to six week period explored their experience of using (in one case refusing) a direct payment to meet their social care needs. Ethical approval was obtained prior to the start of fieldwork via the research ethics committee of the author’s home university.

Two inter-related themes emerge as findings of the research. First, that the locus of personalisation resides within the interpersonal dynamics of helping relationships; participants experienced personalisation when carers helped to meet needs in ways that validated their narrative of self. Second, whilst the experience of personalisation is not strongly related to consumer choice, it is important that older people are able to exercise control over and within helping relationships.

This is a small scale qualitative study conducted with only eight participants. Whilst it offers valid insights into what constitutes personalisation and the processes by which it was achieved for the participants, caution is required in applying the findings more generally. With the exception of one case, the study is focused exclusively on first person accounts of older people. Future studies might usefully be designed to incorporate the accounts of other involved parties such as family members and paid carers.

The paper provides an alternative way of approaching personalisation of social care services for older people by exploring it in terms of its impact on self. It identifies the development of accommodations of “special requirements of Self” in helping relationships as a key mechanism of personalisation. This offers a balance to the current focus on consumer choice and control through the development of market like mechanisms.

Purpose – Responsible investor (RI) engagement seeks to change corporate strategic priorities while balancing the financial imperative. This chapter uses an institutional theory framework to explore the tension between financial performance and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues in RI engagement.

Methodology – Discourse of the proponent, supporters and opponents of Australia’s first climate change shareholder resolution – a minority proposal, will be analyzed using framing analysis.

Findings – Framing indicated that the discourse emphasized the dominant financial performance logic while often omitting the ESG logic. One possible explanation is that the process of shareholder proposal nomination and the financial imperative of investment organizations effectively co-opted the engagement.

Research limitations – A case of responsible investment engagement is used to illustrate multiple logics in the investment field. Although there are significant limitations to drawing inferences from a single example, the discussion is relevant to RI support for engagement initiatives such as the UN Principles of Responsible Investment clearinghouse and Carbon Disclosure Project Carbon Action. This chapter argues that attempts to change corporate strategic actions on climate change by RI through engagement will be less effective while the financial performance logic provides relatively more legitimacy to investors.

Practical implications – Integrating the ESG logic with the financial logic is vulnerable to co-optation due to incommensurability. Operationalizing both logics requires establishing a boundary between ESG and financial logics to develop legitimacy.

Social implications – RI engagement on climate change has the potential to be an important part of the social response to the sustainability agenda.

Originality – In applying institutional theory to RI climate change activism this chapter presents original insights into the potential of engagement to effect change.

THE note of the Conference at Harrogate was the question of unemployment in relation to libraries. The arguments advanced were intended for the wider public rather than for librarians, and reproduced a now fairly familiar argument that the issues of books from libraries have increased by leaps and bounds since the beginning of the depression. It is quite clear that many men who normally would not read quite so much have turned to books for consolation and guidance. The fact that branch libraries were closed at Glasgow as an economy measure, and were afterwards re‐opened under the force of public opinion, would emphasize the opinion generally held that in times of economic stress it may be an even greater economy to increase expenditure upon libraries than to curtail it. This argument is, of course, in a region which the average material mind of our governors cannot always reach. It is nevertheless true, and the Conference provided ample evidence of its truth.