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Research in care homes requires the co-operation of care home managers. Noting the challenges faced by the care home sector, the purpose of this paper is to consider ways in which research studies can encourage care home managers and their homes to participate in research.

The discussion is informed by two research projects which are used to explore methods of encouraging managers of care homes to participate in research. One of the studies included interviews with care home managers to understand their reasons for taking part in research.

This paper outlines and assesses three strategies for encouraging care home managers to participate in research: working in partnership, providing payment and providing personalised feedback on findings. Whereas all the strategies have the potential to encourage care home managers’ participation in research, partnership working in particular was found to be fraught with difficulties.

This paper suggests that the research projects could employ any of these strategies to encourage managers of care homes to participate in research. It also suggests that proactive measures could help ameliorate the pitfalls of partnership working.

This paper shows the advantages and disadvantages of using a combination of strategies for encouraging the participation of care home managers in research.

As a movement for alternative means of food production and consumption has grown, so, too, have civic efforts to make alternative food accessible to low-income persons (LIPs). This article examines the impact of alternative food institutions (AFIs) on low-income communities in the United States and Canada, focusing on research published since 2008.

Through a three-stage literature search, I created a database of 110 articles that make empirical or theoretical contributions to scholarly knowledge on the relationship of AFIs to low-income communities in North America. I used an in vivo coding scheme to categorize the impacts that AFIs have on LIPs and to identify predominant barriers to LIPs’ engagement with AFIs.

The impacts of AFIs span seven outcome categories: food consumption, food access and security, food skills, economic, other health, civic, and neighborhood. Economic, social and cultural barriers impede LIPs’ engagement with AFIs. AFIs can promote positive health outcomes for low-income persons when they meet criteria for affordability, convenience and inclusivity.

This review exposes productive avenues of dialogue between health scholars and medical sociology and geography/environmental sociology. Health scholarship offers empirical support for consumer-focused solutions. Conversely, by constructively critiquing the neoliberal underpinnings of AFIs’ discourse and structure, geographers and sociologists supply health scholars with a language that may enable more systemic interventions.

This article is the first to synthesize research on five categories of alternative food institutions (farmers’ markets, CSAs, community gardens, urban farms, and food cooperatives) across disciplinary boundaries.

The purpose of this paper is to revisit the issue of the entry of women into the Anglo-Australian accounting profession in the Second World War and provide insights on the role that gender, class, and ethnicity played in mediating women’s relations with the accounting profession in that period.

The study is based on the narratives of three women from diverse social backgrounds who entered the Anglo-Australian profession during this period.

The analysis indicates that while participants had the mindset needed for accounting work, the more removed the individual’s perceived social identity was from her perception of the dominant British, white, middle-class ideology of the profession, the less likely she was to embrace the opportunity to join the accounting profession. The distance was anchored in social (ethnicity and class) and historical forces. The study also finds that the appropriation of education and credentials ameliorated disadvantages accruing from gender and working-class status.

This study has implications for our understanding of the accounting profession and what is required to reduce the risks of marginalization in a contemporary setting.

The study provides a richer understanding of how class and ethnicity shape the female experience differently. The results also demonstrate that in times of social change, the processes of inclusion and exclusion are not confined to the deliberations of the accounting profession but also the individual. Whether the women valued accounting as an occupation depended on whether or not if offered them the freedom to achieve what they valued most. At the same time, however, the freedom to realize what they valued most was a function of class and ethnicity. Finally, the results demonstrate the capacity of unique experience to shape the perceptions, aspirations and actions of women.

The Neenan Company is a construction firm based in Fort Collins, Colorado, known for their efforts in pioneering the advancement of the design/build approach to construction. With a history of industry leadership, innovative contracting methods, and ethical business practices, the company now faces management, customer relations, and financial challenges. Serious structural problems were discovered in a number of public schools and other buildings built by the company. Thrown into a whirlwind of shock, Randy Myers, President of the company, must consider how to respond to the crisis, and how to prevent these issues in the future. Written from his perspective, this case provides a platform for considering the challenges that can result from industry innovation, ethical decision-making, and crisis management.

For the development of this case, the authors interviewed the top management at the Neenan Company: Founder David Neenan, President Randy Myers, and Donna Smith, Vice President of Business Development. The authors also interviewed current employees, previous employees of Neenan, representatives of school buildings built by Neenan, stakeholders, other experts in the construction field and existing customers of the company. The company made internal documents available to the authors, including financial statements and quality control and assessment tools, which were provided by Ryan Dellos, Chief Financial Officer. The authors surveyed financial documents and business documents to analyze pertinent information and data relevant to the case. All the interviews were recorded, coded, and analyzed to include multiple perspectives. Extensive online research was conducted on the construction industry and The Neenan Company which included several news articles and interviews on David and Randy. Additionally, the authors carefully studied the news reports by The Denver Post and other related press materials. Experts from the construction field and financial field provided assistance with data analysis and interpretation. The authors used a variety of academic resources to draw connections between the issues faced by Neenan and concepts discussed in business courses.

This case has applications in entrepreneurship, small business management, business ethics, leadership, organizational structure/design, and new venture management courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. It also contains critical areas of decision-making relevant to an advanced strategic management course. The case can be introduced at any stage of the term, and is specifically relevant to discussions focussing on innovation and growth, corporate social responsibility, ethical decision-making, stakeholder theory, entrepreneurial crisis management, and long-term venture success.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the level of flexibility in loan products offered to smallholder farmers in Siaya County in Kenya and to examine the effect of flexibility on access to credit.

The paper uses primary survey data from a sample of smallholder farmers in Siaya County in Kenya who had borrowed from various lending institutions within the study area. The paper develops an index variable of loan flexibility using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) technique. The model is estimated using both OLS and truncated regression analyses. Access to credit is measured as the amount of loan borrowed by each farmer.

The authors find that the level of flexibility of loans offered to farmers is low. Furthermore, the authors find that the level of flexibility is not significantly correlated to access to credit. Further analysis using individual components of flexible loans show that refinancing and lines of credit are more likely to improve access to credit when farmers are more educated and wealthier, respectively. The age of a farmer, the type of lender, the type of loan, education and household wealth are the main determinants of access to credit.

The paper adds to the debate on access to credit by showing that theoretically, while loan flexibility should lead to higher credit access, this is not a key determinant of access to credit in this context.

Consecration is the process by which producers in creative fields become canonized as “greats.” However, is this the end of the story? Research on consecration focuses on the drivers of consecration but pays little attention to the post-consecration period. Furthermore, the research ignores the dynamics of consecration. To address these gaps, we examine the changing fortunes of a consecrated artist – the musician Phil Collins. We identify the ways in which three actors (fans, critics, and peers) assemble for consecration, disassemble for deconsecration, and reassemble for reconsecration. Examining the changing public image and commercial fortunes of Collins as a solo artist between 1980 and 2020, we identify an N-shaped process of rise-fall-rise that we call the Phil Collins Effect. This effect offers a new way of thinking about how cultural producers gain, lose and regain status in their fields.

AS J. L. Hobbs shows so clearly in his recent book, the interest in local history is growing enormously at present. The universities, training colleges and schools, as well as the institutions of further education, are all making more use of local studies—geographical, economic, social and historical—in their regular courses, in their advanced work, and in their publications.

Strategy & Leadership contributing editors interviewed researcher Jim Collins. Collins is author of two influential books: Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies co‐authored with Jerry Porras, and Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t. Some key points Collins makes are: The transition from good to great all began with a Level 5 leader. The essence of Level 5 leadership is having an ambition for the cause of the work‐the outcome, the company, the organization‐above the self; also, at the same time, having the ferocious, frightening, terrifying willfulness to act upon that ambition. Most Level 5 leaders understand that their report card only comes in when their successor succeeds. In most cases, but not all, their successors were even more successful than they were. That’s different from the comparison cases, where a number of the executives defined their success in terms of their successor failing. All the good‐to‐great CEOs said “I am not going to answer the ‘What to do’ question until I’ve got the right people. And we will not determine where to drive this bus until we decide who should be on the bus, who should be off the bus, and who should be in what seat.” In the comparison companies, you have leaders who often came in with “the what” and then tried to get everybody to go there, whereas the good‐to‐great companies had leaders who began with the “who” and then figured it out from there. The idea that you first get the right team and only later figure out where to drive the bus is absolutely contrary to what everyone learned in business school. The great companies understood what they could absolutely be the best in the world at. And also, “If we can’t be the best in the world at it then we shouldn’t be doing it.” They wanted to have a profound understanding of their economics and how to fundamentally change them. And they put a high premium on things that they were very passionate about.

One of the critical factors that separate great organizations from good organizations is leadership (Collins, 2001). To support this statement, find a school that consistently has high performance, regardless of the students’ socio-economic background, and there will be present a talented, highly effective leader. Effective school leadership is a major, if not the major, key to our overcoming the morass of failure in our schools. School leadership, especially in independent charter or autonomous schools, is complicated by the fact that schools are irrational organizations (Patterson, Purkey, & Parker, 1986) that require legislative (relational) rather than executive (direction from the top) leadership (Collins, 2001). For many years, the author has been examining school leadership through his experiences: as a leader, reading, studying leaders, and producing tools to select talented people to lead schools. It has become apparent to the author that the key to successful leaders is not found in personality or style but originates in something much deeper – the leader’s core values or mental models (Covey, 1990; Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday) and how these translate into transformative leadership beliefs and behaviors or attributes. In this chapter, the author will share some of the attributes he and others have found to set great school leaders apart. The rationale for, and implementation of the structured interview in a charter school setting are described. Challenges and outcomes of the implementation of the structured interview are detailed as well.