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The purpose of this paper is to shed light on organizational perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of engaging older volunteers, and on how they might best capitalize on the availability of older volunteers in different countries and sectors.

The paper draws from 74 case studies of voluntary organizations carried out in eight European countries, conducted mainly between spring 2009 and autumn 2010. On‐site interviews adopting common guidelines were carried out with organizational representatives.

From the organizational perspectives, some disadvantages of engaging older volunteers are: difficulties matching older volunteers to tasks; problems relating to health and declining capacities; the need for special training efforts. Examples of perceived advantages are: considerable knowledge, skills, experience, reliability and strong commitment of older volunteers. In spite of the very different contexts, objectives and notions of “performance”, cost‐benefit assessments of older volunteers do not differ greatly from those generally held by employers about older employees. Countries differ considerably in the recognition of older volunteer potential.

Organizational policies and initiatives to capitalize on the availability of older volunteers are examined in the paper. Country and sector‐related reflections show how different and changing are the environments for volunteering. Policy makers need to recognise these when implementing active ageing policies. Voluntary organizations should raise their awareness of the need for innovation in volunteer management, especially relating to older people.

There has been much research about the experiences of older volunteers and how they benefit from the operations of civil society organizations. The perceptions of the organizations have, however, been neglected and these are explored in this paper.

The purpose of this paper (overview) is to provide a brief introduction to the topic of active ageing and summarise the seven studies included in this special issue. The authors also acknowledge those who were instrumental in bringing this issue to fruition.

The International Journal of Manpower's usual double‐blind review process was used to select the seven papers included in this special issue. The papers themselves all have a cross‐national perspective using data from eight European countries. These papers represent a wide variety of designs, methodologies and analytic strategies used to study active ageing in the paid labour force as well as in civil society. The papers make use of large‐scale surveys among employers and volunteers, case studies in organisations, and vital statistics.

The findings of the studies included in this special issue provide insights into the factors and mechanisms that hamper higher participation levels of older adults in paid employment and civil society, and give suggestions on how to improve their inclusion and how to deal with an ageing workforce.

Taken as a collective, the papers in this special issue help propel forward in significant ways the study of active ageing from an international and interdisciplinary perspective.

THE fact that an English librarian was asked to describe the work of British municipal libraries, to audiences in Antwerp and Brussels, may be taken as a certain indication that a change is impending in the library world of Belgium. At the invitation of M. Frans Gittens, city librarian, Antwerp, acting on behalf of the Foundation for the Permanent Endowment of the Communal Library and Plantin‐Moretus Museum, and M. Paul Otlet, secretary‐general of the International Institute of Bibliography, Brussels, I had the honour and pleasure of lecturing on English library work and conditions to representative audiences greatly interested in the subject. This, it is understood, is the first time an English librarian has been invited to lecture on such a subject on any part of the Continent, and I certainly felt it a great honour and privilege to be thus selected for such a congenial task. The language difficulty was luckily no great bar, as most of my audiences, both Flemish and French, understood English quite well. In addition, the International Institute of Bibliography had printed a translation of the lecture, as No. 92 of its publications, and this was issued as a twenty‐two page pamphlet entitled Les Bibliothèques municipales en Angleterre, and distributed at Brussels. At Antwerp the programme also contained translations of the titles and remarks about the lantern slides, so that everything was made easy for one who has always deplored his inability to acquire the art of speaking foreign languages. As a further instance of the care and thoughtfulness exercised to provide for my comfort, I should acknowledge the kindness of M. Eugeen Everaerts, town librarian of Ostend, who, on representations from his colleague at Antwerp, met the steamer and passed me and my “projections” through the Custom House without trouble. There is no doubt that our Belgian friends have the knack of making strangers feel thoroughly at home. I am not likely to forget the kindness and hospitality of M. W. von Mallinckrodt, chairman of the Permanent Endowment Commission at Antwerp, who, with his charming wife, invited me to a lunch at which some of the chief residents were present, including Sir Cecil Hertslet, H.B.M. Consul‐General; Mr. Diedrich, the American Consul‐General; M. Henri Hymans, chief librarian of the Royal Library at Brussels; M. Max Rooses, of the Plantin Museum; M. Frans Gittens, with some members of his staff; and other gentlemen connected with the city and municipality of Antwerp. The same kindly hospitality was extended by M. Gittens, of Antwerp, and M. Otlet, at Brussels, and everything was done by all with whom I came in contact to make me feel at ease and nothing of a stranger. In fact it is impossible for anyone who has read Scott, Brontë and Conscience to feel like a stranger in Belgium. The lecture at Antwerp was given in the large and finely decorated hall of the Cercle Royal Artistique, Littéraire et Scientifique d'Anvers, a kind of general Arts Club combining the functions of places like the London Institution with those of an ordinary social club. The hall was capable of seating 1,000 persons, and was rather beyond my poor powers as an elocutionist. About 600 people attended, of whom a large number understood English, and my lecture, luckily for my audience, largely pictorial, was very well received. There was no preliminary introduction of any kind, and my “turn” came on after a concert had been about half heard. The following programme will give an idea of the kind of mixed entertainment which brought out 600 people on a snowy winter's afternoon:—

While cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death globally, over 80% of the cases could be prevented through early lifestyle changes. From the perspective of quality management in healthcare, this may offer an effective prevention window if modifiable CVD risk factors are identified and treated in adolescence. The purpose of this research is to examine the negative emotions in adolescents and determine if it independently increases CVD risk later in life.

Longitudinal data from 12,350 participants of the Add Health study, which conducted a multi-wave survey for 14 years from adolescence (Wave 1) through adulthood (Wave 4), were used to test the research hypothesis. Four items (perception of life, self-reported depression, perceived loneliness and fearfulness) reflective of adolescent negative emotion were identified from the Wave 1 questionnaire, and factor analysis was conducted to confirm the hypothesized structure. The outcome variable, 30-year adulthood CVD risk category (high or low risk), was estimated using biomarkers, biological data and other factors collected during the 14-year follow-up in Wave 4. A logistic regression analysis was employed to assess the impact of adolescent negative emotions on adulthood CVD risk after adjusting for common risk factors such as sociodemographic characteristics, socioeconomic status and medical conditions in adolescence.

The results indicated adolescent negative emotion to be significantly associated with CVD risk category (p-value < 0.0001), even after controlling for common risk factors. A unit increase in the level of adolescent negative emotion increased the chance of being in the high CVD risk group in adulthood by 8% (odds ratio = 1.08 ± 0.03).

Healthcare providers and organizations could capitalize on the research findings by screening for negative emotions early in life through individual and societal interventions. The findings also provide an opportunity for implementing quality improvement initiatives to deliver robust preventive care, which, in turn, could improve the overall population health, reduce healthcare costs and improve care quality.

Although previous studies showed a strong link between adolescent physiological factors (e.g. obesity) and adulthood cardiovascular disease (CVD), the association between adolescent outlook/attitude (negative emotion) and CVD risk has not been examined.

Sustainable employability is an important goal for individuals and organizations alike. However, scarce knowledge is available on possible cross-lagged relations of resilience among police officers and different aspects of their sustainable employability over time. Based on assumptions of COR theory, the purpose of this paper is to test these relations in a two-wave design.

A total of 532 police officers participated in a time-lagged survey design (time interval of six months) concerning their resilience and relevant aspects, i.e., self-reported vitality, workability and organization-reported individual absenteeism rates. Data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.

Results indicate cross-lagged effects between resilience and vitality with an acceptable model fit. Thus, the level of resilience at T1 affected the level of vitality at T2 and vice versa. In addition, a nearly significant negative effect of vitality on T1 was found on absenteeism on T2.

More measurements over time are needed to test reciprocal relations and possible gain spirals. Different samples are needed to assess generalizability. Cross-lagged effects may indicate a reciprocal relation between resilience and vitality that can be further facilitated.

For example, resilience can be addressed explicitly in training.

This study is the first to test the cross-lagged relations between resilience and indicators of sustainable employability among police officers. It is important to further study this for the sake of both police officers, as well as society as a whole.

Aging is the most important social-demographic issue worldwide, supported by the initiatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) in its global strategy and action plan for aging and health (Rudnicka et al., 2020). The average age of business owners in most industrialized countries is on the rise. In the United States, fifty-one percent of small private businesses are owned by someone age fifty-plus (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2018).

The authors shed light on small business owners, who age in place. The authors suggest that their importance as long-term actors in entrepreneurial ecosystems nor the issue of “Main Street churn” have not been meaningfully explored. Understanding the risks they face offers an opportunity for academics and practitioners to provide insights for business owners, the next generation of the acquirer and advisors. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has elevated the status of many of these businesses from invisible (and perhaps taken for granted) to “essential” and amplified the co-dependence of business and the local economy.

The anticipated “silver tsunami” caused by the retirements of Main Street business owners is not a national and homogeneous wave. Rather, each wave will land on beaches locally. Small business owners age in place, and their importance as long-term actors in entrepreneurial ecosystems nor the issue of “Main Street churn” have not been meaningfully explored. They become embedded in their community and possibly stuck there in retirement.

The embeddedness of these owners – who likely have social connections, community identification and feelings of responsibility to the community directly impacts the places that they care deeply about – is often unquestioned. However, their retirements call for increased visibility within entrepreneurial ecosystems and translations of scholarly work from several kinds of literature into policy and practice.