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If information professionals are to measure the value of their services, they must talk directly to users and listen to what they have to say about their lives, as well as measuring the service in terms of value for money. Whilst acknowledging the necessity of data concerned with processes and procedures, the concept of value can only be fully explored by going to the individual user directly, within a specific context. Researchers must make the anecdotal believable, trustworthy, worthy of being considered alongside other types of hard data, and a constructivist approach to collecting, analysing and presenting qualitative data can be used effectively to achieve this. The UK government has pledged to deliver public services to meet the needs of citizens, not the convenience of service providers, by involving and meeting the needs of all different groups in society. Its Best Value review represents one of the most far reaching challenges facing those responsible for local services. Can its framework provide the flexibility to support all those who have a stake in measuring value of library and information services?

The paper discusses which factors influence the adoption and use of quality measurement tools in libraries. With very different practices and implementation strategies in different countries, compares the situation in Denmark and the UK. The basis for the comparison is a comprehensive survey of managers in the library sector.

There has been growing interest in studying the internationalisation of small and medium-sized high-technology firms. This literature tends to equate “internationalisation” with the “internationalisation of sales”. Yet sales are not the only international activity of high-tech firms. High-tech firms need resources and not just markets. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of this resource dimension of the international behaviour of high-tech firms.

The empirical basis for the study lies in a multiple case study of six high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The authors selected two firms from each of three high-tech industries: biotechnology (specifically drug development), renewable energy and ICT. The key decision makers in each firms were then interviewed in depth.

The authors show that for the case firms in the study, internationalisation can take the form of searching, prospecting or “scavenging” for resources. “Resource-seeking” behaviour occurs because the SMEs do not own, control or have access to sufficient resources to bring their technology to market on their own. The pattern of internationalisation that results from resource scavenging is different to that of traditional “market-seeking” internationalisation.

This paper provides evidence of how the resource-acquisition behaviour of high-tech SMEs can be an important element of their internationalisation. Yet existing literature has focused almost exclusively on the market-seeking internationalisation of these firms.

Why do managers redesign global supply chains in a particular manner when faced with compounding geopolitical disruptions? In answering this research question, this study identifies a constrained system of reasoning (decision-making logic) employed by managers when they redesign their supply chains in situations of heightened uncertainty.

The authors conducted 40 elite interviews with senior supply chain executives in 28 companies across nine industries from November 2019 to June 2020, when the UK was preparing to leave the European Union, the US–China trade war was escalating, and Covid-19 was spreading rapidly around the globe.

When redesigning global supply chains, the authors find that managerial decision-making logic is constrained by three distinct environmental ecosystem conditions: (1) the perceived intensity of institutional pressures; (2) the relative mobility of suppliers and supply chain assets; and (3) the perceived severity of the potential disruption risk. Intense government pressure and persistent geopolitical risk tend to impact firms in the same industry, resulting in similar approaches to decision-making regarding supply chain design. However, where suppliers are relatively immobile and supply chain assets are relatively fixed, a dominant logic is consistently present.

Building on an institutional logics perspective, this study finds that managerial decision-making under heightened uncertainty is not solely guided by institutional pressures but also by perceptions of the severity of risk related to potential supply chain disruption and the immobility of supply chain assets. These findings support the theoretical development of a novel construct that the authors term ‘supply chain logics’. Finally, this study provides a decision-making framework for Senior Executives competing in an increasingly complex and unstable business environment.

The legalization of same-sex marriage changed the parenting landscape for LGBTQ parents in a variety of ways. Parenthood is presumably different now that same-sex marriage is officially legal. Experiences among LGBTQ couples in the post-legalization of same-sex marriage era raise questions about the context of growing recognition and cultural acceptance of same-sex relationships. I conducted in-depth interviews with LGBTQ parents to learn how they navigate parenting and the construction of parenting roles in the context of a society that has legalized same-sex marriage, yet still is rooted in heteronormative notions of family and parenthood. Specifically, I ask: How do LGBTQ couples construct and make sense of their roles as parents, particularly within the contemporary context of the legalization of same-sex marriage? Understanding the contexts that shape LGBTQ parents’ experiences aids in not only understanding the lives of LGBTQ parents and their families better, but also developing a deeper understanding of contemporary parenting identities and experiences more broadly.

Excess morbidity in people with enduring mental illness is well known. The promotion of healthier lifestyles and physical health monitoring has started to receive more attention in recent years. Despite this, the British Society for Disability and Oral Health (BSDH) has highlighted extensive unmet needs for inpatients with mental illness who have poor levels of oral health and hygiene compounded by restricted access to dental services. An audit cycle of oral health and hygiene was completed at Heather Close Recovery Unit (HCRU), Mansfield in 2009 and 2010, with the aims to improve the oral healthcare of the patients at HCRU and to develop the multidisciplinary team's ability to promote, monitor and enable patients to look after their dental health. A total of 59 people were helped to fill in the questionnaire during two audit runs. Improvement in access to toothbrushes increased from 68% to 86%. There is also an improvement in knowledge of basic oral hygiene practice from 55% to 61%. The ideally recommended practice of brushing teeth twice daily increased from 29% to 38% in our patients. There was a little improvement in the number of patients registered with the dentist since the last audit. We believe that prevention and early intervention are keys to addressing dental health problems in psychiatric patients. The improvement in oral/dental healthcare of patients with chronic mental illness should be seen as part of the holistic recovery package. Effective liaison with community preventive dentistry teams can play a vital role in educating mental health practitioners and patients.