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This two-year study illuminates the experiences of technology coaches (digital learning coaches [DL] and science technology engineering and mathematics/literacy coaches [STEM/L]) as they engaged in their own professional learning (PL) facilitated by a faculty researcher.

Technology coaches from different school districts and their respective colleagues participated in book studies as part of their PL. They reflected and debriefed individually and collaboratively with a researcher facilitator. Data were collected through interviews, field notes at meetings, observations, researchers’ reflections and artefacts. Qualitative data analysis methods were employed.

The findings offer a glimpse into (1) benefits of cross-district collaboration, (2) challenges finding resources for coaching, (3) career-long desire to learn and (4) time to build and sustain cross-collaborations.

Conclusions suggest that DL and STEM/L coaches benefit from their own dedicated, differentiated programme of PL supported by each other (as from other districts) and a researcher facilitator. Educational implications are offered for researchers and other school district stakeholders for consideration for them to foster coaches’ collaborative PL.

Importantly, this project is an exemplar of how to support coaches’ PL and growth through researcher facilitation of cross-district collaborative learning.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate where students in a Swedish compulsory school acquire their knowledge of food safety and how trustworthy they deem them to be.

A survey of students’ self-reported sources of and trust in food safety knowledge was performed. A student response system was used for data collection, and the students were asked to answer questions presented on a PowerPoint presentation using a small wireless handheld device: a clicker. A questionnaire with 24 questions was used, and the responses were collected at 18 different schools with a total of 529 participants attending school Year 9.

Mothers were reported as being the most important source of food safety knowledge (38 per cent), especially among girls, and were also given high credibility (36 per cent). Boys reported trusting home and consumer studies (HCS), fathers and media to a higher extent. Girls reported cooking at home more often but, for all students, it was more common to rarely or never cook at home, which is why HCS teaching can be seen as valuable for many students. HCS teaching needs to be improved in order to raise its credibility. About half of the students (51 per cent) reported to have the highest trust for their source of knowledge.

The students could only choose one source of knowledge and trust, although it is usual to learn from many different sources.

HCS teaching needs to get higher credibility among students as a counterweight against other sources.

Educated consumers could influence their health.

Limited research has been performed on food safety knowledge among adolescents.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

In the context of the Australian Government’s attempts to impose budget austerity measures on publicly funded universities in its higher education sector, the purpose of this paper is to assess the sector’s financial health.

The multi-dimensional study is based on seven years of government financial data from all 39 publicly funded Australian universities, supplemented by information from universities’ annual reports. Using a financial health model that reflects vulnerability, viability and resilience, the authors examine sector data using a suite of metrics. The authors analyse differences between those universities in the Top 10 and Bottom 10 by revenue, as a window into the financial health of the sector at large.

While mostly financially viable, the sector shows signs of financial vulnerability, particularly in the areas of expense control and financial sustainability. Possibly in response to an uncertain funding environment, universities are managing long-term liquidity by growing reserves. Debt represents largely untapped potential for universities, while differences between the Top 10 and Bottom 10 universities were most evident in the area of revenue diversity, a strong predictor of financial viability.

Focussing on a specific set of financial metrics limits the scope of the study, but highlights further research possibilities. These include more detailed statistical analysis of data, financial case studies of individual universities and the implications of revenue diversification on academic standards.

The paper contributes to higher education literature, providing empirical evidence of universities’ finances. It highlights the importance of universities’ financial resilience in an uncertain funding environment.

The purpose of this paper is to provide background to this special issue and consider how critically oriented research can be applied to health and social care management.

Basic principles of critical management studies are introduced briefly to frame subsequent papers in this issue.

In order to identify the wicked problems and darker sides of the care field, there is a need to study things in alternative ways through critical lenses. Giving a voice to those in less powerful positions may result in redefinition and redesign of conventional roles and agency of patients, volunteers and professionals and call into question the taken-for-granted understanding of health and social care management.

The special issue as a whole was designed to enhance critical approaches to the discussion in the field of health and social care. This editorial hopefully raises awareness of CMS and serves as an opening for further discussion on critical views in the research on management and organization in this field.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The aim of this paper is to examine the introduction of innovation as part of a management development programme at a primary care organisation, a legal form known as a Primary Care Trust (PCT), in the UK.

The paper draws on experience of managing a successful management development programme for a PCT. The report of the case study analyses the key events that took place between 2008 and 2010, from direct observation, surveys, discussion and documentary evidence.

The Northern PCT has partnerships with a number of educational providers to deliver their leadership and management development programmes. A close working relationship had developed and the programme is bespoke – hence it is current and of practical use to the UK's National Health Service (NHS). In addition, there are regular meetings, with module leaders gaining a firsthand understanding of the organisation's needs and aspirations. This has resulted in a very focused and personalised offering and a genuine involvement in the programme and individuals concerned.

The research was conducted among a relatively small sample, and there is a lack of previous literature evidence to make significant comparisons.

The paper identifies key implications for practitioners and educators in this area.

This paper is one of few to investigate innovation and improvement in the NHS, and is unique in that it uses the lenses of a management development programme to explore this important, and under‐researched, topic.

To demonstrate transparency and accountability, the three boards in this study are required to meet in public in front of an audience, although the boards reserve confidential issues for discussion in private sessions. This study examines boardroom public accountability, contrasting it with accountability in board meetings held in private. The study adopts Erving Goffman's impression management theory to interpret divergences between boardroom behaviour in public and private, or “frontstage” and “backstage” in Goffman's terminology.

The research observes and video-records three board meetings for each of the three boards (nine board meetings), in public and private. The research operationalises accountability in terms of director-manager question-and-answer interactions.

In the presence of an audience of local stakeholders, the boards employ impression management techniques to demonstrate accountability, by creating the impression that non-executive directors are performing challenge and managers are providing satisfactory answers. Thus, they “save the show” in Goffman terms. These techniques enable board members and managers to navigate the interface between demonstrating the required good governance and the competence of the organisations and their managers, while not revealing issues that could tarnish their image and concern the stakeholders. The boards need to demonstrate to the audience that “matters are what they appear to be”, even if they are not. The research identifies behaviour consistent with impression management to manage this complexity. The authors conclude that regulatory objectives have not met their transparency aspirations.

For the first time, the research studies the effect of transparency regulations (“sunshine” laws) on the behaviour of boards of directors meeting in public. The study contributes to the embryonic literature based on video-taped board meetings to access the “black box” of the boardroom, which permits a study of impression management at board meetings not previously possible. This study extends prior impression management theory by identifying eleven impression management techniques that non-executive directors and managers use and which are unique to a boardroom context.

The purpose of this paper is to identify challenges faced by industrial firms at different phases of adoption of 3D printing (3DP), and outline how 3DP service providers can help address these challenges.

Separate interview questionnaires for 3DP users and 3DP service providers were used to conduct semi-structured interviews.

The key 3DP adoption challenges are as follows: creating a business case; difficulty in using different materials; optimising the process for specific parts; lack of “plug and play” solutions offered by equipment manufacturers; limited availability of training and educational support; poor end product quality; machine breakdowns; and high cost of maintenance and spare components. Using the theoretical lens of the technology acceptance model, results show a lack of ease of use and technological turbulence impact companies’ decisions to adopt 3DP. 3DP service providers can indeed attempt to alleviate the above challenges faced by customers through providing multiple 3DP services across different stages of adoption.

Future research should examine the role of 3DP equipment manufacturers and design and modeling software solutions providers in improving adoption and how 3DP equipment manufacturers could develop into more integrated service providers as the technology advances.

Service providers can help customers transition to 3DP and should develop a portfolio of services that fits different phases of adoption.

The paper outlines how 3DP service providers can help address customer challenges in adoption of 3DP across different stages of adoption.

The paper aims to analyse accounting rationalities and practices which lie behind biodiversity offsetting. The way in which accounting functions as a technology of government through the practice of biodiversity offsetting is to be considered and its effects examined.

Governmentality is drawn upon to examine ways in which power and authority are exercised in a single case study setting. Data analysed comprise corporate and industry websites and documents, corporate reports, public documentation and interviews. The arena concept is utilised to highlight contestation in the case, and signal concerns regarding the wider impact of the use of particular accounting rationalities and technologies in the context of biodiversity offsetting.

The paper provides empirical insights into how accounting for biodiversity offsetting rationales and practices constitute an attempt to reproduce power relations in favour of particular parties and foster disciplinary effects. The practice of biodiversity offsetting is problematised through critiquing accounting's governing role in the areas of biodiversity quantification and biodiversity trading. Questions are raised as to whether biodiversity offsetting enabled by accounting techniques is leading to greater accountability and ultimately protection of biodiversity, or whether it represents a mechanism through which particular species and habitat destruction can be justified, or at least hidden in its accounting.

While biodiversity offsetting research is not uncommon within science and law, the analysis of how accounting functions as a technology of government within biodiversity offsetting is believed to be unique.