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Anti-racism has been practiced in various ways, with varying degrees of effectiveness. This chapter engages with the body of scholarship that focuses on approaches aimed at promoting anti-racist actions, policies and social change. It discusses some of the main anti-racism strategies that have been deployed across different countries and examines anti-racism practices in interpersonal, intergroup and community settings. These approaches encompass civil rights campaigns, legislative and policy interventions, affirmative action, diversity and inclusion training, prejudice reduction, intergroup contact, organisational development and holistic anti-racism approaches. Some anti-racism practices and policies, such as awareness campaigns, social marketing and diversity training, also extend to digital platforms, with social media and multimedia networks deployed to broaden the reach and impact of anti-racist endeavours. This chapter specifically engages with local anti-racism movements and draws principles for broader implementation of anti-racism policy and practice. It concludes with a brief discussion of the effectiveness of contemporary anti-racism approaches.

This study aims to examine how teacher candidates (TCs) in Türkiye and the USA navigate their intercultural communication skills in a telecollaboration project.

Forty-eight TCs participated (26 in Türkiye and 22 in the USA) in the study. TCs discussed critical issues in multicultural education on an online learning platform for six weeks. Their discussions were analyzed using content and discourse analysis.

The findings indicated that TCs approached the telecollaborative space as a translingual contact zone and positioned themselves and their interlocutors in the discourse by using the personal pronouns; I, we, you and they. When they positioned themselves using we (people in Türkiye/USA), they spoke on behalf of everyone included in the scope of we. Their interlocutors responded to these positionings either by accepting this positioning and responding with a parallel positioning or by engaging in translingual negotiation strategies to revise the scope of we and sharing some differences/nuances in beliefs and practices in their community.

When TCs talk about their culture and community in a singular manner using we, they frame them as the same across every member in that community. When they ask questions to each other using you, the framing of the questions prime the respondents to sometimes relay their own specific experiences as the norm or consider experiences from different points of view through translingual negotiation strategies. A singular approach to culture(s) may affect the marginalized communities the most because they are lost in this representation, and their experiences and voices are not integrated in the narratives or integrated with stereotypical representation.

Teachers and teacher educators should first pay attention to their language choices, especially use of pronouns, which may communicate inclusion or exclusion in intercultural conversations. Next, they should prepare their students to adopt and practice language choices that communicate respect for cultural diversity and are inclusive of marginalized populations.

Speakers’ pronoun use includes identity construction in discourse by drawing borders around and between communities and cultures with generalization and particularity, and by patrolling those borders to decide who is included and excluded. As a response, interlocutors use pronouns either to acknowledge those borders and respond with corresponding ones from their own context or negotiate alternative representations or further investigate for particularity or complexity. In short, pronouns could lead the direction of intercultural conversations toward criticality and complexity or otherwise, and might be reasons where there are breakdowns in communication or to fix those breakdowns.

This study shows that translingual negotiation strategies have explanatory power to examine how speakers from different language backgrounds negotiate second and third order positionings in the telecollaborative space.

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between training and financial performance in cooperative organizations.

To achieve this goal, the fixed-effect panel regression technique was used, from a single database containing hours and amounts invested in training by 35 large Brazilian agribusiness cooperatives over 10 years as the main independent variable of the econometric model. Financial performance was operationalized by the Net Margin and ROE.

It was possible to identify a positive relationship between expenditure on training and the future rate of return and profitability of the organizations in question. The results also indicate that this relationship grows stronger over the first three years after the investments are made and ceases to exist after this period. The findings are robust with regard to a series of alternative explanations and contribute to understanding the relationship between training and organizational performance in financial terms, considering the extent and duration of training.

The originality this study is justified by the pioneering spirit of presenting direct evidence linking investment in training and financial performance and the duration of this relationship. Thus, the study makes a significant contribution to the construction of knowledge on the subject.

Using a decolonial framework for thinking about knowledge, education and internationalisation, this chapter critically unpacks the historical and contemporary complexities in South African higher education, including the colonial roots of higher education and internationalisation, the Eurocentric hegemony and white domination during colonialism and apartheid, and the lack of epistemic decolonisation in post-apartheid South Africa. The chapter shows how the way internationalisation has been practiced by universities since the end of apartheid has contributed to the maintenance of Eurocentric hegemony and coloniality of knowledge. The chapter highlights the need to rethink, reconceptualise and redefine internationalisation, and unpacks a new definition of internationalisation which takes into consideration historical complexities, contemporary realities and challenges, and the need for epistemic transformation and decolonisation in South African higher education. This is in line with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s decolonial ‘quest for relevance’ of education and knowledge to the people, places and regions in which universities operate, while looking outwards at the world and critically engaging with the plurality of worldviews, ideas, knowledges and ways of knowing. Such a quest could allow students to critically interrogate and understand their being and place in the world, as well as their relationships and linkages to others around the globe.

This study aims to develop an empathetic and user-centric customer support service design model. Though service design has been a critical research focus for several decades, few studies focus on customer support services. As customer support gains importance as a source of competitive advantage in the present era, this paper aims to contribute to industry and academia by exploring the service design model.

The study adopted a theories-in-use approach to elucidate mental models based on the industry’s best practices. In-depth interviews with 62 professionals led to critical insights into customer service design development, supported by service-dominant logic and theory of mind principles.

The ensuing insights led to a model that connects the antecedents and outcomes of empathetic and user-centric customer service design. The precursors include people, processes and technology, while the results are user experience, service trust and service advocacy. The model also emphasises the significance of the user’s journey and the user service review in the overall service design.

The model developed through this study addresses the critical gap concerning the lack of service design research in customer support services. The key insights from this study contribute to the ongoing research endeavours towards transitioning customer support services from an operational unit to a strategic value-creating function. Future scholars may investigate the applicability of the empathetic user service design across cultures and industries. The new model must be customised using real-time data and analytics across user journey stages.

The empathetic and user-centric design can elevate the customer service function as a significant contributor to the overall customer experience, loyalty and positive word of mouth. Practitioners can adopt the new model to provide superior customer service experiences. This original research was developed through crucial insights from interviews with senior industry professionals.

This research is the original work developed through the key insights from the interview with senior industry professionals.

Escalation in the number of online food ordering platforms, along with extensive junk food marketing, lucrative offers and discounts, innovation in food flavors, and doorstep delivery of food, have triggered the consumption of high-calorie and unhealthy food products which pose serious threats to the health and future well-being of individuals by making them more obese. To date, several public policy frameworks have been developed to confront obesity; however, their efficacy seems debatable. Directionally, the objective of this study is to highlight the potential influence of “digital nudging” which aims at steering individuals in desired directions, at the same time delimiting their freedom of choice. The study also establishes the effectiveness of digital nudges promoting a healthy lifestyle by steering individuals toward healthier food choices. The author strongly believes that this conceptual perusal will offer immense inputs to healthy food marketers and researchers alike in addressing the matters of obesity. Addressing the menace of obesity calls for joint efforts of the government, the public, researchers, and more specifically food product manufacturers/marketers who should incorporate healthier food options into their portfolios. E-tailers are also urged to adopt such practices in virtual markets and promote healthier food options to effectively tackle obesity.

This paper aims to identify the kind of internal climate leaders should offer health-care professionals to promote a patient safety culture in public hospitals managed by social health organizations in Brazil.

Two surveys were applied to health-care professionals working at three Brazilian public hospitals. The internal climate survey reached 1,013 respondents, and the patient safety culture survey reached 1,302 participants. Both factor and regression analyses were used to analyze the study model and determine how internal climate influences patient safety culture.

Results indicate that to promote a patient safety culture among health-care professionals, leaders should generate an internal climate based on trust to foster pride in working in the hospital. Possibly, the trust dimension is the most important one and must be developed to achieve job satisfaction and provide better services to patients.

All the hospitals studied were managed by the same Organização Social de Saúde. Due to the limited responses concerning the respondents’ profiles, demographic variables were not analyzed.

This research reveals that the trust and pride dimensions can most strongly influence a positive patient safety culture, helping hospital leaders face this huge managerial challenge of consistently delivering high standards of patient safety.

This research studies the promotion of a patient safety culture in public hospitals managed by social health organizations, characterized by greater flexibility and autonomy in health-care management and by a greater need for accountability.

Parental advocacy is an emerging area of research and policy interest in Wales and across the UK. Although there is little research in the UK context to date, international research has indicated that parental advocacy can improve the relationship between parent and professional in the field of child protection social work. This paper aims to ascertain how the implementation of a parental advocacy programme supports parents to play a meaningful role in decision-making when children’s services are working with them and their families.

This study used interviews, surveys and focus groups to obtain qualitative data from 18 parents, seven parent advocates, two advocacy managers and four social workers, to explore the potential impact of parental advocacy on decision-making. The study identified challenges in implementing parental advocacy, particularly relating to awareness of the service. Participants also discussed experiences of the child protection system and how parents are supported by advocates.

Despite challenges surrounding implementation, initial findings were encouraging, and generated examples of how parental advocacy services have helped parents to understand children’s services and develop relationships of trust with social care professionals. In doing so, this study identified potential mechanisms that may be useful to support future service delivery.

This paper and research is novel as it explores parental advocacy within the Welsh context. Although there has been research conducted into parental advocacy, this has largely come from the USA. This research comes from the evaluation of an innovative and promising parental advocacy scheme in Wales.