Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine intrinsic forms of motivation and particular incidents of play, socialisation, fun and amusement on an online crowdsourced citizen science platform. The paper also investigates gamised activity (Greenhill et al., 2014) as a form of intrinsic motivation adding a sense of play to work and tasks (Xu et al., 2012). These concepts are explored through close scrutiny of the online citizen science platform Zooniverse.org.

Qualitative techniques with an interpretivist approach are used to analyse online content found within citizen science platforms, related forums and social media by examining incidents of play, socialisation, fun and amusement to investigate how these aspects are applied as a form of user motivation.

The authors find that when users classify crowdsourced tasks voluntarily it does not matter how users are classifying as long as it is accurately. However, what does matter is why they are doing it particularly because of the complex processes that builds relationships between users and the platform. The authors present a conceptual model to enable deeper understandings of how forms of social interaction and play are motivating users contributing to citizen science project to participate in the online processes.

The findings of this paper provide practical implications for how citizen science, and also other crowdsourcing platforms, can engage with notions of play and gamification to motivate participation.

Using detailed examples of online content, the authors reveal how participants of the Zooniverse.org demonstrate aspects of “gamised” behaviour. The authors argue that the exploration of gaming as well as play provides evidence that contributing to citizen science projects can be both utilitarian and hedonic.

Social enterprise plays a pivotal role in helping people and communities. Since the global financial crisis of 2008, there has been an upsurge of social enterprise within a local, national and global context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the debates and issues presented by social enterprise in a very complex globalized world.

In this paper, the authors apply two geographical case studies: China and India. The purpose for selecting both China and India is their increasing economic super power on the global stage. It is argued that the concept of social enterprise within the geographical context of China and India is significant to their individual economies.

The concept of social enterprise within the geographical context of China and India is significant to their individual economies and as explored within the notion of “think global, act local” the conceptual debates of place, space and time enables people to take positive action and enable the development of healthy communities.

This paper contributes to the discussion around the definition of the nature of social enterprise and gives concrete examples of the contextually specific nature of the term.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the attempts by one youth homelessness service to implement the conceptual ideas of the psychologically informed environment (PIE) into a practical and beneficial service for very challenging young people who have been homeless, are leaving care or have left custody.

The approach of the paper is descriptive, outlining the thinking behind a PIE with young people and the operationalising of this understanding in the day-to-day practice of the service.

Although homelessness and housing support staff are not therapists, the nature of the work entails a need for understanding and sensitivity, and the activities of the service are designed to create positive opportunities and relationships. Reflective practice, supervision and evaluation are then essential tools in developing a “learning organisation”, where the collective dynamics at an organisational level support the psychological work of the PIE.

The implications for homelessness work that can be drawn from the outcome of this project is to better understand how the PIE linked to the concept of a learning organisation can provide a truly robust framework for providing a service that can evolve harmoniously, tying in disparate funding streams to offer very challenging young people an outstanding service that addresses their homelessness and its underlying causes.

The practical implications shown are the psychological skills that can be developed in housing workers; the limits of those skills and how they are complemented by partnership work with other voluntary sector organisations and mainstream health providers; how the ideas of the learning organisation can naturally underpin the work of the PIE.

The combination of the concept of the learning organisation, reflective practice and the PIE provides a highly original and truly robust framework for providing housing workers with the psychological tools to make a transformative difference in the lives of especially vulnerable young homeless people.

This paper explores the perceptions of prisoners to the barriers and opportunities for managing long term conditions in a prison setting. A qualitative study using semi‐structured interviews was conducted with prisoners from two local prisons in England. All the prisoners involved in the study had a long term condition and were attending an Expert Patients Programme (EPP) course, a lay‐led self care programme. A number of themes emerge from the data in relation to the impact prison has had on lifestyle and control of long term conditions. The structured prison regime allowed some to regain control over previously chaotic lifestyles but the lack of access to a healthy diet and exercise facilities as well as lack of opportunities to practice new health behaviours learnt whilst in prison, prevented a healthier lifestyle being adopted. Another main theme was in relation to the ability of prisoners to negotiate access to health care services and professionals. The study found a number of pre‐existing factors which would need to be addressed if prisoners were to become fully engaged in future health initiatives, such as EPP.

Located within growing scholarly interest in linking the global financial crisis with revelations of financial crime, this piece utilises Roman Tomasic's suggestion that the financial crisis has marked something of a turning point in regulatory responses to financial crime worldwide. Tomasic attributes this to changing attitudes towards light-touch regulation and risk assessment, and the demand for existing agencies to be replaced with new tougher authorities. In the UK, this can be illustrated by the imminent replacement of the FSA with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Discussion of the FSA's financial crime fighting activity is an important forecast for the likely directional focus of the FCA in this regard. A focus only on “market abuse” enforcement within this arises on account of the effects for financial systems widely attributed to this activity, with threats to systemic stability being a hallmark of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. This methodology also encourages coherence in focus and management of sources within the article. Market abuse enforcement provides a lens for exploring the FSA's adoption of the philosophy and ethos of “credible deterrence”, and FCA commitment to retain it, and ultimately for applying the hypothesis of the “haphazard pursuit of financial crime” to pre-crisis criminal enforcement relating to financial crime undertaken by the FSA.

The FSA and FCA appear acutely aware that the financial crisis has marked something of a turning point for the enforcement of financial crime, and for signalling changes in approach, for the reasons explored by Tomasic. Tomasic correctly identifies factors encouraging a range of undesirable practices pre-crisis, and ones signalling tougher and more sustained attention being paid to financial crime henceforth. It is noted that, pre-crisis, the FSA's pursuit of criminal enforcement of market abuse was conscious, comprehensively resourced, well publicised, and actually extensive.

This exploration of the FSA's criminal enforcement of market abuse given the Authority's own perceptions that it was not, and could never be, a “mainstream” criminal prosecutor considers the likely lasting legacy of this determined pursuit, when domestic politics and pan-European policies suggested against this. This is likely to be enormously valuable as the FCA undertakes this task in a domestic arena which is markedly in contrast from this, and where European agendas are pushing in favour of criminal enforcement, with the “more Europe, or less” debate providing a further dimension of interest.

This study investigates electronic customer service, e‐service, by Australian organisations, replicating and building on Heuchan et al.’s study of relationships among organisational characteristics and e‐service. Compared to one year earlier, the study found more organisations with Web sites, shorter response times to customer e‐mails and higher response quality to customer e‐mails. Response rate and response quality, however, was virtually the same – poor. Australian organisations have e‐service tools such as Web sites and e‐mail, yet they face an assimilation gap delivering e‐service. Organisational diffusion of innovations provides a theoretical base for these results and future research. The paper gives manager insights into existing e‐service and ways to improve e‐service in their organisation.

This study aims, first, to understand consumers’ perception of chefs as human brands (i.e. study one). Second, tests were run to assess the validity of a new conceptual model of the relationships between the factors of chef image, luxury restaurant image, both images’ congruity and consumers’ hedonic and novelty experiences and happiness and well-being (i.e. study two).

The first qualitative study involved using Leximancer software to analyse the data drawn from 43 interviews with luxury restaurant clients. In the second quantitative study, 993 valid survey questionnaires were collected, and the proposed model was tested using structural equation modelling.

The results reveal that consumers perceive chefs as human brands and the associated narratives include both performance- and popularity-based characteristics. The findings support the conclusion that individuals give great importance to chefs’ image and the congruence between chefs and their restaurant’s image. In addition, luxury restaurant image only affects novelty experiences, and both hedonic and novelty experiences have a positive effect on customers’ happiness and well-being.

This research focused on Portuguese luxury restaurants. The consumers’ happiness and well-being needs to be replaced by other outcomes to confirm if the model produces consistent results.

The results should help luxury restaurant managers understand more fully which pull factors are valued by their clients and which aspects contribute the most to their pleasure and welfare.

This study adds to the extant literature by exploring consumers’ perceptions of chefs as human brands and the role these chefs’ image play in customers’ luxury restaurant experiences and perceived happiness and well-being.