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1 – 10 of 10Mick McKeown, Charlotte Byrne, Holly Cade, Jo Harris and Karen Wright
Secure mental health services in one UK region have acted within a network to develop a range of involvement practices. A new quality benchmarking tool has been created to…
Abstract
Purpose
Secure mental health services in one UK region have acted within a network to develop a range of involvement practices. A new quality benchmarking tool has been created to appraise the implementation of these involvement practices. The purpose of this paper is to report upon a qualitative evaluation of this development.
Design/methodology/approach
Staff and service users involved in the co-production of the benchmarking tool were engaged in a series of focus groups and participatory inquiry approaches enacted in the course of scheduled network meetings. Data thus collected was subject to thematic analysis.
Findings
Four distinct themes were identified which were titled: Taking time, taking care; The value not the label; An instrument of the network; and All people working together. These are discussed in relation to recent theorising of co-production.
Research limitations/implications
Effectively, this study represents a case study of developments within one region. As such, the findings may have limited transferability to other contexts.
Practical implications
Staff and service users can work together effectively to the benefit of each other and overall forensic services. The benchmarking tool provides a readymade mechanism to appraise quality improvements.
Social implications
Despite a prevailing culture of competition in wider health-care policy, cooperation leads to enhanced quality.
Originality/value
The benchmarking tool is a unique development of a longstanding involvement network, demonstrating the positive implications for enacting co-production within secure services.
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George Okechukwu Onatu, Wellington Didibhuku Thwala and Clinton Ohis Aigbavboa
Niamh Hickey, Aishling Flaherty and Patricia Mannix McNamara
There is currently a shortage of applications for the role of principal. There are a range of factors contributing to this, one of which may be the considerable levels of stress…
Abstract
Purpose
There is currently a shortage of applications for the role of principal. There are a range of factors contributing to this, one of which may be the considerable levels of stress and burnout reported by principals and deputy principals. Distributed leadership may offer some solutions to this challenge. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of distributed leadership from a role sustainability perspective of school principals and deputy principals.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper follows a qualitative interpretivist approach based upon 15 semi-structured interviews with principals and deputy principals working in Irish post-primary schools. Data were analysed via thematic analysis.
Findings
Results indicate challenges to the sustainability of the role of senior school leaders comprising administrative overload, policy proliferation and challenges due to the complexity and breadth of the role of these school leaders. It was reported that engagement with distributed leadership could aid the sustainability of participants in their roles and the importance of focusing on well-being practices was also highlighted.
Practical implications
Recommendations include the need to reconsider policy proliferation and the need to reconceptualise school leadership. Further consideration regarding how distributed leadership can aid the sustainability of the role of senior school leaders, without adversely contributing to the already busy role of schoolteachers is also recommended.
Originality/value
The findings of this study are valuable as they reflect previous findings relating to the current challenges to sustainable school leadership as well as highlight distributed leadership as a potential aid to mitigate against these challenges.
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Ada T. Cenkci, Megan S. Downing, Tuba Bircan and Karen Perham-Lippman
Carlos J.O. Trejo-Pech, Karen L. DeLong and Robert Johansson
The United States (US) sugar program protects domestic sugar farmers from unrestricted imports of heavily-subsidized global sugar. Sugar-using firms (SUFs) criticize that program…
Abstract
Purpose
The United States (US) sugar program protects domestic sugar farmers from unrestricted imports of heavily-subsidized global sugar. Sugar-using firms (SUFs) criticize that program for causing US sugar prices to be higher than world sugar prices. This study examines the financial performance of publicly traded SUFs to determine if they are performing at an economic disadvantage in terms of accounting profitability, risk and economic profitability compared to other industries.
Design/methodology/approach
Firm-level financial accounting and market data from 2010 to 2019 were utilized to construct financial metrics for publicly traded SUFs, agribusinesses and general US firms. These financial metrics were analyzed to determine how SUFs compare to their agribusiness peer group and general US companies. The comprehensive financial analysis in this study covers: (1) accounting profit rates, (2) drivers of profitability, (3) economic profit rates, (4) trend analysis and (5) peer comparisons. Quantile regression analysis and Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney statistics are employed for statistical comparisons.
Findings
Regarding various profitability and risk measures, SUFs outperform their agribusiness peers and the general benchmark of all US firms in terms of accounting profit rates, risk levels and economic profit rates. Furthermore, compared to other US industries using the 17 French and Fama classifications, SUFs have the highest return on investment and economic profit rate―measured by the Economic Value Added® margin―and the second-lowest opportunity cost of capital, measured by the weighted average cost of capital.
Originality/value
This study finds nothing to suggest that the US sugar program hinders the financial success of SUFs, contrary to recent claims by sugar-using firms. Notably in this analysis is the evaluation of economic profit rates and a series of robustness techniques.
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Adele Berndt and Corné Meintjes
Family businesses feature prominently in economies, including the South African wine industry, using websites to convey their family identity. This research paper aims to explore…
Abstract
Purpose
Family businesses feature prominently in economies, including the South African wine industry, using websites to convey their family identity. This research paper aims to explore the family identity elements that family wineries use on their websites, their alignment and how these are communicated online.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on Gioia’s methodology, a two-pronged approach was used to analyze 113 wineries’ websites’ text using Atlas. ti from an interpretivist perspective.
Findings
South African wineries use corporate identity, corporate personality and corporate expression to illustrate their familiness on their websites. It is portrayed through their family name and heritage, supported by their direction, purpose and aspirations, which emerge from the family identity and personality. These are dynamic and expressed through verbal and visual elements. Wineries described their behaviour, relevant competencies and passion as personality traits. Sustainability was considered an integral part of their brand promise, closely related to their family identity and personality, reflecting their family-oriented philosophy. These findings highlight the integration that exists among these components.
Practical implications
Theoretically, this study proposes a family business brand identity framework emphasising the centrality of familiness to its identity, personality and expression. Using websites to illustrate this familiness is emphasised with the recommendation that family businesses leverage this unique attribute in their identity to communicate their authenticity.
Originality/value
This study contributes to understanding what family wineries communicate on their websites, specifically by examining the elements necessary to create a family business brand based on the interrelationship between family identity, personality and expression with familiness at its core, resulting in a proposed family business brand identity framework.
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The “unplannable” is a welcomed exception to the formal order of urban planning. This opinion article explores some examples of informal urbanism and discusses its ambiguous…
Abstract
The “unplannable” is a welcomed exception to the formal order of urban planning. This opinion article explores some examples of informal urbanism and discusses its ambiguous relationship to public space and unplanned activities in the city. The informal sector offers important lessons about the adaptive use of space and its social role. The article examines the ways specific groups appropriate informal spaces and how this can add to a city’s entrepreneurship and success. The characteristics of informal, interstitial spaces within the contemporary city, and the numerous creative ways in which these temporarily used spaces are appropriated, challenge the prevalent critical discourse about our understanding of authorised public space, formal place-making and social order within the city in relation to these informal spaces.
The text discusses various cases from Chile, the US and China that illustrate the dilemma of the relationship between informality and public/private space today. One could say that informality is a deregulated self-help system that redefines relationships with the formal. Temporary or permanent spatial appropriation has behavioural, economic and cultural dimensions, and forms of the informalare not always immediately obvious: they are not mentioned in building codes and can often be subversive or unexpected, emerging in the grey area between legal and illegal activities.
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Emma Harriet Wood and Maarit Kinnunen
To explore the value in reminiscing about past festivals as a potential way of improving wellbeing in socially isolated times.
Abstract
Purpose
To explore the value in reminiscing about past festivals as a potential way of improving wellbeing in socially isolated times.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses previous research on reminiscence, nostalgia and wellbeing to underpin the analysis of self-recorded memory narratives. These were gathered from 13 pairs of festivalgoers during Covid-19 restrictions and included gathering their individual memories and their reminiscences together. The participant pairs were a mix of friends, family and couples who had visited festivals in the UK, Finland and Denmark.
Findings
Four key areas that emerged through the analysis were the emotions of nostalgia and anticipation, and the processes of reliving emotions and bonding through memories.
Research limitations/implications
Future studies could take a longitudinal approach to see how memory sharing evolves and the impact of this on wellbeing. The authors also recommend undertaking similar studies in other cultural settings.
Practical implications
This study findings have implications for both post-festival marketing and for the further development of reminiscence therapy interventions.
Originality/value
The method provides a window into memory sharing that has been little used in previous studies. The narratives confirm the value in sharing memories and the positive impact this has on wellbeing. They also illustrate that this happens through positive forms of nostalgia that centre on gratitude and lead to hope and optimism. Anticipation, not emphasised in other studies, was also found to be important in wellbeing and was triggered through looking back at happier times.
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