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Vietnam is experiencing rapid expansion in the provision of higher education that requires quality assurance appropriate for the Vietnamese-centralised Confucian cultural context. This paper aims to examine the concept of quality from the perspectives of academic leaders, quality assurance members and academics at three higher education institutions in Vietnam.

Based on an interpretative study, semi-structured interviews were used as a major research instrument augmented with document analysis across three case studies. Interviews were conducted with 35 participants from three groups of stakeholders.

The concept of quality was found to be under-conceptualised in this Vietnamese context. Quality was conceptualised as meeting societal needs across the case studies underpinned by the belief that the purpose of higher education is to prepare graduates for employment.

The study was conducted in similar disciplines at three state-owned universities in Vietnam in 2011. This provides insight within this context and timeframe that may not be generalised. It is suggested to extend this research to other disciplines, the private sector and other groups of stakeholders.

The paper discusses the necessity of revisiting the philosophy of higher education and re-conceptualising quality in Vietnam that informs quality assurance processes that are relevant to the cultural context.

This paper provides a centralised Confucian perspective to the literature on quality assurance in higher education. How quality is perceived by academic leaders, quality assurance members and, in particular, academic staff can be used to inform policy. In a centralised country such as Vietnam, academic leaders and quality assurance members may indicate their “obedient” attitudes to policies, leading to the same view with what is centrally enacted, while the academic staff have a different perception of quality.

This paper seeks to investigate what the marketing field can learn, with regard to the academic/practitioner divide, from other management disciplines that have a range of different relationships with their respective practitioners.

The authors carried out 68 interviews of academics, practitioners and experts/consultants involved in academic/practitioner engagement from the marketing, accountancy, strategic management and organisation studies disciplines.

The most interesting aspects relate to two areas: exclusive engagement (as exemplified in accountancy) versus inclusive engagement (as exemplified in strategic management), and the practices associated with participative research (as exemplified in organisation studies). The appropriate approach to engagement will depend on the nature of the relationship between the academic field and its particular community of practitioners.

The research is limited to academics, practitioners and experts/consultants operating from the UK. However, the findings on the challenges of engagement are consistent with those reported in the extant literature.

The first implication relates to defining what we mean when we talk about “practice”. The literature is often vague with regard to this. Does it relate to functional professionals or a far wider group of non‐specialists? A useful starting point might be to conduct an audit to clarify where aspects of marketing theory are relevant. The second implication relates to what needs to be done to engage with non‐inclusive groups of practitioners. Some conditions required for success are outlined.

The paper explores a knowledge gap in relation to the practice of engagement. It identifies why it is important to debate the nature of the practitioner community, and provides some guidelines for effective engagement.

In Australia, the Foodbank of Western Australia (Foodbank WA) has a reputation for being at the forefront of health promotion. The purpose of this paper is to describe Foodbank WA's innovative food bank plus approach of incorporating healthy lifestyle initiatives (i.e. nutrition and physical activity education) into its core food bank business, so as to target priority issues such as food insecurity, poor food literacy, overweight, obesity, poor nutrition and physical inactivity.

A case study approach was utilised to explore Foodbank WA's Healthy Food for All® (HFFA) strategy. HFFA is a comprehensive state wide, school and community based strategy, including the School Breakfast Programme, Food Sensations® and Choose to Move initiatives, designed to promote healthy lifestyles to low socioeconomic and vulnerable groups – a major target group of food banks.

Since its inception in 2007, the delivery of food, education and resources has increased across all of Foodbank WA's HFFA initiatives. Evaluation results from feedback surveys demonstrate the success of these interventions to positively impact upon food security, health and wellbeing of participants.

HFFA is a unique, effective and novel strategy that addresses a number of health and nutrition issues. Food banks are well placed to deliver food literacy and healthy lifestyle initiatives. Foodbank WA's holistic approach and demonstrated success provides other food banks with a best practice model and knowledge base for the development of similar health promotion strategies and interventions.

The purpose of this article is to compare the effects of global competitive pressures on the UK and French B-schools' management systems through the lens of career ecosystems.

This is a qualitative inquiry employing in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 44 business school academics in the two countries.

This paper demonstrates the importance of top-down and bottom-up ecosystem influences for creating contrasting performance management systems in competitive B-schools in the two countries, to different outcomes for institutions and faculty careers.

The authors focus on faculty working in top business schools, which limits the generalizability of the findings. Future research could apply the ecosystem lens to other institutions and geographical areas to highlight best practices and evaluate their transferability across borders.

The study highlights alternative HR practices and potentially workable adjustments to current systems that could be envisaged in order to enhance performance of individuals and institutions without jeopardizing the chances of valuable human resources to bring their contributions to the success of B-schools.

This paper compares and contrasts different performance management systems, taking into account exogenous and endogenous influences on B-schools that operate in a highly competitive and rapidly changing global management education market.

The purpose of this paper is to examine power asymmetries in the delivery of genetics healthcare that inhibit knowledge sharing across sector, organisational and professional boundaries.

The paper is a longitudinal comparative case study approach, which encompasses semi‐structured interviews and observation.

The paper finds politics to be significant in its influence on knowledge sharing across sector, organisational and professional boundaries, but this can be mediated by attending to human and social aspects of the context in which knowledge sharing was expected to take place.

The paper encourages research that evaluates the effect of increased emphasis on human and social aspects of organisational change in pursuit of the “dream” of spanning boundaries and improving knowledge sharing within the NHS.

The paper shows that structural change appears to be of limited effect in promoting knowledge sharing. Organisational and individual development, career management and performance systems are worthy of attention for the purpose of managing knowledge.

The paper exposes this assumption as managerialist. Policy‐makers assume that professionals are willing and able to share knowledge when delivering healthcare through networks.

This paper aims to provide a selection of poetry titles from the Poets House Showcase of 2005.

This article gives a review of the 2005 Poetry Publication Showcase.

This review represents a wide‐ranging selection of contemporary poetry collections and anthologies.

This list documents the tremendous range of poetry publishing from commercial, independent and university presses as well as letterpress chapbooks, art books and CDs in 2004 and early 2005.

There is limited understanding of how businesses, particularly in a global context, activate the marketing concept in order to become market‐driven. A study was conducted to delineate the activation process in an international setting, and some of the facilitating and impeding factors. In‐depth interviews were conducted with executives of 22 subsidiaries of a multinational firm. Activation appeared to consist of interpreting, adopting and implementing the marketing concept. Implementation is itself a sequence of market intelligence activities. Greater adoption and implementation, as well as higher quality intelligence work, are tied to stronger organizational performance. Facilitators (e.g. top management commitment) and inhibitors (e.g. over‐emphasis on profits) were identified. Other dimensions also surfaced including the slow, top‐down path of adoption, national culture, and market competitiveness. Recommendations were made on enhancing activation success.

Ireland has one of the lowest rates of breastfeeding in Europe with exclusive breastfeeding rates of 44 per cent at discharge from hospital. Increased awareness and debate on breastfeeding and its issues is needed. The purpose of this paper is to describe an evaluation of the piloting of a forum theatre production in increasing awareness of breastfeeding.

A mixed methods approach was taken. Research participants were identified through the four organisations in which the play was performed. Approximately 160 people watched a performance of the play. Quantitative data were collected from 110 audience members who completed a postcard survey. Qualitative data were collected from 42 people prior to seeing the play and 47 people after seeing the play, through focus groups and individual interviews.

Over 90 per cent of participants thought the play was a good way of discussing breastfeeding and they thought it was more effective than usual health promotion of giving out leaflets. Qualitative interviews found that the play heightened people's awareness of breastfeeding, highlighted the importance of support and engaged people in discussion and debate around breastfeeding.

The concept of promoting breastfeeding through drama is quite novel and this evaluation shows a potential for using such techniques in health promotion on varied nutrition‐related topics.