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The aim of this paper is to qualitatively examine the ways in which primary school children, aged between 7 and 12, perceive various facets of obesity as defined by the common sense model of illness representation (CCM).

The study was qualitative in nature. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 33 children on all dimensions of the CSM. Twenty four children were normal weight and nine were overweight. A drawing task formed the methodology for the “identity” section of the interview.

Although children identified food intake as a main cause of obesity, almost half did not name sedentary behaviours as a cause of obesity. Duration (timeline) of obesity was regarded by most children as reliant on a person's undertaking of positive health behaviours. Normal weight children were found to list more severe consequences of obesity than the overweight group. It was found that experience contributed to the detailed knowledge of overweight children's perceptions of cures of obesity. Overweight children also spoke of personal incidents of barriers to cures.

The findings suggest that the CSMs can be used to classify children's perceptions of obesity. Future childhood obesity interventions can utilise these findings to create campaigns and strategies that are more consistent with children's understandings of this condition.

To the authors' knowledge, no previous study has examined children's perceptions of obesity beyond perceived causes.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate children's understandings of the intent and importance of current media initiatives designed to target childhood obesity. Semi‐structured interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis, for the responses of overweight and normal weight children.

In total, 33 children were interviewed, 24 of normal weight and nine overweight. They were shown two print and four television advertisements from the New South Wales Health Department web site that were popularly broadcast between 2003 and 2007. Children were then asked if they had seen the advertisement prior to the interview, and their understanding of the intent and importance of the advertisements.

Most children in both weight groups recalled seeing five out of the six presented advertisements prior to interview. The main themes identified were “Health Maintenance” and “Illness Prevention” for five of the six advertisements. Overweight children were more numerous in their detection of a health message as opposed to normal weight children, who mostly commented on the safety aspect of advertisement six.

Future evaluations of mediated health campaigns should go beyond recording simple recall of campaign material and investigate instead the understandings of target groups. Mediated health campaigns should also specify messages to particular target groups, as they appear to be most likely to facilitate behaviour change.

Mediated health campaigns are mostly evaluated quantitatively rather than by qualitative means. In addition, no study has evaluated the views of overweight and normal weight children with regards to these health campaigns.

A psychometrically validated measure is needed to evaluate outcomes in carers of people with mental health problems, including dementia. This study aims to develop and validate the Carer well‐being and support questionnaire (CWS).

Development and evaluation of the measure was conducted in three phases. The authors deconstructed an existing questionnaire (CUES‐C) to produce a long version measure. This was trialed with carers to reduce the number of items and a preliminary evaluation of the psychometric properties of the remaining items was undertaken. A second field test was conducted with the item‐reduced questionnaire measure to evaluate acceptability, reliability and validity.

The CWS well‐being scale shows moderate acceptability and good reliability and validity. The CWS support scale shows moderate acceptability and good reliability; validity testing for the support scale is limited by the lack of appropriate validating measures.

The CWS is a reliable, valid measure of carer well‐being and support, reflecting important aspects of carers' lives.

This paper provides researchers and practitioners with a tool that can be used to measure and address areas of support for carers. This is important in assessing the effectiveness of new interventions and approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how we ought to distinguish between reference and readers' advisory (RA) service, given the latter’s turn toward a whole collection approach. In other words, the paper answers this question: If both reference and RA librarians aim to meet patrons’ information needs and may theoretically do so using the same materials, then how are we to differentiate the two services conceptually?

In this conceptual paper, we posit that we can distinguish between RA and reference using Louise Rosenblatt’s theory of the aesthetic transaction. With this theory in hand, we can redefine the service distinction in terms of the stance – aesthetic or efferent – that the patron expects to take toward the material they seek.

On our account, the reader’s desired stance becomes a kind of hermeneutical lens through which a library worker may productively evaluate plausible pathways and materials. An aesthetic lens is characteristic of RA; it makes features of potential aesthetic transactions between a particular reader and a particular text (or genre or author’s oeuvre) salient.

The proposed account constitutes a novel application of Rosenblattian response theory, one that grounds and refines the going view that RA’s proper focus is on supporting a particular sort of experience rather than providing particular sorts of texts. This theoretical emendation also better aligns the service distinction with contemporary conceptualizations of RA as a “whole collection” service. Important practical and philosophical implications follow from the new account.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value of adopting an organizational ecological perspective to explore behavioural barriers in a UK operations & production management (OPM) setting.

An ethnographic case study approach was adopted with a narrative ecological stance to deconstruct the perceived realities and the origins of the inter‐departmental barriers applying Scott‐Morgan's unwritten rules methodology.

Despite an improvement in the physical proximity of the production and quality control departments, the qualitative approach revealed that latent, socially constructed drivers around management, interaction and communication reinforced inter‐departmental barriers. Conflicting enablers were ultimately responsible derived from the organizational structure, which impacted the firm's production resources.

As a case study approach, the specificity of the findings to this OPM setting should be explored further.

The paper demonstrates the use of theoretical frameworks in a production and manufacturing organization to provide insights for maximising process effectiveness. Using the organizational ecological perspective to uncover the socially constructed unwritten rules of the OPM setting beneficially impacted on operational effectiveness.

The paper contributes to organization ethnography literature by providing a detailed empirical analysis of manufacturing and services behaviour using an organizational ecology perspective. The example demonstrates that “qualitative” research can have real world impact in an advanced operational context. It also contributes to an ecological or complex adaptive systems view of organizations and, inter alia, their supply chains.

This research aims to assess the risks and benefits of outsourcing for organisations, sectors and nations. The literature on outsourcing contains little evidence of research on holistic issues of its impact at systems levels beyond the firm, notably sectors and nations.

A Delphi study with senior strategists from private and public sectors captured perspectives and specific observations on benefits and risks of outsourcing. Emergent issues on outsourcing policy, strategy and decision‐making processes were synthesised into a framework for analysing factors associated with outsourcing.

The findings suggest that a more holistic view of outsourcing is needed, linking local, organisational issues with sector and national level actions and outcomes. In this way, aggregate risks and benefits can be assessed at different systems levels.

Future research might address the motivations for outsourcing; currently there is little research evidence to assess whether outsourcing is a mechanism for failing to solve internal problems, and moving responsibility and risk out of the firm. Additionally most outsourcing research to date has concentrated on an activity either being “in” or “out”; there is little research exploring the circumstances in which mixed models might be appropriate.

The framework provides an aid to research and an aide memoire for managers considering outsourcing.

This paper contributes to knowledge on understanding of outsourcing at different systems levels, particularly highlighting the implications of outsourcing for sectors and nations. Previously most research has focused at the level of the firm or dyadic relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight new and existing research on school characteristics that are essential elements in building the capacity of school communities to implement whole school approaches to mental health promotion.

Through an overview of recent research and writing the need for a paradigmatic shift is identified so that educational research and school processes as well as mental health outcomes are utilized as the starting point for school mental health promotion.

Much of the current advocated practice for improved mental health outcomes arises from evidence from health sector interventions, evidence that may not match the breadth and complexity of conditions in schools that need to be considered to bring about change. The practice may also ignore school processes and structures and the research that delineates how these operate. The results of research in Australia identify two key educational areas, leadership and professional learning that require an increased focus in school mental health promotion. These have emerged from a decade of experience in the implementation and evaluation of MindMatters.

Health and educational personnel need to target these areas for particular development to ensure strong supports are created for sustainable local school action.

The paper focuses on school leadership and teacher efficacy – areas that have relevance for whole school mental health and wellbeing.