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Peer support is increasingly being introduced into mainstream mental health services internationally. The distinctiveness of peer support, compared to other mental health support, has been linked to values underpinning peer support. Evidence suggests that there are challenges to maintaining those values in the context of highly standardised organisational environments. The purpose of this paper is to describe a “principles-based” approach to developing and evaluating a new peer worker role in mental health services.

A set of peer support values was generated through systematic review of research about one-to-one peer support, and a second set produced by a UK National Expert Panel of people sharing, leading or researching peer support from a lived experience perspective. Value sets were integrated by the research team – including researchers working from a lived experience perspective – to produce a principles framework for developing and evaluating new peer worker roles.

Five principles referred in detail to: relationships based on shared lived experience; reciprocity and mutuality; validating experiential knowledge; leadership, choice and control; discovering strengths and making connections. Supporting the diversity of lived experience that people bring to peer support applied across principles.

The principles framework underpinned development of a handbook for a new peer worker role, and informed a fidelity index designed to measure the extent to which peer support values are maintained in practice. Given the diversity of peer support, the authors caution against prescriptive frameworks that might “codify” peer support and note that lived experience should be central to shaping and leading evaluation of peer support.

This paper adds to the literature on peer support in mental health by describing a systematic approach to understanding how principles and values underpin peer worker roles in the context of mental health services. This paper informs an innovative, principles-based approach to developing a handbook and fidelity index for a randomised controlled trial. Lived experiences of mental distress brought to the research by members of the research team and the expert advisors shaped the way this research was undertaken.

This paper outlines an analytical framework for estimating households' access to formal credit across European transition economies shortly after the onset of the global financial crisis. This study, along with the individual-level socio-economic and demographic characteristics also considers the perceived quality of the institutions. The author wants to assess whether an adequate policy-level intervention to promote financial inclusion should account for the individuals' subjective evaluation of the political situation in their own country as well as their personal experience of corruption.

This paper identifies the main determinants of financial inclusion using European microdata (Life in Transition Survey II, LiTS II). In order to estimate individuals' access to formal financial markets, the author constructs a bivariate probit model to account for joint access to short-term and long-term credit products (Mohieldin and Wright, 2000).

The results show that improving people's access to financial markets across European regions requires a set of interventions at the institutional and local levels to link-up policies of financial inclusion and financial integrity.

The paper contributes to the existing literature by identifying a number of key causes of financial inclusion and the role of institutional (corruption crimes) factors in determining the levels of financial access in a country.

Technology-enabled business-to-business (B2B) services contribute the largest share to GDP growth and are fundamental for an economy’s value creation. This article aims to identify key service- and digital technology-driven B2B innovation modes and proposes a research agenda for further exploration.

This conceptual paper adopts a techno-demarcation view on service innovation, encompassing three core dimensions: service offering (the service product, or the “what”), service process (the “how”) and service ecosystem (the “who/for whom”). It delineates the implications of three digital technologies – the internet-of-things (IoT), intelligent automation (IA) and digital platforms – for service innovation across these core dimensions in B2B markets.

Digital technology has immense potential ramifications for value creation by reshaping all three core dimensions of service innovation. Specifically, IoT can transform physical resources into reconfigurable service products, IA can augment and automate a rapidly expanding array of service processes, while digital platforms provide the technical and organizational infrastructure for the integration of resources and stakeholders within service ecosystems.

This study suggests an agenda with six themes for further research, each linked to one or more of the three service innovation dimensions. They are (1) new recurring revenue models, (2) service innovation in the metaverse, (3) scaling up service innovations, (4) ecosystem innovations, (5) power dependency and lock-in effects and (6) security and responsibility in digital domains.

Access to finance, especially by the poor and marginalized section of the population, is a prerequisite for creating employment opportunities, economic growth, poverty reduction and social cohesion. Access to finance makes transactions quicker, cheaper and safer. Most people around the world having an account in a formal financial institution serve as an entry point into formal financial sector. This study aims to analyze the status of financial inclusion in Assam with respect to demographic penetration, geographic penetration and usage ratio, i.e. credit–deposit ratio.

The study covers a period of 12 years from 2007–08 to 2018–19. Both the parametric and non-parametric statistical tools have been used to analyze the various dimensions of financial inclusion.

The study clearly indicates that there is a significant difference between Assam and aggregate India in financial inclusion and the status of Assam is somewhat lower as compared to the aggregate financial inclusion status of India. To achieve a satisfactory level of financial inclusion, it is not enough to open a bank account for the excluded people, but banks must look at flexibility and timeliness in services to offer a complete package to this segment of the population.

The study is a significant attempt to meet the shortcomings and improve banking coverage for achieving financial inclusion.

An inclusive financial system is essential to develop the country’s economy. A massive shift in financial inclusion was observed by the initiative of government to include financially excluded into the formal financial system by launching Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) in 2014. This paper aims to attempt to examine the efficiency of public sector banks in financial inclusion during pre and post introduction of PMJDY.

The data envelopment analysis is used to measure the efficiency of the banks towards financial inclusion for the periods, 2010–2011 to 2013–2014 as pre-introduction and 2014–2015 to 2017–2018 as post-introduction phase. For this study, supply-side parameters of financial inclusion considered as input variables and demand-side parameters as output variables.

The study finds that overall average efficiency towards financial inclusion increases significantly during post-phase, though all the public sector banks are not performing equally. There is a significant variation in efficiency level between them and even between the two periods. Further, there is a huge opportunity to enhance technical efficiency with the same quantity of input which will help to achieve the target of financial inclusion.

A comparative study between the two phases has taken place to analyse the impact of the scheme on the technical efficiency of banks. One of the notable innovativeness of this study is that, unlike most of the previous studies which are mostly theoretical and conceptual, the present study may place itself as a unique inquiry in the domain of efficiency review of public sector banks during pre and post introduction of PMJDY.

The rapid advancement of technology poses many social challenges including the emerging issue of technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) and violence. In Australia, women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds are found to be more vulnerable to domestic violence (DV) and abuse, including TFA. This chapter presents a snapshot of CALD women's technology-facilitated domestic abuse (TFDA) experiences in Melbourne through the eyes of a small group of DV practitioners. Findings show CALD women experience TFA similar to that of the mainstream, with tracking and monitoring through the use of smartphone and social media most common. Their migration and financial status, and language and digital literacy can increase their vulnerability to TFDA, making their experience more complicated. Appropriate digital services and resources together with face-to-face support services can be a way forward. Further research should focus on better understanding CALD women's perceptions of and responses to TFDA and explore ways to improve engagement with and use of community media channels/platforms.