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The novel coronavirus and associated mitigation efforts have caused significant increases in stress for adults with intellectual disabilities. Such increases in life stress predict an increased risk of relapse following psychological therapy. This contributes to the high global disease burden of common mental health difficulties. Therefore, this paper aims to explore service user experiences of maintaining gains following therapy within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A mixed-methods evaluation was completed in a psychology service based in the North of England which specialises in supporting adults with intellectual disabilities. Descriptive statistics and effect size calculations were used to examine therapeutic outcomes pre-therapy, post-therapy, and at follow-up. These findings informed a framework analysis of eight semi-structured interviews.

Overall, outcome results improved post-therapy and regressed at follow-up. The framework analysis revealed facilitators to maintenance include a recollection of specific aspects of therapy and the regular utilisation of strategies and resources. Conversely, barriers to maintenance include a recollection focussed on personal outcome, a reliance on social support and an inability to remember therapy.

This is the only study to the authors’ knowledge examining service user experiences of maintaining gains following therapy within the context of Covid-19. It is hoped that these findings will inform further research and be useful for services in preparing service users for discharge as the Covid-19 pandemic continues and moves towards the post-pandemic phase.

We examined how Conservation of Resources (COR) theory has been applied to work and stress in organizational settings. COR theory has drawn increasing interest in the organizational literature. It is both a stress and motivational theory that outlines how individuals and organizations are likely to be impacted by stressful circumstances, what those stressful circumstances are likely to be, and how individuals and organizations act in order to garner and protect their resources. To date, individual studies and meta-analyses have found COR theory to be a major explanatory model for understanding the stress process at work. Applications of COR theory to burnout, respite, and preventive intervention were detailed. Studies have shown that resource loss is a critical component of the stress process in organizations and that limiting resource loss is a key to successful prevention and post-stress intervention. Applications for future work, moving COR theory to the study of the acquisition, maintenance, fostering, and protection of key resources was discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of knowledge and understanding framework (KUF) awareness-level training with mental health staff in a UK NHS Mental Health Trust.

In total, 181 mental health professionals completed three day KUF awareness-level training to promote understanding and positive attitudes in working with personality disorder (PD). Attitudes to PD were evaluated using the PD – Knowledge and Skills Questionnaire (Bolton et al., 2010) at pre and post training and at three and six months follow up. Quantitative data were analysed and descriptive statistics were obtained. Qualitative methods were also used to evaluate the integration of learning into work-based practice with five participants.

Participants reported a favourable reaction to the training. Understanding and positive emotions about working with PD increased significantly post training (gains maintained at three and six months follow up). Capability in working with PD was increased post training and at three, but not six months. Qualitative analysis suggests clinical practice was positively impacted upon three months following training.

This research suggests awareness-level KUF training can have a positive impact on the attitudes, understanding and clinical practice of mental health practitioners towards people with a PD. It confirms earlier research on a decrease in capability post training, and explores strategies to further develop capability with this client group.

Despite the promotion of KUF awareness-level training by the Department of Health there is limited evaluation of the approach with mental health professionals in practice. This study reports on an evaluation of KUF training within a large mental health trust with three and six months follow up data. Qualitative evaluation three months after course completion indicates improved practice and application of course principles when working with individuals with PD.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of the Transformers programme on individual's use of appropriate emotion regulation strategies.

Five people with an intellectual disability participated in the Transformers programme and took part in the current study. The intervention was evaluated using the Profile of Anger Coping Skills (PACS) and incident reports. The PACS was completed by participants and their caregivers.

The majority of participants demonstrated increases in self- and caregiver-reported use of appropriate emotion regulation strategies following their involvement in the Transformers programme. However, treatment gains were not always maintained at follow-up. Three of the participants also exhibited fewer incidents of challenging behaviour after taking part in the programme.

Overall, the results provide preliminary support for the continued use of the Transformers programme with people with an intellectual disability who have emotion regulation difficulties. It is recommended that further research be carried out with a larger sample size, a control group, and a longer follow-up period.

The purpose of this study is to understand the reasons behind the different patterns of Sharīʿah non-compliant income (SNCI) disclosures amongst Islamic banks and, in particular, the extent to which Islamic banks make SNCI disclosures. The process involved in gaining and maintaining moral legitimacy forms the framework for this study.

Interviews were conducted with managers of Islamic banks involved in the reporting of SNCI in company annual reports.

The interview findings show that Islamic banks prefer to use procedures to gain and enhance moral legitimacy amongst their customers, business partners and staff. The constraints and challenges that Islamic banks face in SNCI reporting make this a popular means of securing moral legitimacy. However, these practices may not lead to enhanced and more communicative SNCI disclosures by Islamic banks.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that explains the motivations behind SNCI reporting by Islamic banks and frames these motivations under the moral legitimacy framework.

The purpose of this paper is to build and test theory regarding how rivalry in environmental management (EM) affects a focal firm’s environmental image and financial performance.

The theory is tested with an original panel data set of 2,776 focal-rival dyad pairs. Measures of environmental signals are developed from content analysis of corporate sustainability reports. Environmental performance data are drawn from the Newsweek US 500 Green Rankings database. Financial performance data are drawn from COMPUSTAT.

The main findings are that focal firm signals have a positive and significant impact on both focal firm environmental image and financial performance. Rival firm signals have a negative effect on focal firm environmental image. Surprisingly, rival firm signals have a positive impact on focal firm financial performance.

This paper can serve as a testament to the value of monitoring rival firm strategies and signaling to counter the impact of rival signals in the environmental domain. Environmental practices can be a source of competitive advantage for firms, and failure to compete in this space can place the firm at a competitive disadvantage.

This study makes several contributions to the EM literature. Leveraging competitive dynamics and the institutional viewpoints, this study builds theory with regard to how signals of competitive EM activity among a focal firm and its rivals affect environmental image and financial performance.

The purpose of this paper is to address the cultural challenges of gaining and maintaining qualitative research access into ethnic small firms. In particular, it evaluates the influence of cultural affinity – between researchers and business owners – on gaining and maintaining access into ethnic minority owned firms.

This paper reflects on the experiences of facilitating and maintaining research access into a sample of 258 small Turkish and Chinese ethnic minority businesses in London.

This paper study illustrates that researchers need to demonstrate cultural awareness to ethnic business owners and understand the socio‐cultural environment in which their firms operate in order to be able to gain and maintain research access.

Data collection is limited to Turkish and Chinese ethnic minority owned businesses in London, and other ethnic entrepreneurs are excluded. Therefore, care should be taken in making generalisations from the sample.

This paper identifies a number of important skills which can be exploited in negotiating and gaining research access. These are communication, interpersonal and cultural awareness skills.

This paper addresses a neglected area in the research process, namely research access, which has important implications for the type of data collected, sampling and data collection techniques. The paper thus identifies “research access” as an important element of research design.

In a state capitalist country such as China, an important influence on company reporting is the government, which can influence company decision-making. The nature and impact of how the Chinese government uses its symbolic power to promote corporate environmental reporting (CER) have been under-studied, and therefore, this paper aims to address this gap in the literature by investigating the various strategies the Chinese government uses to influence CER and how political ideology plays a key role.

This study uses discourse analysis to examine the annual reports and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports from seven Chinese companies between 2007 and 2011. And the data analysis presented is informed by Bourdieu's conceptualisation of symbolic power.

The Chinese government, through exercising the symbolic power, manages to build consensus, so that the Chinese government's political ideology becomes the habitus which is deeply embedded in the companies' perception of practices. In China, the government dominates the field and owns the economic capital. In order to accumulate symbolic capital, companies must adhere to political ideology, which helps them maintain and improve their social position and ultimately reward them with more economic capital. The findings show that the CER provided by Chinese companies is a symbolic product of this process.

The paper provides contributions around the themes of symbolic power wielded by the government that influence not only state-owned enterprises (SOEs) but also firms in the private sector. This paper also provides an important contribution to understanding, in the context of a strong ideologically based political system (such as China), how political ideology influences companies' decision-making in the field of CER.

During the current century, environmental sustainability and waste reduction processes have always been subject to scrutiny in developed societies. Developed communities have gained considerable momentum by investing in environmental infrastructure and integrating corporate performance disclosure and less developed communities are involved with it. Carbon disclosure is one of the aspects of green accounting in “corporate strategies,” especially those operating across the capital market. Adherence to the disclosure of facts can facilitate sustainable development in societies. This study aims to present strategic reference points matrix-based model to develop a framework for carbon disclosure strategies through institutional and stakeholder pressures throughout the capital market.

As a case study, by reviewing similar research on carbon disclosure, this study seeks to illustrate various carbon disclosure aspects and strategies in a matrix based on institutional (vertical axis) and stakeholder (horizontal axis) pressures

The study attempts to states that carbon disclosure is affected solely by the company because of the presence of agency gaps between external stakeholders and corporate executives.

However, the firm’s decision to adopt a carbon disclosure strategy depends on the performance of stakeholder pressure (stakeholder salience level) and managers’ perceptions of institutional pressure (institutional pressure centrality level).

Taking on a corporate political activity (CPA) perspective, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how CPA affects environmental sustainability disclosure among firms in China and whether the disclosure level varies across ownership structures and environmental sensitivity statuses.

The sample comprises 652 corporate social responsibility reports released by firms in China during 2008-2010. Data are coded through a content analysis procedure before being analyzed using regression analysis.

The authors find a significant and positive association between CPA and environmental sustainability disclosure. However, the effect of CPA on environmental sustainability disclosure is significantly negative among firms in the environmentally sensitive industries (ESIs) and privately owned enterprises (POEs). More specifically, a firm’s environmental disclosure level is lower when the proportion of board members with a significant status, such as party chief of the Communist Party, is higher among firms in ESIs and POEs. This implies that firms with guanxi (i.e. Chinese-specific CPA) are more likely to be free from trouble.

This empirical study offers important evidence on the fulfillment of environmental sustainability policies and the effectiveness of regulatory controls that China has used in the development toward a low-carbon economy.