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The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively analyse the inspection and regulation of care for people with learning disabilities and mental health problems in Scotland, in two time periods.

The paper uses comparative historical research drawing on primary sources from 1857 to 1862 in the form of Annual Reports of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland and associated papers, to compare inspection methods, quality standards and to identify persistent challenges to effective inspection.

Political, clinical and public awareness led initially to criticisms of existing care and eventually to the development of the “The Lunacy Act” of 1857. This Act resulted in the first attempts to set minimum standards of care for individuals at risk, with enforceable regulation. Some factors recur as challenges to effective practice in the inspection and regulation of care today.

There are problems of definition, reliable monitoring of quality standards and adequate, independent inspection of services that respond to unacceptable standards of care. There is a growing evidence base about best methods of inspection of services for people in care who are most at risk. These methods attempt to strike a balance between evidence- and value-based judgments. Perspectives from history may help focus resources.

This paper compares common and common challenges in two time periods to investigate what can be learned about the development of policy and practice in inspection and regulation of care.

Guided by a life course theoretical perspective, this study aimed to examine associations between providing caregiving for a young or adult son or daughter with special needs and multiple dimensions of physical health status among married midlife and older adults, as well as moderation of these associations by gender and marital quality (i.e., marital strain).

Regression models were estimated using data from 1,058 married adults aged 33–83 (National Survey of Midlife in the U.S. (MIDUS), 2005).

Parental caregiving for a young or adult child with special needs (in contrast to no caregiving) was linked to poorer global health and more physical symptoms among both fathers and mothers. Father caregivers reported slightly more chronic conditions than noncaregiving men, regardless of marital quality. By contrast, mother caregivers reported a much higher number of chronic conditions when they also reported a high level of marital strain, but not when they reported a low level of marital strain.

Overall, results provide evidence from a national sample that midlife and older parents providing caregiving for a child with special needs are at risk for poorer health outcomes, and further tentatively suggest that greater marital strain may exacerbate health risks, particularly among married mother caregivers.

A growing volume of family firm literature has argued that the preservation of family socioemotional wealth takes precedence over the pursuit of financial goals. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework that builds knowledge regarding the two-way relationship between socioemotional and financial forms of wealth, to develop a more complete theory of wealth concerns that may inform family firm decision-making.

The authors conceptually examine contingencies affecting the relationship between financial and socioemotional wealth (in both causal directions).

The authors predict when one form of wealth (socioemotional/financial) is likely to dominate the other (financial/socioemotional) in the family firm’s strategic decisions.

The paper advances knowledge on the two-way relationship between socioemotional and financial forms of wealth providing a platform for further development in the nascent field of family business research, including our understanding of family firm decisions regarding control and influence over the family business, environmental policy, altruism toward family members, R&D, accounting choices and corporate diversification.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role family identity and reputational concerns plays when private family firms engage in earnings management.

The paper is conducted as an archival study using data from private limited liability firms in Norway over the period from 2002 to 2015. The dataset includes financial accounting data and data on family relationships between shareholders, board members and CEOs, where family relationships are determined through bloodlines, adoption and marriage, tracing back four generations and extending out to third cousins. To investigate the incidence of earnings management, the authors employ a measure of accrual-based earnings management (AEM) (Dechow and Dichev, 2002; McNichols, 2002) and a measure of real earnings management (REM) (Roychowdhury, 2006). They use whether or not the family name is included in the firm name (i.e. family name congruence) as a proxy for family members' identification with the family firm and their sensitivity to reputational concerns.

The authors’ results show that AEM is lower for family-named family firms. Moreover, their findings also indicate that family-named family firms are more likely to select REM over AEM, compared to nonfamily named family firms. This is even more pronounced when detection risk is high (high quality audit proxied by Big 4).

The quality of the authors’ findings is limited to the validity of their proxy for family firm identification and reputational concerns (the family name included in the firm name). Even though findings from prior research suggest that family name congruence is a valid proxy for identity and reputational concerns (e.g. Kashmiri and Mahajan, 2010, 2014; Rousseau et al., 2018; Zellweger et al., 2013), future research should investigate the validity of these results using alternative proxies for family firm identification. Future research should also investigate whether the authors’ findings are generalizable to public family firms.

The authors’ results suggest that the risk of AEM is lower for family-named family firms, whereas the risk of REM is somewhat higher, compared to nonfamily named family firms. These results might be relevant for financial accounting users, auditors and supervisory and monitoring bodies when assessing the risk of earnings management.

The paper is, as far as the authors are aware of, the first to investigate the role of family name congruence and detection risk when private family firms select between AEM and REM.

Based on the socioemotional wealth theory, this study aims to empirically investigate how founder reign, that is a founder serving as a cheif executive officer (CEO) or chairman, influences family firms' research and development (R&D) investment in emerging economies (e.g. China).

This study empirically tested the hypotheses based on a sample of listed Chinese family companies from 2008 to 2018.

Founder reign has a negative impact on family firms' R&D investment. Particularly, the negative impact of the founder serving as chairman on family firms' R&D investment is larger than the negative impact of the founder serving as CEO on family firms' R&D investment. Founder's military experience weakens the negative impact of founder reign on family firms' R&D investment, but founder's executive master of business administration (E)MBA experience has no moderating effect on this relationship.

First, the authors contribute to the family firm innovation literature by providing an alternative but complementary explanation of why family firms have relatively low R&D investment levels. This research shows that founder reign is a key reason for family firms in China eschewing R&D investment. Second, by incorporating the founder serving as CEO and the founder serving as chairman into the analytical framework, and then examining their impact on family firms' R&D investment, our research helps us to fully understand the impact of founder reign on firm strategic actions. Third, we contribute to the “founder reign-firm strategic actions” framework by revealing how founders' human capital profoundly affects the relationship between founder reign and family firms' R&D investment.

In April 1999, 481 English Primary Care Groups (PCGs) were created. The National Primary Care Research and Development Centre is leading a three year longitudinal study, in conjunction with the King’s Fund, to track the development of PCGs. The implementation of clinical governance is an important responsibility of PCGs. This survey aimed to describe initial progress in implementing clinical governance in primary care, and to describe barriers to change. Data were collected in autumn 1999, using a questionnaire to clinical governance leads, in a random sample of 72 PCGs. PCGs have put considerable effort into the development of clinical governance and an extensive range of activities were planned for tracking quality of care. However, PCGs face barriers in implementing clinical governance and they must foster a culture of engaged participation by practices and practice staff. PCGs must also be given the time and resources needed to implement clinical governance.

To summarize and evaluate John Levi Marin’s recent book, The Explanation of Social Action (2011), the central thesis of which is that the actions of other people cannot be explained without first understanding those actions from the point of view of the actors themselves. Martin thus endeavors to reorient social science toward concrete experience and away from purportedly useless abstractions.

This review chapter employs close scrutiny of and applies immanent critique to Martin’s argumentative claims, warrants, and the polemical style in which these arguments are presented.

This chapter arrives at the following conclusions: (1) Martin unnecessarily truncates the scope of sociological investigation; (2) he fails to define the key concepts within his argument, including “explanation,” “social action,” and “understanding,” among others; (3) he overemphasizes the external or “environmental” causes of action; (4) rather than inducing actions, the so-called “action-fields” induce experiences, and are therefore incapable of explaining actions; (5) Martin rejects counterfactual definitions of causality while defining his own notion of causality in terms of counterfactuals; (6) most of his critiques of other philosophical accounts of causality are really critiques of their potential misapplication; (7) the separation of experience and language (i.e., propositions about experience) in order to secure the validity of the former does not secure the validity of sociological inquiry, since experiences are invariably reported in language; and, finally, (8) Martin’s argument that people are neurologically incapable of providing accurate, retrospective accounts of the motivations behind their own actions is based on the kind of third-person social science he elsewhere repudiates; that he acknowledges the veracity of these studies demonstrates the potential utility of the “third-person” perspectives and the implausibility of any social science that abandons them.

To date Martin’s book has received much praise but little critical attention. This review chapter seeks to fill this lacuna in the literature in order to better elucidate Martin’s central arguments and the conclusions that can be reasonably inferred from the logical and empirical evidence presented.

This research involves a review of the principal aspects of the concept of perceived price fairness in consumer purchasing behaviour.

The research reviews the principal aspects of perceived price fairness analysed in the literature. First, it tackles the dimensions of the concept of fairness before examining the dual entitlement principle, from which the idea of reference prices and the term fair price derive.

The research establishes research ideas for further research into this important topic, which is not currently the subject of much research.

The principal limitation of the research is that it only focuses on the consumer, without analysing the vendor's point of view in pricing. Additionally, it is limited to considering the effects of perceived unfairness on satisfaction. In future research it will be important to include aspects such as loyalty or confidence in the decision making process.

The research offers a thorough overview of the concept of perceived price fairness, proposing several future research areas that are better adjusted to the real‐world functioning of this important concept and should lead to improved understanding.

El objetivo de este trabajo es hacer una revisión de los principales aspectos relacionados con la percepción de justicia de precios en el comportamiento de compra del consumidor.

Este trabajo revisa los principales aspectos relacionados con la percepción de justicia de precios analizados en la literatura. Así, en primer lugar se abordan las distintas dimensiones que componen el concepto de justicia, y en segunda instancia, el denominado principio de doble derecho que introduce el precio de referencia y da lugar al término de precio justo.

Este trabajo plantea líneas de investigación futuras para profundizar en un tema tan importante, pero poco analizado en la actualidad.

La principal limitación de este trabajo es que se centra solo en la perspectiva del consumidor sin analizar el punto de vista del vendedor cuando fija los precios. Además, se ha considerado únicamente los efectos que la percepción de injusticia tiene sobre la satisfacción, siendo interesante incluir elementos como la lealtad o la confianza en la decisión.

Este trabajo aporta una visión integrada del concepto de percepción de justicia de precios, planteando una serie de líneas de investigación que pueden permitir un conocimiento mejor y más adaptado a la realidad de un concepto tan relevante.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the path dependence theoretical framework to STI policies that support research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3).

Review of the recent literature on the phases, sources of reinforcement and change mechanisms (layering, conversion, recombination, etc.) present in path-dependent processes, as well as the role played by mental frameworks, political agents and power relations; and its illustration and testing over 30 years of STI policy development in the Basque Country.

How to operationalise the analysis of continuity and change of STI policies supporting RIS3 policies characterised by path dependence processes. Likewise, learnings from the analysis of Basque case regarding the types of challenges that European regions will face as they design their RIS3, according to their degree of maturity in STI policies.

It is the first time that the recently developed tools for analysis of path-dependent processes are applied to the development of STI policies supporting RIS3 policies.