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Research ethics and integrity stipulates that research must be conducted with responsibility towards the research community and should benefit the intended population. This chapter will share insights from an ongoing research programme to reduce family conflict in the context of dementia care while discussing the accompanying ethical considerations. Research into dementia care has primarily focused on improving outcomes for the care dyad, leaving the influence and input of the wider family unit under investigated. Family conflict can detrimentally impact the quality of care provided and leave caregivers vulnerable to psychosocial difficulties. Family conflict occurs in the context of dementia care but there is little research on how to reduce, or prevent, such conflict occurring. In this research programme, a systematic review investigated the effectiveness of interventions that include the wider family unit to reduce family conflict; only one study was included which evidenced the lack of interventions in this area. A qualitative scoping review was then conducted to explore the lived experiences of caregiving families with experience of family conflict and reported solutions. It was found that conflict occurred due to factors including care decisions and role transitions which impacted relationships and affected care provision. Solutions to conflict were less often reported, indicating an important gap in the literature. Interviews with Alzheimer's Society staff and volunteers revealed that stigma and denial surrounding dementia were prevalent, and families were often reluctant to seek external help. This research programme is currently establishing public patient involvement (PPI) to develop the research methodology and interview questions for people with dementia (PWD) and their family caregivers to explore their lived experiences and potential solutions to family conflict. To conclude, this research programme will propose a family-focused intervention aimed at systemic family conflict for those caring for someone with dementia.

This piece argues that television families’ shift away from the traditional nuclear family form is crucial to understand the relatively rapid acceptance of same-sex marriage in mainstream politics. Released in the early 2010s, The Americans focusses on a KGB-created family composed of two Soviet spies, total strangers who ultimately have two children to further their cover as an innocent American family running a DuPont Circle travel agency and living in a Virginia suburb of Washington D.C. Rather than being idealised or sought after, The Americans reveals that the nuclear family is legally, socially, and politically constructed, and, in the end, doomed to failure. Sex and love and even children are instrumentally manipulated on a regular basis to further political goals, transforming basic assumptions about how marriage and family life really work beyond the façade of suburban America. This opens space for consideration and acceptance of alternative family forms, including same-sex marriage.

Current responses to women's violence are rooted in stereotypical views that delink women's violence from the context of gendered inequality and social marginalisation that mediates it. In this chapter, we draw from feminist scholarship on women's violence, including violence by female sex workers (FSWs), and qualitative data to examine different forms of FSWs' violence against their male clients and the contexts that shape their use of violence. Twenty-seven in-depth interviews were conducted with FSWs recruited through snowball sampling in Uyo, Nigeria. Thematic analysis revealed three forms of violence: ‘situational violence’ – an individual-centred, self-defensive and spontaneous response to conflict situations; ‘collective violence’ – pre-meditated violence used by a group of FSWs to revenge the victimisation of its member, and ‘symbolic violence’ – the un-planned outcome of FSWs' violence that has the effect of deterring client violence and inducing cooperative behaviour. FSWs use violence to deter or counter threatened or enacted client violence and to exact revenge for past victimisation. They also use violence to enforce rules, extract payments and establish solidarity. FSWs' violence is contextualised within the everyday experience of client violence. This violence is not only reactionary; it is a pragmatic attempt to negotiate structural and gender dynamics that shape risks in sex work.

The US prison population has recently reached an all-time high, with women representing the fastest growing subpopulation. Correctional health-care system in the USA remains fragmented and nonuniform in practice, particularly in women’s health care, with poor transitions between incarceration and release. This study aims to examine the qualitative health-care experiences of women while incarcerated and their transition into the community health-care setting. Additionally, this study also examined the experiences of a subset of women who were pregnant while incarcerated.

After obtaining institutional review board approval, adult, English-speaking women with a history of incarceration within the past 10 years were interviewed using a semi-structured interview tool. Interview transcripts were analyzed using inductive content analysis.

The authors completed 21 full interviews and identified six themes that were both the most significant and most novel: “feeling stigmatized and insignificant,” “care as punishment,” “delay in care,” “exceptions to the rule,” “fragmentation of care” and “obstetric trauma and resilience.”

Women face numerous barriers and hardships when accessing basic and reproductive health-care services while incarcerated. This hardship is particularly challenging for women with substance use disorders. The authors were able to describe for the first time, partially through their own words, novel challenges described by women interacting with incarceration health care. Community providers should understand these barriers and challenges so as to effectively reengage women in care upon release and improve the health-care status of this historically marginalized group.

Using a sample of oil and gas firms in the USA, the study examines the relation between the presence of hedging and annual report readability.

The authors use regression analysis to examine the relation between the presence of hedging and annual report readability.

The authors find that annual reports of firms with the use of hedging are less readable (i.e. difficult to read and understand). The authors also find that the primary results are more pronounced for firms with a higher level of business volatility.

The study contributes to the finance literature on the use and value of hedging and to the accounting literature on the determinants of annual report readability. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has persistently asked companies to improve the readability of their disclosures to stakeholders (SEC, 1998; 2013, 2014). Hence, the study not only identifies a potential determinant (i.e. hedging) that may influence the level of readability but also supports the current regulatory policy by the SEC, which is encouraging companies to improve readability.

This study aims to examine whether a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) transparency (reflected in two separate dimensions of social transparency and environmental transparency) affects a company’s dependence on expensive trade credit (TC) financing.

The authors use a panel of S&P 500 index companies between 2012 and 2019 and ordinary least squares estimators. Transparency ratings represented by Bloomberg scores capture both the quantity and quality of verified CSR practice information.

CSR transparency (CSRT) is negatively associated with a firm’s dependence on expensive TC financing. This study’s results continue to hold after a battery of robustness tests like substitute proxies for TC, use of two-stage least squares regression, industry-adjusted dependent variable, generalized linear model and bootstrapping approach. This association is stronger among companies with higher information asymmetry (IASY) and lower quality regarding governance and financial reporting. Further investigation indicates that potential channels through which CSRT mitigates a company’s reliance on TC financing are the cost of debt (CoD) and stock liquidity. This study’s findings suggest that transparent companies have a lower CoD and higher stock liquidity. This helps these companies to be more financially flexible and eventually less dependent on expensive TC financing.

By combining two separate research lines of TC and CSR, this study adds to both works of literature as it is the first (to the best of the authors’ knowledge) to present evidence of the effect of CSRT proxied by Bloomberg scores on a company’s reliance on TC (a real economic decision and financial policy). Additionally, this study documents the moderating effects of financial reporting quality, IASY and corporate governance on the relationship between CSRT and TC financing. In conclusion, this study provides empirical evidence regarding the potential mechanisms of CoD and stock liquidity, through which CSRT influences a company’s reliance on TC financing.

This study investigates the impact of large-scale teaching in higher education on students’ preparedness for the workforce within the context of evolving labour market demands, the expansion of higher education and the application of high-impact teaching strategies. It synthesizes perspectives on employer work readiness, the challenges and opportunities of large-scale teaching and strategies for fostering a dynamic academia-industry feedback loop. This multifaceted approach ensures the relevance of curricula and graduates’ preparedness while addressing the skills gap through practical recommendations for aligning teaching methodologies with employer expectations.

The research methodically examines the multifaceted challenges and opportunities inherent in large-scale teaching. It focuses on sustaining student engagement, maintaining educational quality, personalizing learning experiences and cultivating essential soft skills in extensive student cohorts.

This study highlights the critical role of transversal skills in work readiness. It also uncovers that despite its challenges, large-scale teaching presents unique opportunities. The diversity of large student groups mirrors modern workplace complexities, and technological tools aid in personalizing learning experiences. Approaches like peer networking, innovative teaching methods, real-world simulations and collaborative resource utilization enrich education. The importance of experiential learning for augmenting large-scale teaching in honing soft skills is emphasized.

This manuscript contributes to the discourse on large-scale teaching, aligning it with employer expectations and the dynamic requirements of the job market. It offers a nuanced perspective on the challenges and opportunities this educational approach presents, providing insights for crafting engaging and effective learning experiences in large cohorts. The study uniquely integrates experiential learning, co-creation in education and industry-academia feedback loops, underscoring their importance in enhancing student work readiness in large-scale teaching.