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One of the major issues faced by academic health science centers (AHSCs) is the need for mechanisms to foster the integration of research, clinical, and educational activities to achieve the vision of evidence-informed decision making (EIDM) and optimal client care. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper synthesizes literature on organizational learning and collaboration, evidence-informed organizational decision making, and learning-based organizations to derive insights concerning the nature of effective workplace learning in AHSCs.

An evidence-informed model of collaborative workplace learning is proposed to aid the alignment of research, clinical, and educational functions in AHSCs. The model articulates relationships among AHSC academic functions and sub-functions, cross-functional activities, and collaborative learning processes, emphasizing the importance of cross-functional activities in enhancing collaborative learning processes and optimizing EIDM and client care. Cross-functional activities involving clinicians, researchers, and educators are hypothesized to be a primary vehicle for integration, supported by a learning-oriented workplace culture. These activities are distinct from interprofessional teams, which are clinical in nature. Four collaborative learning processes are specified that are enhanced in cross-functional activities or teamwork: co-constructing meaning, co-learning, co-producing knowledge, and co-using knowledge.

The model provides an aspirational vision and insight into the importance of cross-functional activities in enhancing workplace learning. The paper discusses the conceptual and empirical basis to the model, its contributions and limitations, and implications for AHSCs.

The model’s potential utility for health care is discussed, with implications for organizational culture and the promotion of cross-functional activities.

This study aims to describe patients presented in an interprofessional, virtual education program focused on the mental health of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), as well as present interprofessional recommendations for care.

In this retrospective chart review, descriptive statistics were used to describe patients. Content analysis was used to analyze interprofessional recommendations. The authors used the H.E.L.P. (health, environment, lived experience and psychiatric disorder) framework to conceptualize and analyze the interprofessional recommendations.

Themes related to the needs of adults with IDD are presented according to the H.E.L.P. framework. Taking a team-based approach to care, as well as ensuring care provider knowledge of health and social histories, may help better tailor care.

This project draws on knowledge presented in a national interprofessional and intersectoral educational initiative, the first in Canada to focus on this population.

As becoming a mother becomes increasingly embedded in the marketplace, this paper explores how a group of low-income pregnant and newly parenting young mothers engaged with expansive markets for the new mother and baby.

This paper draws on an extended period of fieldwork carried out at a Pupil Referral Unit and a Mother and Baby Unit in the city of Bristol, UK. The research took a staged and incremental approach, incorporating aspects of participant observation, activity-based focus groups and a photo elicitation exercise.

This paper highlights the anxiety the young women experienced around their ability (or lack thereof) to participate in practices of childrearing consumption and details how the young women strived to provide well for their children despite their limited incomes, developing a sophisticated knowledge of markets and adopting a range of budgeting and smart shopping strategies to ensure they could acquire the “stuff” their children “needed”.

Contrary to popular discourse, the young women emerge as careful and pragmatic consumers who plan and manage their finances carefully, and the paper acknowledges skills that are often missing from accounts of young mothers and working-class people more broadly.

The Diagnosis of Sustainable Collaboration (DISC) model (Leurs et al., 2008) specifies five factors (i.e. project management, change management, context, external factors, and stakeholders’ support) which predict whether collaboration becomes strong and stable. The purpose of this paper is to study the dynamics of these factors in a study of multiple partnerships in comprehensive school health promotion (CSHP).

A Dutch two-year DISC-based intervention to support coordinators of five CSHP partnerships in the systematic development of intersectoral collaboration was studied in a pretest-posttest design. To uncover the determinants of sustainable collaboration and implementation of CSHP and to find possible mediators, the authors carried out multi-level path analyses of data on the DISC factors obtained from 90 respondents (response of approached respondents: 57 percent) at pretest and 69 respondents (52 percent) at posttest. Mediation mechanisms were assessed using joint significance tests.

The five DISC factors were important predictors of implementation of CSHP (explained variance: 26 percent) and sustainable collaboration (explained variance: 21 percent). For both outcomes, stakeholders’ support proved to be the most important factor. Regarding sustainable collaboration, mediation analysis showed that stakeholders’ support fully mediated the effects of change management, project management, external factors and context. This indicates that the extent of stakeholders’ support (e.g. appreciation of goals and high levels of commitment) determines whether collaboration becomes sustainable. The authors also found that the extent of stakeholders’ support in turn depends upon a well-functioning project management structure, the employment of change management principles (e.g. creation of a common vision and employment of appropriate change strategies), a favorable organizational context (e.g. positive experience with previous collaboration) and external context (e.g. positive attitudes of financing bodies and supporting health and educational policies). For the actual implementation of CSHP, partial mediation by the support factor was found. There was a direct positive effect of change management indicating that organizational knowledge is also necessary to implement CSHP, and a direct negative effect of project management, probably pointing to the negative effects of too much negotiation in the collaboration.

A design lacking a control group, a small sample and a relatively early assessment after implementation support stopped limit the generalizability of the results.

Strategies targeting the DISC factors can enhance stakeholders’ support and thereby promote sustainable intersectoral collaboration and the implementation of CSHP.

The DISC model provides a fruitful conceptual framework for the study of predictors and processes in public health partnerships. The importance of stakeholders’ support and other factors in the model are demonstrated.

This paper aims to present the case of a semester-long study-abroad education class in Italy. This course explored place-based methods that classroom teachers (K-12) might use to connect students’ outdoor surroundings to extend the lessons they learn in school about environmental sustainability. The experience of the university instructor and students outlined in this paper highlights the promise of place-based education to provide a potent approach for conveying principles of education for sustainable development (ESD).

An American university course enacted the approaches of place-based education and learning outdoors (harnessing student curiosity, building community partnerships, etc.) to investigate the natural and civic systems at work in the city of Florence. The participants deepened their understanding about the natural environment, economic health and well-being of inhabitants and compared the findings about local sustainable resource management to international settings. Through a deliberate practice framework, the students designed classroom lessons.

This discussion of university students’ work in an education course illuminates the possibilities for place-based applications in elementary and secondary schools. The pedagogical principles applied in this course also highlight the multidisciplinary strengths of ESD.

This paper provides an inside look at choices educators must make to provide relevance in classrooms, to connect the curriculum content that is standardized by governments with the systemic dilemmas that challenge communities. The author details the pedestrian topics that the university students examined during the semester. These lessons show that place-based inquiry situated in the outdoors can present clear lessons about sustainable development. An international comparative perspective can enhance learners’ perspectives about local surroundings.

Unassisted childbirth, also known as “freebirth,” is when a person intentionally gives birth at home with no professional birth attendant. The limited research on unassisted birth in the United States focuses on women’s reasons for making this choice. Studies suggest women are committed to birthing without a professional and that this choice is rooted in religious or natural-family belief systems. These studies do not adequately account for the ways a framework of “choice” obscures the role structural barriers play in decision-making processes. International research on unassisted childbirth finds that it is not always a first choice and may be a last resort for women who have had negative experiences with maternity care. More research on unassisted birth in the United States is needed to better understand if people face similar structural barriers. In this paper I examine how structural limitations of the US healthcare system intersect with values in decision-making processes about childbirth. Drawing on in-depth interviews with nine women who gave birth unassisted in the United States, I examine the women’s shared ideological commitments, negative experiences with health care, and barriers faced seeking care. I discovered that unassisted birth may not be a first, or even positive choice, but rather a compromise informed by ideological commitments and constrained choices. Structural barriers in the US healthcare system prevented women from having a professional birth attendant who they felt was acceptable, available, and accessible. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for debates about birth justice and health policy.

This research sheds light on behavioral change by demonstrating the transformative power of a brand on the process of eating behavioral change. The selected brand is Three Times a Day (a culinary blog whose mission is to encourage a healthier diet). This study aims to identify food-related behavioral changes as a result of consumers’ relationship with this brand and identify antecedents to such changes.

A netnography of the brand online community and 14 individual in-depth interviews were conducted.

Netnography results identify four categories of behavioral changes emerging from the relationship with the brand (e.g. choosing healthier/more varied foods, developing an interest in cooking and adopting a healthier lifestyle). Analysis of the individual interviews substantiate the role of brand attachment as a driver of positive change and identify three antecedents: brand-self connection (through past, actual and ideal self), brand exposure and satisfaction of individual needs (i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness).

Results enrich the literature on behavioral change and highlight the positive role of a brand in the context of improving eating habits. Findings extend the understanding of the consequences of attachment beyond its influence at the attitudinal level by focusing on concrete consumer behavior.

It is recognized that despite good intentions, individuals keep making poor food choices. This important issue is associated with several diseases and increasing social costs. This research explores how to influence consumers in adopting better eating habits.

This study is one of the first to examine the power of a food-related brand to enhance positive eating practices and improve diet.

Using broad definitions of sustainable and non-sustainable consumer behavior, identifying key elements of these types of consumer behavior and differentiating between spirituality and religiosity, the purpose of this study is to develop and test a research model.

A systematic literature review was conducted to identify elements of the research constructs. Literature on sustainable business practices was particularly important. Once elements were identified, measures used in previous consumer behavior research were used to collect data from 116 undergraduate students enrolled in marketing and management classes at a major university located in the southwestern USA.

Results indicate that the level of a consumer’s spirituality affects both sustainable and non-sustainable consumer behavior. In addition, the model predicts that the level of a consumer’s religiosity has no impact on non-sustainable consumer behavior, and this prediction is verified by the study results.

As it is important for businesses to conduct sustainable business practices, it may also be beneficial to consumers to practice sustainable behavior. A significant predictor of this sustainable consumer behavior is spirituality, and it is important to distinguish spirituality from religiosity.

Sustainable consumer behavior is more thoroughly described. Also, religiosity and spirituality are delineated. Finally, for the first time, the separate and distinct impact of religiosity and spirituality on sustainable and non-sustainable consumer behavior is assessed.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has impacted all economies, businesses and societies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and present a case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in terms of its relevance amidst the turmoil caused by the pandemic.

The authors use a directed content analysis approach to retrieve relevant information from news articles using Thomson Reuters’ Eikon^® and Bloomberg^® databases. Based on stakeholder theory, the authors evaluate some of the CSR initiatives undertaken by organizations around the world. The authors then undertake a systematic literature review using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses standard to provide possible implications for organizations.

The findings suggest that in response to the pandemic, corporations from both developed and developing countries have been pursuing CSR measures for stakeholder engagement. The systematic literature review signals positive outcomes that companies might expect at the organizational level. The paper concludes by suggesting research propositions that indicate effective CSR at a time of crisis like COVID-19 encourages stakeholder partnerships and helps to gain a competitive advantage.

The authors present an overview of the CSR responses taken by firms globally in response to the pandemic by way of stakeholder engagement. The authors analyze the stakeholders targeted through such initiatives and report possible implications based on the extant literature. The findings of the study can be used to understand the various transitions that happen in an unprecedented situation like COVID-19 at all levels of business and society.

“Virtuous women are seldom accosted by unwelcome sexual propositions or familiarities, obscene talk, or profane language,” proclaims Phyllis Schlafly. “Men hardly ever ask sexual favors of women from whom the certain answer is ‘no.’”