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The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between school principals’ sense of efficacy and their involvement with the Arkansas Leadership Academy's (the Academy) School Support Program (SSP).

Data were collected from participating SSP principals to explore differences in mean principal self-efficacy given varied years of participation in SSP. The Principal Self-Efficacy Survey was used to measure the construct of principal self-efficacy of 27 principals participating in the Academy's SSP for low-performing schools.

The findings suggest that principals of low-performing schools that participated in the Arkansas Leadership Academy's SSP for more years have a stronger sense of leadership efficacy than principals of low-performing schools that are just beginning the SSP. Post hoc qualitative data were collected through a focus group discussion to provide insight regarding actual practices that led to increased perceived self-efficacy as a result of participating in the SSP.

This study is highly contextualized to the principals and school systems participating in the SSP, a limited population due to conditions under which schools qualify to participate in the program.

As schools continue to be identified as needing to improve based on accountability measures, external sources of leadership development for the principals leading these schools should be considered as a possible means for increasing their senses of efficacy, and indirectly supporting the potential for improved school performance.

The attributes of highly efficacious principals – self-regulating, confident, and calm in difficult situations – may be more critical to leaders engaged in systemic change in low-performing schools where the challenges may be more complex.

There could be a strong argument that the influence of an outside support program might be one strategy to consider when addressing the improvement of low-performing schools through raising leader efficacy.

Although child development laboratory programs share a common history and a commitment to a three-part mission of teaching, research, and outreach, they vary in the ways their programs are structured. At the same time, lab schools are being confronted by new challenges that have put many of these programs at-risk for cutbacks in support and/or closure. The diversity that can be found in the structure of lab schools has made it difficult for these programs to collaborate on ways to address the challenges they face on a daily basis. The purpose of this chapter is to present findings from a national survey of lab schools, with a goal of identifying common issues and challenges being faced by programs regardless of their structure. Results are used to identify critical issues lab schools must address in order to continue playing an important role in bridging theory, research, and practice in the field of early childhood education.

A survey of 166 women exiting prison in a large mid‐western U.S. state examined the extent to which demographics, family history and relationships, institutional experiences, offence history, and physical and emotional needs were associated with re‐arrest one year after release. Analyses revealed that three independent variables and two interactional effects accounted for 40% of the variability in re‐arrest: employment in the year prior to incarceration, history of psychiatric hospitalization, participation in prison industries programs, and the interaction of prior psychiatric hospitalization with in‐prison substance abuse programming and with employment history. Interviews with 55 women over five points in time revealed important interpersonal and environmental elements for 20 women six months out who had not been arrested. Implications for program and policy development are discussed.

The current policy landscape advocates for the involvement of people with lived experience in the co-production and co-delivery of mental health services. However, evidence on how to do this safely and effectively for people with eating disorders (EDs) is lacking. The purpose of this study was to explore and synthesis the implementation of ED interventions which involved lived-experience and to evaluate the associated benefits and risks to participants.

This study will conduct a systematic review of ED interventions which involve people with lived experience of an ED. A total of seven databases and four subject-specific journals were searched using Boolean search terms.

The search yielded ten eligible studies. Involvement procedures were extracted which highlighted variation with some roles being continuous and active and others being isolated and passive. Qualitative results were extracted and thematically analysed which demonstrated many benefits from involving people with lived experience, such as normalisation of experiences, inspiration to recover and the sharing of insight, as well as some risks such as disingenuity and exposure to triggering content.

The implications of this review highlight the need for policy and guidance to minimise variation across procedures and implementation of co-production to ensure positive outcomes and benefits for participants, given the current landscape. More research in the benefits and risks for those involved in the delivery of the interventions is needed to ensure that co-production and peer support is delivered as safely and effectively as possible.

This was the first systematic review since 2016 (Fogarty et al., 2016) to assess peer-mentorship programmes in ED treatments, whilst expanding the remit to include wider definitions of peer-support and peer-mentorships such as co-production and co-design in research.

Professionals in human resources have wide managerial contacts and some skills not possessed by many managers. They also have the network to influence managers. The need is for them to take a stronger leadership role, especially by providing a new and different role model by their own behaviour. How this is developed for participants on a course for HR people is described.

The issue of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been on the rise in recent years, with concerns being raised by various stakeholders about its potential effects on education and the environment. However, little research has been done into school leaders' fundamental challenges in addressing ESD.

A qualitative, single-case study was embarked on to examine the experiences of Malaysian school leaders who actively engaged ESD in their schools. The data were collected by using semi-structured interviews among four school leaders in schools involved in Johor Sustainable Education Action Plan (JSEAP). A thematic analysis was used to understand the challenges and later drive the strategy used to overcome those challenges.

This preliminary study revealed that the principals perceived the ESD's four main challenges: encouraging positive thinking and passion, acquiring ESD knowledge, developing system thinking, and curriculum adaptation. Based on this study's findings, school leaders need to make concerted efforts to overcome these challenges, such as finding best practices, encompassing support systems, and exploring innovative partnerships to address ESD effectively in their schools.

This paper is limited to a case analysis of the selected schools and cannot be generalized to a larger population.

The results of the study may be of interest to other school leaders and educators who are concerned about ESD and its role in their schools, as well as to other academics who are interested in the topic of ESD and the challenges faced by school leaders in implementing sustainable practices.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study investigating ESD challenges in the Malaysian context. The novel finding helps the readers understand the recent phenomena of ESD implementation better and, at the same time, compare it to other settings.

This paper seeks to review and explore the relatively neglected notion of the adjustment of expatriate families to living abroad with the aim of developing a new model that can be used for future research.

The paper draws on the few studies of the topic that have been carried out, but widens the search to include evidence from the related adjustment and family stress literature to create a new model of the process. Using the ideas of stressors, strains and hassles, capabilities, and shared meanings, the paper examines the situation of the expatriate family and explores how families can adjust to life in another country.

By adopting a salutogenic approach and incorporating insights from these other literatures, the paper shows that family adaptation is a complex and many‐faceted process. It is a process that greater awareness on the part of the family and the organization can improve.

With the help of the model of family adjustment the paper points to systematic gaps in studies on expatriate families and outlines a consequent research agenda.

Awareness is a crucial element in adjustment. The paper shows that awareness by the family can alleviate problems, and that organizations employing members of the family can assist in the adjustment process for the family.

The contribution of the paper comes in its attempt to encompass what is known about expatriate family adaptation directly with a wider view of family adjustment. This provides both a practical framework for future research and some practical implications.

The purpose of this paper is to document and appraise two innovations by which nontraditional forms of collateral are being used to make smallholder crop and livestock farmers bankable in Ghana and Zimbabwe.

The setup and operations of the warehouse receipt system (WRS) in Ghana were evaluated for the extent to which the WRS was meeting crop farmers’ expectations and the WRS’s own objectives. Owners of the WRS, a certified warehouse operator in a big city, and two operators of certified community warehouses in farming communities were interviewed. Two focus group discussions with crop farmers were also held. Information about the setup and operations of the Tawanda Nyambirai Livestock Trust (TNLT) Private Limited in Zimbabwe (TNLT) and extent of serving the credit needs of livestock farmers was obtained by telephone from the managing director. Data were gathered in April 2014 and were analyzed later.

Due to low output no smallholder farmer targeted by the WRS had been issued with a tradable certified warehouse receipts to serve as collateral to potential lenders. Grain aggregators (non-farmers) have aggregated enough grains from farmers to be issued warehouse receipts. Grain farmers report substantial reduction in post-harvest losses when they lodge farm proceeds with certified community warehouses. For the TNLT, more than 140 farmers had deposited 700 cattle and had been issued with tradable certificates of deposit within one year of TNLT to obtain revolving credit from one bank. Other benefits and challenges are highlighted.

Both approaches have potential of helping to solve liquidity constraints of farmers.

The expected increase in milk price volatility after the milk quota abolition in the EU will lead to further planning uncertainty on dairy farms. Consequently, the modest supply of insurance and the hedging of milk prices through futures may increase. To shed more light on this possibility, the purpose of this paper is to calculate the additional willingness to pay (WTP) for risk-averse dairy farmers in order to cope with milk price volatility after the quota abolition.

After the European dairy quota abolition, European dairy farmers will be more dependent on the milk price of the world market. To reflect the world market, a time series of milk prices of a dairy processor from New Zealand (NZ) was used because NZ is exporting most of their dairy products under world market conditions. Based on the NZ price series, we approximated milk price volatility after the European dairy quota abolition and calculated the additional WTP of risk-averse dairy farmers in order to cope with milk price volatility.

Using a price series of NZ to approximate milk price volatility after the European dairy quota abolition and comparing it with a German milk price series before quota, the results suggest there might be increased WTP after the milk quota abolition in order to cope with milk price volatility. Following this assumption, the WTP of considerable risk-averse dairy farmers may exceed the initial transaction costs of hedging milk prices with futures on commodity exchanges. Nevertheless, a qualitative discussion of the results shows costs of education, basis risk, and the small size of farms could still keep dairy farmers from hedging the milk price.

In calculating the additional WTP for risk-averse dairy farmers to cope with milk price volatility, this is the first study to attempt to illustrate the expected influence of increasing milk price volatility at the dairy farm level after the dairy quota abolition in the EU. The additional WTP gives further insights into the need for and acceptance of insurance after the dairy quota abolition at the dairy farm level.

The purpose of this paper is to study support factors influencing the entrepreneur's use of external assistance programs and explain why some entrepreneurs obtain support from these programs while others do not. The proposed framework suggests that outside assistance programs are a support option of last resort that entrepreneurs utilize only when the start‐up team and personal network are incapable of providing support.

Data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics I are used to perform logistic regression of use of assistance programs on the entrepreneur's human capital and characteristics of the start‐up team and personal network.

A total of 26 percent of entrepreneurs in the sample made contact with assistance programs. Regression results suggest that entrepreneurs who are more educated and experienced, rely extensively on the start‐up team, have a less experienced start‐up team, and have larger personal networks are more likely to use assistance programs.

This study informs policy and support practices about the different factors that drive entrepreneurs to use assistance programs provided by public agencies, professional organizations, and educational institutions.

This research fills the gap in existing research of entrepreneurial assistance programs by studying both entrepreneurs who do and do not obtain support, thus addressing the selection bias problem.