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This research examined the impacts of diversified income from trading caterpillar fungus on pastoral households' livestock production and income. The specific objectives were to identify the main factors underlying participation in caterpillar fungus trade and to explore the impacts of a diversified income from trading fungus on livestock production activities and income.

Data were collected from a pastoral household survey (n = 503) in five Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures. The authors employed propensity score matching (PSM) procedures to estimate the effects of participation in trading caterpillar fungus.

Pastoral households participating in caterpillar fungus activities maintain smaller herds, sell fewer animals for profit, slaughter more livestock for family consumption and experience fewer livestock deaths compared to nonparticipants. There is also some evidence that pastoral households participating in caterpillar fungus activities have a higher annual income compared to nonparticipants.

A direct measure of grassland degradation was not included due to the data limitation. The estimated average treatment effects could differ under different observed households' characteristics.

This study fills a gap in the literature on the impacts of diversified income on livestock production activities. The authors provide a new perspective on the controversy over the extraction of caterpillar fungus. This study contributes to exploring the dual role of income diversification in addressing poverty and grassland resource degradation for Tibetan pastoral communities.

This paper aims to explore how accounting is fostering neoliberal citizenship through the participants of Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). More specifically, this paper aims to understand how accounting discourse and the management accounting technique of budgeting, when intertwined with automated administrative processes of the NDIS, are giving rise to a pastoral form of power that directs people’s behaviour toward certain ends.

Publicly available data has been crafted into an autoethnographic case study of one fictitious person’s experiences with the NDIS – Mina. Mina is an amalgam created from material submitted to the Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee on the NDIS. Mina’s experiences are then analysed through the lens of Foucault’s concept of pastoral power to explore how accounting has contributed to marketising and digitising public disability services.

Accounting rhetoric appears to be a central part of rationalising the decision to shift to individualised disability funding. Those receiving payments are treated as self-governable, financially responsible subjects and are therefore expected to have knowledge of management accounting techniques and budgeting. However, NDIS’s strong reliance on the accounting concepts of funds, budgets, cost and price is limiting people’s autonomy and subjecting them to intervention and control.

This paper addresses calls to explore the interplay between accounting and current disability policies. The analysis shows that incorporating accounting into the NDIS’s algorithms serves to conceal the underlying ideology of the programs, subtly driving behaviours towards neoliberal objectives. Further, this research extends the Foucauldian accounting literature by revealing the contribution of accounting to reinforcing the authority of digital pastors in contemporary times.

The purpose of this study results and recommendations will have a paramount significance for policymakers, policy advocates, development planners and practitioners who may be in need of such information for reconsideration, evaluation and inclusion into their respective development and humanitarian programming and operational strategies. Above all, the study result has further provided the local community with viable adaptation strategies to climate-induced changes in the study area.

This study was conducted to measure the livelihood vulnerability of Borana pastoralists to climate change and variability in southern Ethiopia. Pastoralists’ households were sampled using multistage sampling techniques. A total of 27 socio-economic and biophysical indicators were used to reflect vulnerability components: adaptive capacity, exposure and sensitivity. Principal component analysis was used to develop weights for indicators and to produce livelihood vulnerability index to classify households according to their level of vulnerability. Ordinal logistic regression was used to identify the determinants of vulnerability to climate-induced stresses.

The results showed that 24.4% of households were highly vulnerable, 60.3% were moderately vulnerable and 15.3% of households were less vulnerable to climate-induced stresses. Factor estimates of the logistic model further revealed that early warning information, bush encroachment, coping strategy, temperature, drought frequency, provision of humanitarian services and food shortage during the normal season of the year have a significant influence on vulnerability in the study area.

The study’s results and recommendations will be of great significance to policymakers, development planners, and practitioners who require such information for reconsideration, evaluation, and inclusion in their respective development and humanitarian program and operational strategies. Most importantly, the study’s findings have provided the local community with practical adaptation strategies to climate-induced changes in the study area.

The study explored pastoralist perception of climate change and variability and measured the livelihood vulnerability of pastoralists’ households to climate change and variability and finally investigated viable adaptation and coping strategies in the study area.

This chapter employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine three key policy documents related to international education in New Zealand: The International Student Wellbeing Strategy (ISW), The New Zealand’s International Education Strategy 2018–2020 (IES), and The New Zealand’s Strategic Recovery Plan (SRP) for the International Education Sector. It asks, “How are discourses of international student wellbeing deployed in New Zealand’s international education policy documents?” The findings suggest that the actual targets of wellbeing in New Zealand international education policies were less the international students than New Zealand itself. I argue that discourses of international student wellbeing are instrumentalized in policy discourses to position New Zealand as a progressive and inclusive society and feed the competitive market dynamics driving the global international education market.

This study aims to understand the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic disruptive event on delivery of the built environment degree apprentice programme in higher education in the UK and identify the key strategies to minimise the effect.

A qualitative approach was used to collect and analyse data from a sample set of built environment degree apprenticeship stakeholders. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 key stakeholders to collate emerging themes on their perceptions of the impacts of the pandemic and strategies to adopted to minimise it.

The investigation reveals that the core impacts of Covid-19 on the apprentices training programme are lack of access to the site, furlough, limited access to off the job training, limited interaction with tutors and peers, too much time on the screen, limited pastoral care and lack of contact with a mentor. The census from the research participants is that despite the development and gain with the various virtual platform used during pandemic physical meetings with their mentor remain pivotal to the built environment apprentices learning and training.

The results provide relevant stakeholders and actors supporting degree apprentices training programmes (training providers and employers, among others) with the information needed to improve the delivery of built environment degree apprenticeship training programmes during a disruptive event Covid-19. The study identifies various strategies to minimise the impact of disruptive events on the apprentices training, including technology, regular meeting with mentors online, and personal and pastoral care.

The study is the first to document the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on degree apprenticeship programs in the built environment. This study provides an in-depth understanding of how these programs have been affected and offers potential solutions to reduce or mitigate potential damage. The research will inform future policy decisions related to degree apprenticeship programs in the built environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between pastoral servant leadership and Church volunteer's perceptions of workplace spirituality, affective commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior in the context of the Catholic Church.

An online survey was administered to 200 volunteer staff in a Catholic diocese located in the Northeastern US. 123 participants responded, for a 61.5% response rate.

A significant positive relationship was found between volunteer staff perceptions of pastoral servant leadership and their workplace spirituality as well as affective commitment. No relationship was found between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behavior.

This is one of the first studies to examine servant leadership within the US Catholic Church. Findings add value to the literature on servant leadership and its importance to volunteerism, and in particular the positive benefits of servant leadership for staff volunteers in a Church environment.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the “black box” of how coaching is enacted and how it unfolds in practice. Indeed, some of the mixed results concerning the efficacy of executive coaching appear anchored to the confusion and surrounding ambiguity of the episodic and processual nature of coaching. In this conceptual paper, the authors turn to the power of metaphor to explore how executive coaches, either consciously or subconsciously, approach and enact their role.

This paper is a conceptual or theory paper with a heavy practitioner focus. The authors did augment and enhance their assertions with semi-structured interviews of coaches, a therapist, a pastor and physical trainers. Institutional review board approval was granted.

The authors identify two core metaphors that enjoy some dominance in how executive coaches make sense of their role and duties: coach-as-pastor and coach-as-therapist. Considering some of the limitations of the existing metaphors, the authors offer an alternative metaphor, coach-as-physical trainer, that may offer a more compelling, comprehensive and accurate portrayal of the executive coach.

The metaphors that coaches embrace, inarguably, impact how they perceive and enact their role. For these reasons, the authors suggest that expanding the domain of possible metaphors serves both the study and practice of executive coaching. The authors offer a new, alternative, metaphor that may change how coaches think about and execute their role.

The authors challenge two widely accepted metaphors that are often used in how coaches approach and enact their roles. They provocatively dissect these metaphors to expose limitations and inaccuracies. Given these limitations, the authors offer a new metaphor in which to view the study and practice of coaching.

This commentary discusses the broader potential of student response systems (SRS) regarding their positive impact on student mental health and wellbeing. The purpose of this paper is to draw on relevant literature to illustrate the wider social and intrapersonal benefits of SRS beyond its use as an educational tool.

Tenets of social information processing theory are used in conjunction with the literature from health, sociological and psychological disciplines to explicate the mental health benefits of SRS.

SRS can make a positive contribution students’ mental health and wellbeing, thus assisting the broader pastoral support and employability frameworks of higher education institutions.

An original perspective on the use of SRS in promoting the mental health and wellbeing of university students

The pandemic presented many new challenges is all spheres of life including faith communities. Around the globe, lockdowns took pace at various stages with varying restrictions that included the closure of places of worship which significantly affected the way people serve God and gather as a community. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the wellbeing and resilience of members of Christian faith communities in Melbourne (Australia) who had experienced one of the longest lockdowns in the world.

The authors draw on online survey N = 106 collected between November 2021 and May 2021. Participants were over the age of 18 from Catholic, Anglican, Uniting Church, Baptist and Pentecostal/Evangelical faith communities. They employ thematic analysis to analyze, and code open-ended responses from four questions in relation to the research question: In what ways has your wellbeing been impacted during the pandemic?

Melbourne experienced one of the longest lockdown periods in the world between 2020 and 2021 when blended modes of worship forced people to congregate in new and different ways. The empirical insights of participants express their views in relation to celebrating faith and hope, connecting with community, pursuing leisure activities and pursuing leisure in relation to the PERMA model of wellbeing. The findings may resonate with other faith communities in Melbourne and around the globe. They may also lead to new and innovative ways of planning and envisioning modes of worship that may be helpful in a variety of faith contexts.

The research was limited by its sample size (N = 106) and its geographical restriction of Christian faith communities in the Melbourne metropolitan area. This means that broad generalizations cannot be made. Nevertheless, the findings may resonate with other faith communities in Australian and in other parts of the world.

In highlighting the impact COVID-19 had in Australia and ways people balanced their sense of faith and wellbeing, this study raises concerns about the lack of funding that supports mental health initiatives in faith settings and the wider community. The study recommends that faith community leaders and members use informal communication channels to foster hope building wellbeing and resilience, and that pastoral care networks be established in the wider community to promote leisure activities that nurtures social connection, builds faith and resilience.

Whilst the pandemic has provided new openings for members of faith communities to engage with God, the scriptures, each other and leisure, it remains “a balancing act of keeping the faith and maintaining wellbeing”. Such a balancing act may positively enliven a sense of wellbeing and resilience as people continue to navigate the uncertainty inherent in a milieu beginning to be named as “post-Covid”.

This is an original work carried out by the authors. It raises concerns about the lack of funding that supports mental health initiatives in faith settings and the wider community. While much research, news and social media discussed the pandemic's impact on communities, there is an urgent need for ongoing research that encourages, supports and connects people to faith and to leisure activities in order to promote a continued sense of wellbeing as communities begin to transition to a “post-Covid” world. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge about the impact COVID-19 had in Australia and ways people balanced their sense of faith and wellbeing.

This paper aims to explore the intricate relationship between social capital, faith and prison-leaver resettlement, emphasising how penal voluntary sector organisations (PVSOs) aid prison-leavers in their resettlement and desistance journeys, following incarceration.

Employing a combination of narrative and thematic analysis, data was collected from 20 prison-leavers in England through semi-structured interviews. Purposive and snowball sampling was used to recruit participants from various community-based resettlement settings.

Thematic analysis revealed the emergence of faith in various iterations in facilitating desistance, Transforming Rehabilitation failure, identity transformation of the prison-leaver, the role of social capital in effective resettlement and the importance of PVSOs. In particular, the findings demonstrate the vital role of a “Faith Anchor”, defined in this paper as a trust-based relationship with an individual or spiritual entity, in facilitating desistance. This paper argues the need to recognise and fully integrate social capital building, faith and specialised support from PVSOs, as essential components of successful offender resettlement and desistance journeys.

The study considers the connection between faith, social capital and offender resettlement. Although demonstrating the role of faith in positive change and community engagement, there are limitations. Primarily, by exclusively recruiting participants through PVSOs, it might overlook varied resettlement experiences. Additionally, measuring desistance is complex and is limited by some academic views that it centres around abstinence. Although small-scale saturation was reached; generalisation should be approached with caution. Notably, post-Transforming Rehabilitation, the human cost of resettlement gaps became evident. Future research could benefit from a longitudinal lens, tracing desistance beyond initial PVSO interactions and offering richer, longitudinal insights.

Significance of “faith anchors”: A “faith anchor” aids the desistance process. Integrating faith in resettlement offers emotional support for prison leavers. Value of social capital: It is pivotal for offender resettlement. Positive social networks are key for successful reintegration. Role of PVSOs: They provide vital resettlement support. Enhanced collaboration can optimise assistance for prison leavers. Addressing current system shortcomings: Rectifying the effects of Transforming Rehabilitation ensures holistic support, catering to prison leavers’ needs. Concept of “faith exchange”: Merging faith and support offers tailored resettlement approaches, fostering effective reintegration.

The study underscores the social implications of effective offender resettlement strategies. The integration of “faith anchors” and social capital aids in the personal rehabilitation of prison leavers and also supports community cohesion. By acknowledging faith as indictive to building trust-based relationships, communities can reduce the stigma associated with former offenders, promoting inclusivity and understanding. Additionally, the essential role of PVSOs highlights the value of community-driven initiatives in supporting reintegration. A combined approach that combines faith, social capital and community support can reshape societal perspectives on desistance, encouraging a more inclusive and empathetic approach to offender reintegration.

The insights gained contribute to the evolving discourse on prison-leaver resettlement and desistance and uniquely highlight the potential of a combined approach between social capital, faith and voluntary sector support, in achieving desistance goals. The term “faith exchange” emerges from this study as an original conceptual contribution, accentuating the relationship between faith and support in resettlement and desistance.