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Socially responsible firms are known to improve competitive advantage and create workplaces that protect employees and the society in the long-term. Yet, the transitionary and project-based nature of the construction industry makes it difficult to espouse socially responsible practices. This study aims to adopt a person-centric conceptualisation of social responsibility by drawing on processes of individual sensemaking to gain a deeper understanding of small-business social responsibility (SBSR).

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 people from the construction industry in Sri Lanka to develop retrospective narratives.

The findings suggest that individuals in small-business construction firms rely on intraindividual, organisational and wider societal considerations to make sense of SBSR. What drives these interviewees to be responsible is determined not so much by profitability or reputation but by their own SBSR sensemaking process.

This study examines how individuals make sense of social responsibility in transitionary project-based small businesses in the construction industry.

In 2014, the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland published its Safeguarding National Policy and Procedures (HSE, 2014). Under this policy, all agencies providing services through the social care directorate must ensure a robust culture of safeguarding is in place. Concurrent to this has been a move in social policy, practice and research to include the voice of the service user, both in terms of planning and reviewing services. (e.g. HIQA, 2012; Flanagan, 2020) This article examines whether service users with intellectual disabilities want to be involved in safeguarding plans and, if so, how that can be supported. Using focus groups service users demonstrated their knowledge of safeguarding as a concept, how they felt about the issues raised, and, crucially what they felt they would like to see happen next in addressing a safeguarding incident or concern. The focus groups took place in a large organisation providing residential services, day services, independent living supports and clinical supports. Engaging service users in planning and responding to safeguarding concerns is a fundamental principle of human rights legislation, both nationally and internationally. This study aims to highlight that it is both possible and desirable to engage fully with service users using a range of simple communication tools. For this to be implemented as routine practice in services providing support for people with intellectual disabilities, authentic leadership is required. Services will need to devote time, human resources and will need champions to get on board with the necessary culture shift.

Qualitative research examined peoples’ “lived experiences” and knowledge of safeguarding. Focus groups were used with thematic analysis highlighting common themes throughout, as guided by Braun and Clarke (2006). There were two objectives: Objective 1: measuring participant’s understanding of the safeguarding process. Objective 2: compare the potential differences between safeguarding plans devised by the participants in the focus groups, versus plans devised by trained designated officers responsible for safeguarding within the service.

Four principal themes emerged – 1. participants understanding of safeguarding; 2. restorative justice; 3. consent; and 4. high levels of emotional intelligence and compassion. Participants demonstrated that they could and did want to be involved in safeguarding planning and showed little variation in the plans compared to those completed by trained staff.

The study was completed with a small sample size in a single service in one area. It may not represent the lived experiences and knowledge of safeguarding in other services and indeed other countries. The video may have led to some priming; for instance, the Gardai in the footage being called may have resulted in the participants stating that contacting Gardai should be part of the plan. After the video was shown, there was a heightened awareness of safeguarding. This may indicate that participants are aware of safeguarding but unsure of the terminology or how to discuss it out of context.

For this to be implemented as routine practice in services providing support for people with intellectual disabilities, authentic leadership is required. Services will need to devote time and human resources and will need champions in the safeguarding arena to get on board with the shift in culture required.

While there did not appear to be many barriers to listening to participants, to progress this as a standard practice a very real shift in culture will be needed. It is important for practitioners to ask: Is the vulnerable person aware that this concern has been raised? What is known of the vulnerable person’s wishes in relation to the concern? To truly engage with service users in safeguarding plans these questions need to be more than a “tick box” exercise. This process needs to be fully embedded into a culture that promotes a person-centred, rights-based, inclusive approach as a standard rather than a one-off project. Some structural changes will be needed regarding the time given to designated officers, and what resources they can access (such as speech and language therapy). However, the real difference will be made by services operating authentic leadership that champions engagement on this scale, to fully answer the question posed by the researchers at the beginning of this report, “Whose safeguarding is it anyway?”

There appears to be little evidence of service user engagement in terms of planning and processing safeguarding responses, either in research or anecdotally.

The paper aims to understand why and how paratextual elements are included in annual reports, hence how meaning is made through the workings of language and imagery.

A comprehensive framework of analysis, combining Genette’s paratextual elements with Barthes’ rhetoric and denotation and connotation concepts, is applied to the case study of the dstgroup, a Portuguese engineering and construction group.

The study demonstrates the potential of the annual report as a communication tool between an organisation and its stakeholders. The framework of analysis evidences that the paratextual elements highlight and supplement accounting information and that the denotative and connotative meanings associated with them make visible and enhance intangible features of the organisation.

The paper extends theories from other interdisciplinary fields to accounting communication and proposes a comprehensive framework that combines the writings of Genette and Barthes. By exploring the Portuguese under-researched context, it also adds to the literature by analysing the rationales and choices of the preparers on the inclusion of paratextual elements in annual reports.

Este artículo pretende entender por qué y cómo se incluyen elementos paratextuales en los informes anuales y, cómo se construye el significado a través del funcionamiento del lenguaje y las imágenes.

Se desenvolvió un marco de análisis global, que combina los elementos paratextuales de Genette y los conceptos de retórica y denotación y connotación de Barthes. Este marco se aplicó al estudio de caso del grupo dst, un grupo portugués de ingeniería y construcción.

El estudio muestra el potential del informe anual como herramienta de comunicación entre una organización y sus grupos de interés. El marco de análisis evidencia que los elementos paratextuales resaltan y complementan la información contable y que los significados denotativos y connotativos asociados a ellos hacen visibles y realzan rasgos intangibles de la organización.

Este artículo extiende teorías de otros campos interdisciplinarios a la comunicación contable y propone un marco global que combina los escritos de Genette y Barthes. Explorando el contexto portugués, insuficientemente investigado, también se añade a la literatura mediante el análisis de las motivaciones y opciones de los preparadores de los informes anuales sobre la inclusión de elementos paratextuales.

The family is one of the foundations of society; its significance for societal redistribution in modern societies, though, remains particularly unclear. A major reason for this is that theoretical approaches to societal redistribution have not adequately included family either in social philosophy or in welfare state theory. As a consequence, also empirical analyses of differences and developments in societal redistribution have not included family or only in as far as family is affected by other redistributive principles. This paper contributes to filling this theoretical gap.

This paper theorises family as a redistributive principle. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, it identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution.

Approaches to redistribution are shaped by distinct concepts of equal or unequal exchange, the relevant actors they identify and by different understandings of the economy. These distinctions are central to understanding the position of family in societal redistribution. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, this paper identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution. Further investigations might draw on this typology and detect the theoretical foundations of its conceptualisations and its similarities to and deviations from the developed types.

This paper provides a theoretical groundwork for theoretical and empirical investigations of societal redistribution and for better comprehending its international variation. It aims to initiate a fundamental rethinking of the usual understanding of societal redistribution that widely ignores family as a redistributive principle of its own.

Narratives about racism and equity in schools have been documented in varying degrees of detail and accuracy in the news media (Farhi, 2012). Thus, race is front and center in the news reports, demonstrating how education policies are detrimental to the Island while also contending that policy drivers of Ley de Reforma Educativa de Puerto Rico (LREPR) are ignoring the racialized consequences of these neoliberal policies.

To examine the implementation of LREPR in education discourse in the media, a content analysis on texts in the Puerto Rican media was conducted. To conduct the analysis, an original dataset of texts from the four major newspapers in Puerto Rico: El Nuevo Dia, El Vocero, Primera Hora and The San Juan Daily Star (n = 119) was created.

The study shows how the collective resistance of Puerto Ricans towards LREPR suggests racialized consequences for this “post”-colonial Island as they engage in dialogues about property rights and dispute policy discourse. Data suggests the alarming effects of neoliberalism as perceived by Puerto Rican citizens, while highlighting shared concerns aligned with elements of critical race theory such as colorblindness and property rights.

This study breaks ground by identifying a new intellectual pursuit of charter schools purchasing land or buildings in marginalized communities. It argues that the news coverage demonstrates how Puerto Rican citizens have illuminated the purchase of land for charter schools, viewing it as an act of colonialism veiled as market competition and economic improvement for the Island. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

The findings from this research contribute to how critical race theory is used and conceptualized in the educational leadership field. Additionally, the study contributes to the field of research by conducting a content analysis of newspaper articles in Puerto Rico, looking through the CRT lens to illuminate systemic racism that is present in media accounts of education.

The purpose of this paper is to test a journey mapping approach as a first step to systematically prepare organizations for the many critical moments in B2B relationships.

By applying a case study of a shopping mall operator, experts on both sides of the B2B relationship (operator (n = 12) and retailer (n = 14)) were interviewed to develop and test the effectiveness of customer journey mapping. The information from these interviews was used to formulate several practical recommendations.

Using the journey mapping to differentiate, change from a touchpoint to a journey orientation, and shift towards cross-functional methods, all help develop a customer journey perspective and frame a culture that supports organizational development.

The discussion of the various benefits of journey mapping can improve organizational learning and provides practitioners with insights into effectively differentiating through a customer-centric orientation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the rostering practices and work experiences of medical scientists at four health services in the Australian public healthcare sector. There are over 16,000 medical scientists (AIHW, 2019) in Australia responsible for carrying out pathology testing to help save the lives of thousands of patients every day. However, there are systemic shortages of medical scientists largely due to erratic rostering practices and workload issues. The purpose of this paper is to integrate evidence-based human resource management (EBHRM), the LAMP model and HR analytics to enhance line manager decision-making on rostering to support the wellbeing of medical scientists.

Using a qualitative methodological approach, the authors conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with managers/directors and nine focus groups with 53 medical scientists, making a total 74 participants from four large public hospitals in Australia.

Across four health services, manual systems of rostering and management decisions do not meet the requirements of the enterprise agreement (EA) and impact negatively on the wellbeing of medical scientists in pathology services. The authors found no evidence of the systematic approach of the organisations and line managers to implement the LAMP model to understand the root causes of rostering challenges and negative impact on employees. Moreover, there was no evidence of sophisticated use of HR analytics or EBHRM to support line managers' decision-making regarding mitigation of rostering related challenges such as absenteeism and employee turnover.

The authors contribute to HRM theory by integrating EBHRM, the LAMP model (Boudreau and Ramstad, 2007) and HR analytics to inform line management decision-making. The authors advance understandings of how EBHRM incorporating the LAMP model and HR analytics can provide a systematic and robust process for line managers to make informed decisions underpinned by data.