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This chapter offers an experience-based report about the development of the first Scandinavian PhD program in tourism studies at Mid-Sweden University. This process is documented through a framework which, rather than having the coherence of a single clearly bounded discipline, focuses on tourism as a study area encompassing multiple disciplines. Tourism knowledge is derived through a synthesis of fact-oriented positivist methodologies and critical theory. The theoretical framework employed to develop the graduate program in tourism studies is presented by critically discussing its multidisciplinary base and briefly outlining future veins of further development.

This chapter explains the background of the book and begins with an introduction of Jafar Jafari’s tremendous contribution to tourism knowledge creation and education. This is followed by a report on the content analysis of 573 tourism education related articles published in the past 10 years. Results indicated the need for philosophical discussion about the nature of tourism education and the popularity of teaching and learning approaches as a research topic. The two main sections of this book, namely philosophical issues in tourism education and experiential/active learning in tourism education, fit into these two identified issues. A synopsis of each chapter is provided next; and future directions for tourism education research are suggested.

Prior research treated entrepreneurs’ actions as purely opportunistic and voluntary, excluding social and economic systems’ influence on entrepreneurial actions. However, the applications of communication strategies, project management and social network are anchored in socioeconomic systems in which the entrepreneurs are rooted. To address the gap, this study aims to articulate – through the prism of institutional theory – how restaurant crowdfunding (CF) success is affected by socioeconomic prosperity according to entrepreneurs’ race and geographic area.

The current study analyzed 2,008 restaurant CF projects launched in the USA through the Kickstarter platform from 2010 to 2020. By conducting one-way analysis of variance and multilevel mixed-effect logistic regression models, this study examined the relative socioeconomic prosperity and CF success according to the race of the restaurant entrepreneurs. The study also examined how socioeconomic prosperity affected CF success and how that relationship was moderated by the entrepreneurs’ level of restaurant experience.

This study finds that relative socioeconomic prosperity and CF success does differ according to race. Also in the CF context, lower socioeconomic prosperity does impede fundraising success. While the level of restaurant experience significantly increased an entrepreneur’s CF success, the impact was not so significant as to overcome the impact of socioeconomic prosperity.

Drawing on institutional theory, this study examines the impact of socioeconomic prosperity on CF project outcomes. By uncovering the significant impact of socioeconomic systems on CF success, this study fills the research gap. Previous studies have generally treated minority entrepreneurs as an aggregated form. The authors’ results extend the literature by including major ethnic groups – whites, African Americans and Asians.

The findings of the current study show restaurant entrepreneurs can raise the likelihood of CF success by doing two things: first, accumulate experience in the restaurant industry; second, use their CF websites to highlight testimonials about the value of that experience. Federal, state and local governments can institute policies to help improve racial minorities’ socioeconomic conditions and thereby promote startups’ fundraising success.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to examine unexplored institutional effect on CF outcomes. It examines how and why socioeconomic factors affect minority entrepreneurs’ funding success. It compares the prosperity and CF success of white, African American and Asian entrepreneurs.

Based on the nursing occupation within the UK and The Netherlands' health sectors, which are both highly regulated with policies to increase inclusiveness, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the interplay between employment conditions and policy measures at sectoral level, in order to identify how these both facilitate and limit employment participation for disabled workers.

The research was exploratory in character using qualitative and comparative methods within a case study approach. It draws on statistical data, document analysis, focus group discussion and interviews with key actors in the health sectors in both countries.

Whether the social or medical model predominates, their combined use encourages the employment of disabled persons in the health sector. Arguably the social model, focusing on structural changes, can be seen as more enabling. The Dutch comparison shows that encouraging a sector‐specific approach, with increased social partnership dialogue, facilitates the implementation of the social model, resulting in sectorally‐appropriate enabling measures.

This research highlights the need for a sector‐specific approach to disability policy, with development of sectoral monitoring data and evaluation of impact by the social partners.

While previous academic research focused on the aggregated (national) level only, this research investigates the interplay between training, employment, working conditions and policy measures at sectoral and occupational levels, with a view to identifying their influence on employment opportunities for persons with disabilities.

This chapter focuses on military couples and factors that affect their experiences of work, stress, and health using a life course perspective. An introduction to the definition of military couples is provided followed by a brief review of previous research on marital quality and divorce among military couples. The core of the chapter describes the advantages of using a life course perspective to examine the military life course for couples, and two critical transitions of military life are more fully examined. Specifically, periodic relocation and deployment and their impacts on military couples are reviewed in detail. Future directions for research on military couples are provided, and the use of the Convoy Model of Social Relations as an integrative approach to examine military personnel and family members’ stress and health across the military life course is introduced.

The aim of this paper was to explore commonalities between HIV/AIDS-related conditions, obesity and other disabling impairments as health-related barriers that limit opportunity and advancement in society and the workplace. Taking a number of examples from original fieldwork and European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) law, we posited that ‘disability discrimination’ under EU law remains an indefinite, imprecise and incomplete area that requires greater alignment with the social model of disability. The principle attributes of societal discrimination towards people living with HIV and obese people are that these conditions are perceived to be primarily or in some instances, solely caused by controllable factors related often to behaviours and lifestyle choices. Strong beliefs that these conditions are controllable are perceived as a justification and in some instances encouragement for the creation of stigma and discriminative behaviours that are unjust and uninformed. The structure of the paper is as follows. First, this paper postulated how and why stigma exists towards both individuals with disabilities and also obese individuals and people living with HIV; second, reviewed the legal framework on disability discrimination in both UK and EU courts that are directly relevant to the concepts of obesity and HIV-AIDS; third, presented critical thoughts as to the extent to which emerging decisions of the Court of Justice of the EU concerning obesity and HIV-AIDS accord with the social model of disability and fourth, offered an analysis of the implications of the UK and European framework and suggested possible interventions in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the implementation of talent management interventions in UK public sector organisations.

This paper draws upon the findings of a qualitative study of talent management in two UK public sector case study organisations.

Implementing talent management was found to present particular tensions for public sector managers, particularly in terms of its alignment with well‐embedded diversity and equality policies and their own perceptions of fair treatment in the workplace. Despite an acknowledgement that the sector needs to attract, develop and retain the most talented individuals to achieve its modernisation agenda, interventions which require singling out those individuals for special treatment challenges many of its established practices for recruitment and selection, employee development and career management.

Public sector organisations need to invest both time and effort into developing appropriate and relevant approaches to talent management, which take proper account of line managers' perceptions of fair treatment and established organisational approaches to diversity and equality.

Talent management is a topic of growing interest from employers concerned about their work force demographics, specific skills shortages and the retention of high potential employees but the concepts that inform talent interventions are often unclear or are an uneasy fit with the beliefs and understandings about fair treatment of those who have to implement them.

To explore the experience of a key member of the UK equalities policy‐making elite, interrogating her shift from activist to top‐ranking equalities professional. To focus attention on the under‐explored area of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender equalities work.

The interview is prefaced with a critical commentary on current UK equalities policy, contextualising the interview discussion, which links personal and collective histories and provides a comparison of equalities work over time.

Angela Mason, while top‐ranking civil servant, continues to claim the label activist. Like a variety of other equalities workers she uses multiple tactics to appeal to different constituents at different times and in different contexts.

This is an interview with one of the key protagonists in the development of UK equalities policies over the last 30 years. It is unique in its focus on the current overhaul of UK equalities policy from an “insider” and in its timing at the interim point of this reorganisation (October 2006).

This paper aims to propose a knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) model, using higher education (HE) students researching in the UK. It is focused on community engagement via charitable trusts, New Opportunities Wirksworth (NOW) & Ecclesbourne Valley Rail (EVR). The researchers designed and implemented a pilot study that explored the potential of a small, yet attractive and active, market town to diversify and regenerate using tourism. This project, which has been funded by the UK Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), has been devised to operate and monitor a KTP in the culturally important heritage market town of Wirksworth, in Derbyshire.

A systems-thinking constructivist approach is used and employs problem-based learning (PBL) through engagement of students in research and data collection. The authors identified that skills for sustainable development within the community are dependent on the reintegration of complex, inter-dependent and inter-disciplinary factors. A holistic approach to the learning and knowledge shared within the community underpins UK initiatives to promote capacity development in ways to change knowledge applications across product and service boundaries. Therefore, in addition to encouraging diversification and regeneration through tourism, this project supported the University of Derby's academic agenda to promote experiential and entrepreneurial learning in students working at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. This paper accords with the current university initiatives to meet the student employability agenda through the application of PBL and knowledge management.

The creation of outcomes and recommendations for Wirksworth's stakeholders provides sustainability through the knowledge creation and sharing processes. There are seven outcomes that chart a path to development and knowledge transfer (KT) and sharing. The authors simultaneously provided an environment for students to gain skills and a community to acquire new knowledge, and these are the outcomes and output of this project. New learning styles may support inclusive academic practice (see related samples of PBL such as Ineson and Beresford in HLST resources 2001). Implications for building a KT community through the social capital accumulated in the project are explored.

In taking PBL from the classroom to the community, the authors have created a new KT environment in which skills can be acquired and a regeneration strategy can be tested in a work-or-practice-related setting. Students recognise that they are building learning for themselves that is unique in that it cannot be recreated in a classroom setting. The authors see this project developing into a robust long-term partnership between communities and institutions with KT benefits to teaching staff in addition to students. These benefits will include new skills for PBL, working collaboratively with partners in the community to develop key skills in HE students, innovation in assessment, inclusive learning and teaching, experiential and entrepreneurial learning in practice.