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This paper explores absconding from a new perspective. Literature has tended to focus on the risk factors linked with absconding. This paper aims to consider desistance factors for absconding for prisoners at higher risk of absconding in open prisons.

Stage 1 used logistic regression to identify factors associated with increased risk of absconding. Stage 2 identified new receptions with increased risk and used thematic analysis to analyse interviews with prisoners that did not abscond after three months.

Stage 1 found that the total number of previous offences predicted absconding. Stage 2 found three themes linked to desistance in absconding: “support”, “ownership” and “sense of self”.

This study highlights the importance of ensuring prisoners in open prisons are offered the appropriate emotional and practical support. It also identifies the importance of hope amongst prisoners in open conditions. Future research should further explore this idea in more depth.

Previous literature has looked at absconding from a risk factor perspective. This research identifies the desistance factors associated with absconding for individuals who have been identified as high risk of absconding. Improvements in factors associated with desistance from absconding may support a reduction in absconding from open prisons.

The purpose of this paper was to understand the experience of those living with the Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyse seven interviews with Young Offenders aged 18-21 who were serving an IPP sentence. Two participants were past their tariff expiry date, two had less than a year until their tariff date and three had more than a year until their tariff date.

Several themes were found, each with their own subthemes: Injustice of the Justice System, Not Knowing, Coping, Change and Walking on Eggshells. Participants still detailed negative aspects of the sentence but within this was one, important, positive aspect, namely the inspiration the sentence gave for them to change their offending behaviour. However, this has come at a cost with participants feeling as though they have been treated unfairly, finding it difficult to cope, feeling victimised and finding it difficult to see a future.

Lapses in motivation do not necessarily reflect the risk of the person but the difficulty of the sentence. Motivation can be fostered and developed through motivational interviewing, praise and peer support IPPs should be given more credit for the way they manage themselves daily and more understanding when they struggle. IPPs could be victimised by determinate prisoners or by staff. Establishments should be aware of this and help IPPs resolve situations without feeling like they are a victim. Consideration should be given to converting IPP sentences to determinate sentences.

Previous research focused on the negative aspects of the sentence, the purpose was therefore to approach the situation with an open mind and by using a method that allows those with an IPP sentence to share their experience of the sentence. IPA allowed for exploration of the effects of the sentence on those serving it and therefore gains a further understanding of the impact of the sentence.

The purpose of this study is to assess the contributions of graduate research to social innovation and change for learning and improved transdisciplinary practice. Universities, as centers of teaching and research, face high demand from society to address urgent social and environmental challenges. Faculty and students are keen to use their research to contribute to social innovation and sustainable development. As part of the effort to increase societal impact, research approaches are evolving to be more problem-oriented, engaged and transdisciplinary. Therefore, new approaches to research evaluation are also needed to learn whether and how research contributes to social innovation, and those lessons need to be applied by universities to train and support students to do impactful research and foster an impact culture.

This paper uses a theory-based evaluation method to assess the contributions of three completed doctoral research projects. Each study documents the project’s theory of change (ToC) and uses qualitative data (document review, surveys and interviews) to test the ToC. This paper uses a transdisciplinary research (TDR) quality assessment framework (QAF) to analyze each projects’ design and implementation. This paper then draws lessons from the individual case studies and a comparative analysis of the three cases on, namely, effective research design and implementation for social transformation; and training and support for impactful research.

Each project aimed to influence government policy, organizational practice, other research and/or the students’ own professional development. All contributed to many of their intended outcomes, but with varying levels of accomplishment. Projects that were more transdisciplinary had more pronounced outcomes. Process contributions (e.g. capacity-building, relationship-building and empowerment) were as or more important than knowledge contributions. The key recommendations are for: researchers to design intentional research, with an explicit ToC; higher education institutions (HEI) to provide training and support for TDR theory and practice; and HEIs to give more attention to research evaluation.

This is the first application of both the outcome evaluation method and the TDR QAF to graduate student research projects, and one of very few such analyses of research projects. It offers a broader framework for conceptualizing and evaluating research contributions to social change processes. It is intended to stimulate new thinking about research aims, approaches and achievements.

This paper aims to take a 20‐year perspective to revisit the Alar controversy, one of the most hotly argued public issues of the late 1980s, and to explore what fresh conclusions can be drawn for modern risk and issue managers.

The paper reviews contemporary reports and analysis, along with subsequent retrospective opinions from some key participants and commentators, and examines those conclusions in the context of current communication practice.

The Alar case triggered a major reassessment of risk communication and the role of activists and the news media in amplifying issues. But even today some facts of the case remain in dispute and some of the purported lessons have been blurred by history or appear to have had little lasting impact.

Issue managers increasingly find themselves defending reputation in the face of public issues which focus on scientific uncertainty, and the Alar case provides vivid examples of both what to do and what not to do.

While most scholarship on the case discusses the implications for scientists, regulators and journalists, this paper throws fresh light on the case from the corporate perspective of the manufacturer of Alar, and the apple growers who found themselves in the eye of the storm.

The construction industry is famous for gender imbalance and reluctance in initiating change. In recent years, construction is becoming an attractive career choice for women. However, this change has been gradual. The purpose of this research was to understand the challenges women are facing in construction sector after a decade of implementation of the Equality Act 2010 in the UK and how women in the sector feel the industry could be further improved. This research investigated real-life experiences to identify where the industry needs to make viable improvements.

A qualitative research methodology was adopted. In total, 31 semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data, which was then analysed using content analysis for inference and conclusion.

This research revealed that women still experience adversity forcing them to work harder than usual to prove their belonging in construction sector. The “man’s world” culture is still widespread. However, women have seen improvements over recent years but believe more can be done from an intersectionality perspective. This is pertinent due to the Brexit and Covid-19 situation.

The study contributes to the field of equality and diversity in the construction sector. Women believe that factors such as bespoke initiatives, equal pay, flexible working hours (considering childcare and caring responsibilities), mental health and well-being support, and equality and diversity policies will enable the construction sector to create conducive environment for women now and in the future.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the informal micro-level mechanisms through which caregivers maximize their health literacy and caregiving skill-set, particularly in cases of emergent, pervasive health disorders. Specifically, I investigate how important micro-level social factors, such as lay self-education and local community networks, mitigate extensive experiences of medical uncertainty that are associated with caring for a child with autism. This study theorizes a series of processes of becoming lay health care professionals (HCP), which serve as effective health care interventions and ways to secure vital resources for patients and their families.

This study uses qualitative research methods in the form of 50 individual intensive interviews with primary caregivers of at least one child under the age of 18 with an official autism diagnosis, as well as two years of participant-observation at two primary sites that are autism parent and caregiver resource meetings, both located in Northern California.

This study first demonstrates the major institutional limits and gaps involved in health-related caregiving for children with autism. Next, I define the processes through which caregivers challenge these institutional constraints and fight for life altering resources for their families, which include becoming a lay diagnostician and expert caregiver. Here, I demonstrate a sophisticated set of health literacy skills and key local community-based ties that caregivers develop and rely on, which affords families the tools to overcome diverse institutional obstacles in health-seeking and health care access.

The families in this study are predominantly white, middle-class, and reside in California. For future research, the scope of the study could be expanded by increasing the sample size and including greater geographic and demographic diversity.

This study contributes vital, yet missing, pieces to the autism puzzle, which currently focuses on prevention, the fight for a so-called “cure,” and the role of vaccines in disorder prevalence. In the meantime, families are living with autism each day and are struggling for understanding and knowledge, and to secure adequate support services. In doing so, this study sheds light on current institutional gaps and limits in health care and delivery for children with autism, and suggests specific effective health care interventions applicable to other cases of emergent illnesses and disorders.

In the last column, I reviewed some recent nonfiction works on the dilemma of the housewife. The fictional housewife has, I feel, as much to tell us—especially about the coping mechanisms of modern women.

Purpose – Responsible investor (RI) engagement seeks to change corporate strategic priorities while balancing the financial imperative. This chapter uses an institutional theory framework to explore the tension between financial performance and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues in RI engagement.

Methodology – Discourse of the proponent, supporters and opponents of Australia’s first climate change shareholder resolution – a minority proposal, will be analyzed using framing analysis.

Findings – Framing indicated that the discourse emphasized the dominant financial performance logic while often omitting the ESG logic. One possible explanation is that the process of shareholder proposal nomination and the financial imperative of investment organizations effectively co-opted the engagement.

Research limitations – A case of responsible investment engagement is used to illustrate multiple logics in the investment field. Although there are significant limitations to drawing inferences from a single example, the discussion is relevant to RI support for engagement initiatives such as the UN Principles of Responsible Investment clearinghouse and Carbon Disclosure Project Carbon Action. This chapter argues that attempts to change corporate strategic actions on climate change by RI through engagement will be less effective while the financial performance logic provides relatively more legitimacy to investors.

Practical implications – Integrating the ESG logic with the financial logic is vulnerable to co-optation due to incommensurability. Operationalizing both logics requires establishing a boundary between ESG and financial logics to develop legitimacy.

Social implications – RI engagement on climate change has the potential to be an important part of the social response to the sustainability agenda.

Originality – In applying institutional theory to RI climate change activism this chapter presents original insights into the potential of engagement to effect change.

This paper aims to respond to increasing interest in the intersection between accounting and human rights and to explore whether access to information might itself constitute a human right. As human rights have “moral force”, establishing access to information as a human right may act as a catalyst for policy change. The paper also aims to focus on environmental information, and specifically the case of corporate water‐related disclosures.

This paper follows Griffin and Sen, who suggest that a candidate human right might be recognised when it is consistent with “founding” human rights, it is important and it may be influenced by societal action. The specific case for access to corporate water‐related information to constitute a human right is evaluated against these principles.

Access to corporate water‐related disclosures may indeed constitute a human right. Political participation is a founding human right, water is a critical subject of political debate, water‐related information is required in order for political participation and the state is in a position to facilitate provision of such information. Corporate water disclosures may not necessarily be in the form of annual sustainability reports, however, but may include reporting by government agencies via public databases and product labelling. A countervailing corporate right to privacy is considered and found to be relevant but not necessarily incompatible with heightened disclosure obligations.

This paper seeks to make both a theoretical and a practical contribution. Theoretically, the paper explores how reporting might be conceived from a rights‐based perspective and provides a method for determining which disclosures might constitute a human right. Practically, the paper may assist those calling for improved disclosure regulation by showing how such calls might be embedded within human rights discourse.