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Conceptualizing schools as learning organizations provides a potential avenue to meet the pressing challenges of school improvement in the USA. District and school leaders play an important role in creating and sustaining the conditions for a learning organization, yet little is known about how leadership responds to learning-resistant contexts in their mission to improve schools. This study aims to examine the relationship between the district and school leadership and schools as learning organizations. The focus is on the conceptualization of schools as learning organizations and the challenges involved in creating and sustaining conditions and processes in which to improve schools.

This paper uses semi-structured interviews with district and school leaders in the state of Georgia and data from completed dimensions of a learning organization questionnaire (DLOQ) study to analyze how district and school leaders conceptualize or make sense of schools as learning organizations and overcome challenges associated with creating and sustaining a learning organization in learning-resistant contexts.

The analysis find that participants perceive their school or district as a learning organization when the structure allows others to work together to learn and grow for the benefit of students.

This study is unique in that it adds to a growing number of studies that examine schools as learning organizations using the DLOQ and sheds light on the nature of learning-resistant contexts.

This article is based on a study that was commissioned by the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales. We report on the learning profiles and education needs of a cohort of young offenders who were recruited for the study. The research was a national cross‐sectional survey of 301 young offenders who were resident in custodial settings or attending youth offending teams in the community. The young people were assessed using the WASI and the WORD measures to obtain psychometric information (IQ scores and reading/reading comprehension ages). One in five (20%) young people met the ICD‐10 criteria for mental retardation (IQ<70), while problems with reading (52%) and reading comprehension (61%) were common. Verbal IQ scores were found to be significantly lower than performance IQ scores, particularly in male offenders. It is clear from these results that a large proportion of juvenile offenders have a learning disability, as characterised by an IQ<70 and significantly low reading and reading comprehension ages. The underlying aetiology of this association is less clear and may be a consequence of both an increased prevalence of neurocognitive deficits and the impact of poor schooling. There is some evidence that developmental pathways may be different for boys compared with girls.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate drinking patterns; attitudes towards alcohol consumption and alcohol‐related behaviours amongst differing groups of young adults. A further aim is to investigate whether the drinking behaviours of undergraduate populations can be considered to be representative of young adult behaviours in general.

Four groups of young adult alcohol consumers are identified. The participants in the first two groups are aged between 18 and 23, one group being undergraduates and the second non‐graduates in work. Participants in the second two groups are aged between 24 and 29, one group comprising graduates in work, the second non‐graduates in work. 120 questionnaires were completed; 30 in each sample group, with an even gender distribution. Follow up one‐to‐one interviews are carried out with representatives from each group.

Although a small study it is evident that whilst there are some similarities in behaviours between the differing sample groups significant differences in alcohol‐related behaviours dominate.

The results suggest that utilising the results of research carried out amongst student populations to inform government policies with regard to the behaviour of young adults in general is unlikely to be successful in changing drinking behaviours.

This paper produces new insights into current drinking cultures and attitudes towards drinking in differing groups of young adults. Specifically, it compares behavioural norms between graduate and non‐graduate populations challenging much current research which is based upon student samples as being representative of the young adult population as a whole.

Reports from small‐scale incidents in which decontamination was conducted suggest that a successful communication strategy is vital in order to increase public compliance with, and reduce public anxiety about, decontamination. However, it has not been possible to examine public behaviour during large scale incidents involving decontamination. The aim of the research reported here was to examine the relationship between people's positive perceptions of responding agencies’ communication strategies and relevant outcome variables, such as level of compliance and level of reassurance, in several field exercises involving mass decontamination.

Data were collected using feedback questionnaires completed by simulated casualties, which contained items relating to casualties’ perceptions of the success of responding agencies’ communication strategies, their confidence in emergency responders, and their compliance with the decontamination process. Path analysis was used to examine the relationships between variables.

Results show a significant relationship between responding agencies’ communication strategies, level of public reassurance, and level of public compliance. The relationship between responders’ communication strategies and the outcome variables was partially mediated by public confidence in responders.

Emergency responders should focus on communication with members of the public as a key element of the decontamination process, as failure to do so could result in high levels of anxiety and low levels of compliance among those who are affected.

This research highlights the importance of effective responder communication strategies. Further, findings indicate the value of examining feedback from field exercises in order to facilitate a greater understanding of public experiences of the decontamination process.

Effective communication has been recognised as an important issue for the management of incidents involving decontamination; evidence shows that failure to communicate effectively may result in increased public anxiety and non‐compliance. This paper aims to examine current provision for communicating with members of the public during decontamination, to facilitate the development of improved responder communication strategies.

To examine the current provision for communicating with members of the public, the authors reviewed open source decontamination guidance documents for responders, as well as published reports of emergency preparedness exercises involving decontamination.

The review of decontamination guidance documents showed that specific guidance for professional responders on how to communicate with the public during incidents that involve decontamination could be improved. Similarly, the review of published decontamination exercises shows that a stronger emphasis on communication with members of the public is needed, in addition to the use of exercises to evaluate the effectiveness of communication strategies.

The present research summarises existing evidence relating to how communication strategies employed by responders can shape public responses to decontamination. Analysed alongside current decontamination guidance for emergency responders, this evidence highlights potential gaps in planning for communicating with members of the public during decontamination. It is hoped that this will promote an increased understanding of the importance of communication during these types of incidents, which will in turn facilitate the development of more comprehensive responder communication strategies.

There is an assumption in emergency planning that the public will “panic” or refuse to comply in the event of mass decontamination. This assumption has serious implications for how the public will be managed. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors carried out semi-structured interviews with 13 emergency responders, six of whom had experience of incidents involving decontamination. The authors asked them, first, about their experiences of these events and, second, about their expectations for decontamination involving a large crowd. The aim was to explore the extent to which responders perceived non-compliance and anxiety as (crowd) problems during decontamination, and if so, how they felt that they could be addressed.

Responders with experience of decontamination perceived non-compliance and excessive anxiety to be rare, and suggested that orderly behaviour was more common. However, the majority of emergency responders with no experience of decontamination said they expected panic and non-compliance. They therefore emphasised the importance of “controlling”, rather than communicating with, the public.

The authors argue that “control”-based emergency management strategies can impact negatively on the relationship between the public and responders, and hence hinder effective management of an incident. It would therefore be beneficial to provide training for emergency responders on likely public behaviour during incidents involving decontamination.

This research extends previous research by facilitating a detailed understanding of emergency responders’ experiences and perceptions of managing incidents involving decontamination, and showing how these experiences and perceptions can affect the way in which such incidents are managed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution of relationship marketing (RM) in a new technology-based firm (NTBF) and to illustrate how social embeddednesss benefits can be achieved by engaging in RM in a rural resource-constrained bilingual context.

A single in-depth case study of a NTBF operating in a rural bilingual context was explored over a five-year period. As part of the case study, participant observation was carried out and interviews with the novice entrepreneur, the firm’s employees and its customers were conducted.

Developing mutually beneficial relationships with customers and key partners can enable a novice entrepreneur with no prior business ownership and limited marketing experience to accumulate and mobilise resources in order to achieve credibility and business growth. By analysing information from the NTBF’s entrepreneur, customers and other actors, the authors build theory and present propositions relating to the RM process.

This case illustrates that RM can enhance the legitimacy of an inexperienced entrepreneur, and can enable a firm to address the liabilities of newness in a rural resource-constrained context. Entrepreneurs need to focus on relevant and specialised partnership and alliance relationships that can provide strategic resources for firm development. The bilingual influence has also been shown to aid the development of new relationships and thus ensuring social embeddedness.

The theoretical contribution of this study is to integrate insights from both RM and social embeddedness theories, and illustrate the extent to which a NTBF demonstrates social embeddedness benefits relating to customer retention and accumulation of strategic resources due to RM.

This chapter investigates how food microenterprises leverage cultural representations to develop the tourism offering of a place. Food tourism is considered to provide visitors with cultural experiences of place. In a homogenized world, authentic food characteristics enable tourists to have unique food experiences according to the place. This case study considers the way in which food microenterprises in Wales and Brittany leverage characteristics of place to develop food tourism experiences. Following a mixed methods design, findings show differences in the food tourism offering of Wales and Brittany, and differing levels of awareness of each food destination. Findings also point to the need for clear food tourism strategies, to enable places to fully exploit their unique resources in the food tourism offering.