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Goal setting is a crucial aspect of client-centered practice in occupational therapy (OT) for mental health conditions. However, it remains to be seen how goal-setting has been delivered in mental health, particularly the OT process. The purpose of this scoping review was to explore the nature and extent of goal setting delivered in mental health and informed OT practice.

The authors followed the guidelines of Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and searched three databases using key search terms: “mental disorder,” “goal setting,” and “occupational therapy” and their synonyms.

After excluding duplicate records, the authors initially screened 883 records and resulted in 20 records in total after the screening process. Most of the identified articles used goal-setting delivered by both a health professional and a client (n = 14), and focused on people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (n = 13), but three interventions were delivered by occupational therapists. Further research needs on goal-setting in mental health OT, exploring the reliability and validity of different goal-setting strategies and investigating the effectiveness of goal-setting for promoting behavior change and client engagement across various mental health conditions and settings.

The scoping review has some limitations, such as not investigating the validity and reliability of goal-setting strategies identified, and excluding conference papers and non-English articles.

This scoping review presents a mapping of how goal-setting has been delivered in mental health and informed OT practice. The findings suggest limited research in OT and highlight the need for more studies to address the evidence gap in individualized client-centered OT.

The aim of this paper is to outline the collaborative approach used to craft national learning standards for tertiary programs in the field of environment and sustainability in Australia. The field of environment and sustainability is broad and constituted by diverse stakeholders. As such, articulating a common set of learning standards presents challenges.

The authors developed and used a staged collaborative curriculum design methodology to engage more than 250 stakeholders in tertiary environmental education, including discipline scholars, students, professional associations and employers and other environmental educators. The approach was adaptive, to ensure underrepresented stakeholders’ perspectives were welcomed and recognised. The project was commissioned by the Australian Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (ACEDD) and funded by the Federal Government’s Office for Learning and Teaching.

The collaborative approach developed and used for this work facilitated an inclusive process that valued diversity of perspectives, rather than marginalise diversity in favour of a perspective representing a minimum level of agreement. This is reflected in the standards themselves, and is evidenced by participant feedback, piloting of the standards and their subsequent application at multiple universities. Achieving this required careful planning and facilitation, to ensure a democratisation of the stakeholder consultation process, and to build consensus in support of the standards. Endorsement by ACEDD formalised the standards’ status.

Collaborative curriculum design offered the opportunity to foster a shared sense of common purpose amongst diverse environmental education stakeholders. This approach to curriculum design is intensive and generative but uncommon and may be usefully adapted and applied in other contexts. The authors note one subsequent instance where the approach has been further developed and applied in transforming a generalist science program, suggesting the methodology used in this case may be applied across other contexts, albeit with appropriate adjustments: the authors offer it here in the spirit of supporting others in their own complex curriculum design challenges.

The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 was welcome globally, mainstreaming sustainability in all sectors, including education and training under Goal 4, which advocated “inclusive and equitable quality education and promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all”. However, is it realistic to attain a substantially equitable adult education policy amidst the hegemony of neoliberal regimes and utilitarian approaches? Our data, drawn from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills and the European Adult Education Survey (AES), highlight, in alignment with relevant research, that education and training opportunities are still significantly unequal, failing to reach those adults more at risk, reproducing a “Matthew” effect. Against this backdrop, the present policy brief reiterates important parameters that have emanated from relevant research, which can formulate a set of concrete measures that bear the potential to facilitate the “unreached” not simply to participate, but also to substantially benefit from adult education, mitigating social inequalities.

Today, as we hurtle towards imminent planetary destruction in the age of the Anthropocene, we believe it may be instructive to try and understand if the ancient science of spirituality can prove useful in humankind's ability to change course, even at this late hour. We argue that such a paradigm shift is critically essential for human survival and that without the inner transformation proposed by this science, it may prove impossible to build a society based on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. This chapter draws from foundational texts and authoritative sources across multiple religious traditions, based upon which it outlines a brief sketch of the ancient science of spirituality. We begin with an account of the differentia specifica of this science, where we delve into what kind of science this is. Since it is centrally concerned with inner transformation, we briefly outline the theory of change embedded in this science and the kind of rejuvenation it enables, which makes it possible for us to clearly perceive the key elements and the structure of reality. We then spell out the impact this has on the nature of human action, continually teasing out implications for policy and practice in our time. We provide a few concrete illustrations of the same. Inter alia, we also show how many of these insights can be found even within modern scientific and philosophical traditions, thereby indicating possibilities of convergence and synthesis between ancient and modern science, following thereby the guidance of genuine spirituality.

Moral transgressions committed by person-brands can negatively impact consumers through the transgression’s diagnosticity (severity, centrality and consistency). This paper aims to test how a transgression’s centrality and consistency impact important consumer perceptions and behavioral intentions toward a person-brand, holding constant the transgression in question. These outcomes are crucial for person-brands to understand how to minimize and manage the impact of a given transgression.

This paper uses three online consumer experiments to manipulate transgression diagnosticity via centrality and consistency and identifies the resulting impact on consumer-brand identification, trustworthiness and consumer digital engagement intentions through PROCESS models.

High-diagnosticity transgressions lower consumer digital engagement intentions regarding the person-brand and their endorsed products. This effect is serially mediated by consumer-brand identification, as predicted by social identity theory, and by perceived trustworthiness of the person-brand.

Person-brands should emphasize the nondiagnostic nature of any transgressions in which they are involved, including a lack of centrality and consistency with their brand, and guard against the appearance of diagnostic transgressions.

This paper shows that transgression diagnosticity impacts consumer engagement through the pathway of consumer-brand identification and trustworthiness. It also manipulates aspects of diagnosticity that can be influenced by the person-brand (centrality and consistency) while holding the transgression constant. As such, this paper extends the literature on transgressions, on person-branding strategy, and on social identity theory.

Buying firms involve suppliers early in New Product Development (NPD) projects to benefit from their capabilities. The authors investigate the joint impact on project performance improvement, of the social capital established throughout the project, and the strategic preferred buyer/supplier statuses awarded prior to the project, from the buyer's perspective.

The authors propose a conceptual model underlining the complementary contribution to project performance of social capital dimensions and of preferred partners' statuses resulting from social exchange expectations. The model is analyzed with Partial Least Squares using 80 responses of purchasers and R&D managers involved in collaborative NPD projects with suppliers.

The relational capital built during the project has a positive central role, with a direct impact on NPD project performance and mediating effects through cognitive and structural capitals. The preferred partners' statuses have strong direct impacts on performance, and mediating effects that do not completely supplant the social capital's contribution.

The implications for the efficient management of supplier involvement are twofold. First, the authors encourage strategic investments of buying firms to acquire preferred buyer's status and to support preferred supplier programs. Second, the authors alert them on the importance of establishing trust and shared cognition during the project.

This study captures NPD project performance from the social angle of buyer–supplier relationship management. It demonstrates the complementarity of relationship management at the strategic and operational levels, before and during the project unfolding.

The paper aims to explore the roles and impact of design in incubating and accelerating social enterprises. It aims to understand design’s influence on social enterprise ecosystems and in improving outcomes for social enterprises.

The study used an exploratory, qualitative approach, using case studies and interviews. The comparative case-study methodology was applied to evaluate the influence of design on the development of social enterprises in the UK and South Korea and identify critical issues in their utilisation of design. Empirical data included: in-depth case studies of design utilisation practices (UK = 6; South Korea = 15) and design applications (UK = 2; South Korea = 2) for the growth of social enterprise and its ecosystem; 27 social enterprise/design experts (UK = 17; South Korea = 10); and 22 social enterprises (UK = 12; South Korea = 10). Content and thematic analysis were used to synthesise the findings.

Findings demonstrate the differing influences of design on social enterprise, from improving products/services and business models to enhancing social enterprise ecosystem support and networks. Future directions are suggested for applying design for social enterprise growth, business stage development and systematising interactions between the social enterprise and design sectors.

The research is based on case studies from only two countries. Further, the adoption of working definitions of social enterprise in the countries may result in the research underestimating the heterogeneity of social enterprise.

The findings contribute to optimising efficient ecosystem development to improve social enterprise competitiveness and innovation.

This paper establishes a research foundation on design for social enterprise, offering theoretical and practical insights into its impact on growth.