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The main aim of this study is to ascertain the progress in implementing the actions contained within the BME Housing Action Plan for Wales, by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) and social landlords in Wales.

The research was carried out between December 2004 and May 2005. This paper discusses some of the main findings from the systematic review of BME housing strategies and action plans covering 22 local authorities and 32 housing associations in Wales.

It was clear from all aspects of the research that the WAG's BME Housing Action Plan for Wales is having a positive impact on the profile and awareness of BME housing issues in Wales. However, the degree and extent of progress varied throughout Wales.

BME housing issues have a high profile in the social housing sector in Wales. It is important that this positive profile is maintained and does not lose momentum due to increasing and competing priorities.

Currently, the lack of incentives for compliance (and penalties for non‐compliance) presents a potential disincentive to the long‐term sustainability of the present enthusiasm and momentum on BME housing issues in Wales.

This research is the first to evaluate the progress made by social landlords in implementing the WAG's BME Housing Action Plan for Wales.

The UK Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places a statutory duty on all public authorities to promote race equality throughout all their functions. The purpose of this paper is to discuss steps being taken by social landlords in Wales and contractors and consultants to promote race equality within the construction procurement process.

The principle methods of data collection were focus groups with social landlords and postal questionnaires and semi structured telephone interviews with construction contractors and consultants.

Little action is being taken by social landlords in Wales to promote race equality within the construction procurement process. Furthermore, construction contractors and consultants that undertake work on behalf of social landlords are doing little to ensure race equality within their own organisations.

A relatively small sample of construction contractors and consultants took part in the research.

In order to meet their obligations under current legislation social landlords need to ensure that they promote race equality within the procurement process. Construction companies including maintenance and minor works contractors that aspire to be engaged by social landlords will need to demonstrate that they are committed to race equality and its implementation and have the appropriate policies and procedures in place to ensure this.

This research is the first to evaluate the procurement practices of social landlords in Wales and how these practices may impact on race equality within the procurement process. The research also examined the steps being taken to promote equality by construction contractors and consultants operating within the social housing sector in Wales.

The intention of this paper is to present an overview of the literature published on the subject of “culture”. The limitations of this brief paper preclude any comprehensive coverage of the vast amount of material published in this field. “Culture” has become a pluralistic concept and the interpretations, definitions and applications of “culture” are multifarious. The development and use of this evolving subject are discussed under three headings: historical and sociological cultural perspectives; organisational and corporate culture perspectives; and construction industry culture perspectives.

The purpose of this study was to utilise a lived experience (LE) informed/co-designed approach to explore the service-user experience of using the reasons for use package (RFUP) within a youth residential rehabilitation mental health setting.

LE researchers (those who have lived through mental illness or distress), Master of social work students, a community of mental health service manager, community of mental health researchers, dual diagnosis service researchers and university-based researchers collaborated on the project. The study used an exploratory, qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews to invite young people's experiences of the resource. The research team conducted a collaborative thematic analysis drawing on the range of perspectives.

Through five interviews with young people, key themes identified included: client factors and extra-therapeutic events, relationship factors, technique/model factors/delivery and outcomes/things noticed.

The RFUP was a useful clinical tool with the young people in this pilot as it improved awareness of reasons for drug use and impact on mental health, service user to staff relationship, quality of the resource, mode of delivery and participant self-knowledge.

Young people valued the supportive role that the RFUP played in facilitating positive relationships with their workers.

Recent studies have examined tax policy issues using labour supply models characterised by a discretised budget set. Microsimulation modelling using a discrete hours approach is probabilistic. This makes analysis of the distribution of income difficult as even for a small sample with a modest range of labour supply points the range of possible labour supply combinations over the sample is extremely large. This paper proposes a method of approximating measures of income distribution and compares the performance of this method to alternative approaches in a microsimulation context. In this approach a pseudo income distribution is constructed, which uses the probability of a particular labour supply value occurring (standardised by the population size) to refer to a particular position in the pseudo income distribution. This approach is compared to using an expected income level for each individual and to a simulated approach, in which labour supply values are drawn from each individual’s hours distribution and summary statistics of the distribution of income are calculated by taking the average over each set of draws. The paper shows that the outcomes of various distributional measures using the pseudo method converge quickly to their true values as the sample size increases. The expected income approach results in a less accurate approximation. To illustrate the method, we simulate the distributional implications of a tax reform using the Melbourne Institute Tax and Transfer Simulator.

In this chapter we investigate the role of family-specific factors in facilitating or constraining business exit in family firms. Family business literature seems to have an implicit bias toward continuity and persistence in the founder's business. This is explained by heavy emotional involvement and development of path-dependent core competences over generations. However, several long-lived family firms were able to successfully exit the founder's business. Exit allowed them to free significant strategic resources, which were later reinvested in exploiting novel entrepreneurial opportunities. Our aim is to investigate the process of exit from the founder's business in family firms, to explain both triggers and obstacles to decommitment and de-escalation. We address this issue through the study of the Italian Falck Group's exit from the steel industry in the 1990s, followed by successful startup of a renewable energy business. By carefully triangulating different data sources and different voices within and outside the controlling family, we develop a framework describing family-specific facilitators and inhibitors of business exit, and subsequent startup of a new business. Three types of family-specific factors emerge as relevant in shaping a family firm's likelihood and speed of exit from a failing business: family-related psychological triggers and obstacles to business exit; family-specific components of the structural de-escalation context; family responses to ensuing de-escalation and exit needs. The emerging framework offers a more nuanced interpretation of decommitment activities in family firms, pointing to the differential role family-specific factors may play as facilitators or inhibitors of business exit. We also suggest how these family-specific results may contribute to a deeper understanding of exit in nonfamily firms. Our results also have practical implications for family business entrepreneurial management. Actively managing the different determinants of exit choices that emerged from our study will set the stage for de-escalation from a failing course of action – a dynamic capability all family firms should learn and practice if they intend to transfer their entrepreneurial orientation to next generations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the existence and influence of gender effects on wine choice, specifically whether women and men seek the same cues in wine labelling.

Five focus groups, involving 45 regular wine consumers (22 women and 23 men) from four Portuguese wine regions of origin, were conducted. Sessions included two projective techniques. To gather more information, participants were asked to fill a short questionnaire, relating purchasing and consumption habits, knowledge and socioeconomic characteristics. Qualitative data were transcribed verbatim and content analysis was used.

Women frequently associate wine to the context of consumption; while men frequently associate wine to convivial and sensorial pleasure. Region of origin and prior knowledge experience seem to be the two main reasons for men to choose a wine; while, women seem to rely more on wine brand and previous experience. Front label information (region of origin, awards and region illustration) seems to be more important for women, while the back label descriptors (grape variety, world heritage site and wine history) are more relevant for men. The typography (font size) and information type were identified as negative aspects of the back label.

Understanding how men and women looking for information on a wine bottle can help marketers communicate with specific market segments. This paper provides insights to design marketing campaigns regarding product customization at the level of label information and design.

The present research contributes to current literature on wine consumer behaviour, exploring behavioural differences, perceptions and motivations by gender. In particular, the relevance of wine cues for choice decision is explored. The evidence of focus groups combined with projective techniques is complemented with data collected through a questionnaire.