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Brand awareness is a pivotal, but often neglected, aspect of consumer-based brand equity. This paper revisits brand awareness measures in the context of global brand management.

Drawing on the method of Laurent et al. (1995), this cross-sectional longitudinal study examines changes in brand awareness over time, with sample sizes of approximately 300 whisky consumers per wave in three countries: United Kingdom, Taiwan and Greece.

There is consistency in the underlying structure of awareness scores across countries, and over time, extending the work of Laurent et al. (1995). Results show that a relevant operationalisation of brand awareness needs to account for the history of the brand. Furthermore, the nature of the variation of brand awareness over time interacts with a brand’s market share.

When modelling the impact of brand awareness researchers need to consider two factors – the brand’s market share and whether a more stable or volatile measure is sought. This avoids mis-specifying the country-level contribution of brand awareness.

Global brand managers should be wary of adopting a “one size fits all” approach. The choice of brand awareness measure depends on the brand’s market share, and the desire for higher sensitivity or stability.

The paper provides one of the few multi-country investigations into brand awareness that can help inform global brand management.

In intervening to prevent recidivism by adult firesetters, there is a dearth of standardised interventions and relatedly of controlled outcome evaluations. Although education is a common firesetter intervention, it is unclear if this changes behaviour of adults; a research situation the current study aimed to address.

The rate of actual fire recidivism of participants of a standardised educational programme was compared using Cooke’s (1989) equation to expected rates based on the firesetting history of 93 referrals.

Results indicated a significant large effect for the difference between the frequencies of expected and actual firesetting re-offences.

Limitations of the one-group pretest–posttest design are discussed with respect to potential confounds.

This paper adds to the literature on adult firesetter interventions and lends support to the use of fire education to prevent fire recidivism. It provides the first empirically validated example of a structured education programme for adult firesetters. Of interest to services piloting new intervention programmes, it reports an operationally efficient methodology for preliminary evaluation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first reported outcome study of a fire safety education programme for adults. The methodology adopted represents a means of preliminary evaluation in safety-critical areas where traditional evaluation designs are infeasible.

In April 2020, it was announced that NHSX, a unit of the UK National Health Service (NHS) responsible for digital innovation, was developing a contact tracing app that would offer a digital solution to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the urgency with which the app was developed, a clear commitment was made to designing the technology in a way that enshrined key ethical principles, and an ethics advisory board (EAB) was established to provide timely advice, guidance and recommendations on associated ethical issues. Alongside this, there were extensive criticisms of how NHSX adhered to ethical principles in the handling of the app development-criticisms that require empirical exploration. This paper explores how ethics was incorporated into decision-making during governance processes associated with the development of app.

Interviews were conducted with those involved in the app's development/governance, those with a consulting role associated with the app, or those who sat on the EAB.

The EAB fulfilled an important role by introducing ethical considerations to app developers. Though at times, it was difficult to accommodate key ethics principles into governance processes, which sometimes suffered from little accountability.

While several articles have provided overviews of ethical issues, or explored public perceptions towards contact tracing apps, to the best the authors, knowledge this is the first empirical piece analysing ethics governance issues via stakeholder interviews.

Purpose: The goal of Volume 21 of Advances in Medical Sociology, entitled Sexual and Gender Minority Health, is to showcase recent developments and areas for future research related to the health, well-being, and healthcare experiences of LGBTQA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Queer, Asexual, and related communities that do not identify as heterosexual) persons and communities.

Approach: In this introduction to the volume, we trace the historical development of research on sexual and gender minority (SGM) health, discussing how priorities, theories, and evidence have evolved over time. We conclude with brief suggestions for future research and an overview of the articles presented in this volume.

Findings: Research on SGM health has flourished in the past two decades. This trend has occurred in conjunction with a period of intense social, political, and legal discourse about the civil rights of SGM persons, which has increased understanding and recognition of SGM experiences. However, recent advances have often been met with resistance and backlash rooted in enduring social stigma and long histories of discrimination and prejudice that reinforce and maintain health disparities faced by SGM populations.

Value: Our review highlights the need for additional research to understand minority stress processes, risk factors, and resiliency, particularly for those at the intersection of SGM and racial/ethnic or socioeconomic marginality.

Recent decades have witnessed great interest in Leon Trotsky’s idea of uneven and combined development (UCD) by Marxist scholars of International Relations (IR). A burgeoning literature has argued that one interpretation, Justin Rosenberg’s U&CD, resolves the question of ‘the international’ by offering a single, non-Realist theory capable of uniting both sociological and geopolitical factors in the explanation of social change across history. Evaluating this claim, this paper argues that the transhistorical ways in which U&CD has been developed reproduce, reaffirm and reinforce some of the more important shortcomings of Realist IR. I develop my argument through an internal critique of Rosenberg’s conception of U&CD, which, I argue, is illustrative of larger shortcomings within the literature. I conclude that the political and geopolitical economy of UCD and their dynamics must be grasped through the specific social and historical relations in which they are immersed.

The new sub‐department of the Local Government Board, recently created for the purpose of dealing with problems relating to the food supply as regards character and quality, is one apparently whose energies will, in the first place, bo chiefly directed to the institution of some control over the purity of the milk supply of the country. This National Pood Bureau appears to be primarily the outcome of the appeals that have been made from time to time to the authorities to exercise the powers invested in certain Government departments more stringently. Presumably attention will not be limited to the milk supply, important though that be, but in the near future various questions relating to cattle in general will bo dealt with. The two subjects of milk and meat are too closely allied to permit of each one being treated separately or without reference to the other. At the same time, if these closely related questions of milk and meat are to be adequately dealt with it is impossible to leave out of sight the subject of the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of the imported meat that comes in such immense quantities into this country from abroad. At the present time the bulk of the meat so imported reaches this country from the United States, and in increasingly large quantities from South America. The justifiable outcry that was raised some years ago regarding the American meat packing scandals has, it would seem, quite died down; but unfortunately we have the strongest evidence that the temporary falling off in the trade in imported preserved meat between this country and the United States, which followed upon the agitation, has had but little salutary effect, and that the quality of the meat sent to this country from the United States still leaves much to be desired.

Purpose: This paper presents an exploratory analysis of minority stress and resiliency processes among parents in LGBTQ families. The paper examines two unique minority stress processes – (1) parents experiencing sexual and/or gender minority stress due to the stigmatization of their own identities as individuals and (2) parents sharing the gender minority stress faced by their transgender and gender expansive (TGE) child, and in the context of their parent–child relationship.

Methodology: Between 2017 and 2018 in-depth, in-person qualitative interviews on the topics of gender, stress, and resilience were conducted with 12 parents in LGBTQ families. Audio recordings were transcribed and then open coded using ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software. Analyses of data were informed by critical intersectional theories that locate gender and sexuality within structures of social and racial oppression.

Findings: Interview data indicate that minority stress is experienced by parents experiencing sexual and/or gender minority stress due to the stigmatization of their own identities, as well as among parents sharing the gender minority stress faced by their TGE child in the context of their parent–child relationship. Parents described community resilience and minority coping through interpersonal, community, and institutional support. This paper provides evidence that sexual and gender minority stressors are enhanced and resiliency factors are reduced among those experiencing racism and economic disadvantage.

Research limitations: This is an exploratory study conducted with a small sample of parents in a specific geographic area.

Originality/Value: These data provide initial evidence to support further analyses of the dyadic minority stressors within parent–child relationships in LGBTQ families

This paper aims to assess the design of national-level flexible work arrangement (FWA) policies, evaluating their potential to serve as an effective resource for employees to work flexibly depending on how they set the stage for flexibility claims that will be subject to industrial and workplace dynamics.

Using a capability approach, the authors conceptualize and operationalize two aspects of FWA policy design, namely accessibility and availability. The authors' analysis allows for an understanding of how the availability and accessibility of national FWA policies explicitly and implicitly restrict or facilitate flexible working in a structural manner. The study focuses on countries with differing working time regimes and gender norms on work and care: the Netherlands, Spain and Slovenia.

The authors' findings highlight how FWA accessibility is broader when national policy is specified and FWA availability is not conditional to care. In Spain and Slovenia, access to FWAs depends on whether employees have care responsibilities, which reduces accessibility and reinforces gender imbalances in care provision. In contrast, the Netherlands provides FWAs universally, resulting in wider availability and accessibility of FWAs for employees regardless of their care responsibilities. Despite this universal provision, gender imbalances remain.

The originality of this paper lies in its conceptualization and operationalization of FWAs at the national level using a capability approach. The study adds to the existing literature on flexible working and provides insights for policymakers to design more effective FWAs.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the theme of managing operations and supply chains in the so-called “new normal”. It reflects the themes emerging from recent research and how these might be conceptualized.

The article reviews research presented at the EurOMA 2021 conference and eight papers subsequently developed into full journal papers. It considers conceptual themes contained in these papers and how they reflect recent turbulent events in the external business environment.

The article notes the themes of resilience in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic, environmental sustainability, especially climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals, and the significance of digital technologies. Additional themes relating to inter-organizational relationships, complexity and manager cognition are also considered. In order to provide useful insights for future disruptions, general concepts on epistemology and responsiveness are described.

The article discusses general principles across cutting-edge research in operations and supply chain management, to support improved performance to add economic and social value.