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Understanding the multitude of linkages that exist between customer requirements, the characteristics of fresh produce, the functions performed by supply chains, and how these impact on relationships in chains is important if the trend towards relationship marketing in the fresh produce industry are to be better understood. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an empirical study of New Zealand fresh produce supply chains that investigates such multiple linkages.

A theoretical framework was developed for the study, where relationships were characterised as relationship connectors between parties. This framework was operationalised using two case studies of fresh produce supply chains in the South Island of New Zealand.

Relationships in the chains were characterised by very strong information exchange, relatively strong cooperative norms, strong operational linkages and specific buyer‐seller adaptations. Relationships connected in these ways facilitated the supply chain functions of procurement, quality, logistics and information. This ensured that the challenges facing these supply chain functions, the market requirements of fresh produce and product characteristics, could be managed.

Because of the method used, it is not possible to empirically generalise from the findings. The key theoretical generalisation that emerges is that relationships in fresh produce supply chains are connected in ways that will enable the challenges facing the management of the different supply chain functions to be met.

This finding uses the theory of relationship connectors to contribute to the expanding knowledge base of academics and practitioners on relationship marketing in the food industry.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that constrain marketing choices available to smallholders, limiting the chain's robustness from their perspective.

This paper draws on transaction cost economics to develop a model explaining dyadic relationships between smallholders and their buyers. The model was used to analyse a case study of the supply chain for organic fresh vegetables in Kathmandu, Nepal.

This chain is characterised mainly by relational contracting between smallholders and their buyers. There was also evidence of vertical integration by some buyers, and of growers selling on informal markets. However, there was no evidence of spot market trading or of conventional contracting. These outcomes were attributed primarily to the absence effective standards and legal systems. Despite this, the chain offered smallholders a range of dyads with different risk-reward trade-offs.

This paper is based on the findings of a case study. While the results can be generalised to theory, they cannot be generalised to other supply chains.

This study considers supply-chain performance from the perspective of smallholders. The model proposed for the study extends the traditional vertical coordination continuum to incorporate missing dyads and informal markets.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the associations between minor women’ (girls’) disability status and victimization via minor sex trafficking.

This investigation used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a large, nationally-representative sample of in-school adolescents in the USA that began in 1994. The analysis included bivariate associations between physical disability status or low cognitive ability and minor sex trafficking among female survey respondents (n = 5,430).

Girls with any disability had a higher prevalence of minor sex trafficking than their peers without disabilities. Odds of minor sex trafficking were significantly higher for those with severe physical disabilities (5.83) and for those with low cognitive abilities (4.86) compared to the odds of their peers without their respective disabilities. Results for girls with mild or moderate physical disabilities were not statistically significant compared to peers without disabilities.

These nationally-representative survey data reinforce the trends present in smaller populations and case study research: female adolescents with disabilities are at a heightened risk for sex trafficking. On both a national and global scale, the human rights gaps in policy and practice must be addressed to adequately reach, intervene and protect this vulnerable population.

Research about minor sex trafficking typically relies on small-scale surveys and/or convenience samples. This study used a nationally-representative survey to demonstrate the link between disability status and women’s experiences with minor sex trafficking.

The next 25 years is likely to see a transformation of attitudes in the UK and other Western countries. This will affect the way we view economic growth and how the benefits of it are used. There will be much greater concern about the quality of time use, and about the way our lives are divided between free time and paid work. Using the example of the UK, this article highlights the reasons why the conventional view of the future is not sustainable, and discusses the actions needed if the required transformation of the future is to be achieved.

The purpose of this paper is to explore health- and work-related outcomes of cyberbullying behaviour and the potential mediating role of social organisational climate, social support from colleagues and social support from superiors.

Altogether 3,371 respondents participated in a questionnaire study.

The results of this study indicate that social organisational climate can have a mediating role in the relationship between cyberbullying behaviour and health, well-being, work engagement and intention to quit. Contrary to earlier face-to-face bullying research, the current study showed that cyberbullying behaviour had stronger indirect than direct relationships to health, well-being, work engagement and intention to quit.

Communication through digital devices in work life is becoming more prevalent, which in turn increases the risk for cyberbullying behaviour. Organisations need therefore to develop occupational health and safety policies concerning the use of digital communication and social media in order to prevent cyberbullying behaviour and its negative consequences.

Cyberbullying behaviour among working adults is a relatively unexplored phenomenon and therefore this study makes valuable contribution to the research field.

Social science, Organizational behaviour.

The case is intended for bachelor or master level students as a part of HRM and OB curriculum and in particular organizational culture and change management topics as well as talent selection and innovation issues in the organization.

Adform, a fast-growing global ad-tech company, is well-known in the market as a workplace that nurtures creativity and innovation. Recently recognized as the Aon Employer of the Year 2016 in the Baltic States by OVC, the company strives to maintain the position and remain an attractive place to work at. However, when both the sector and the company is growing fast, it becomes a challenge to sustain corporate culture and implement shared values in daily activities. Creative and innovative employees are in high demanded in the whole ad-tech sector and competition for the best professionals is inevitable. The key issues Anna, head of HR Strategic initiatives, is facing to present are as follows: How to attract and retain the best talent in a highly competitive labour market? How to maintain corporate culture that promotes innovative thinking when the company is growing fast and the sector is developing even faster? How to manage conflicts between personal and corporate values when employees are in high demand in the market? The case is structured from three different perspectives – newly employed professional Simon, experienced Adformers Ingrid and Martin, and Human Resources department specialists Anna and Sandra – everyone has different challenges and issues to solve; however, they share common values and beliefs, which form a sound base for decision-making and prove the importance of corporate culture as a strong management tool at Adform.

Expected learning outcomes are as follows: to understand major components of corporate culture and its role in an organisation, to gain practice in assessing corporate culture and its types; to understand the role of corporate culture in attracting and retaining talented employees to help company grow and develop; and to recognize challenges a company may encounter sustaining a strong corporate culture in a fast-growing sector and to analyse means of strong culture maintenance.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS: 6: Human Resource Management.

Scholars have long argued that churches play a critical role in mobilizing communities marginal to the political process, primarily by pooling resources, disseminating information, and providing opportunities for members to develop community networks, leadership, and civic skills. However, recent research suggests that churches only serve as effective mobilizing institutions when they engage in direct political discussion and recruitment. Even so, churches may face economic, legal, and institutional barriers to entering the political sphere, and explicit political speech and action remain rare. Through an analysis of two years of ethnographic fieldwork following faith-based community organizers attempting to recruit Spanish speakers throughout a Catholic Archdiocese into a campaign for immigrant rights, this paper explores the institutional constraints on church political mobilization, and how these are overcome to mobilize one of the most politically marginal groups in the United States today: Hispanic undocumented immigrants and their allies. I argue that scholars of political engagement must look beyond the structural features of organizations to consider the effects of their institutionalized domains and practices. While churches do face institutional barriers to political mobilization, activists who specialize their recruitment strategy to match the institutional practices of the organizations they target can effectively overcome these barriers to mobilize politically alienated populations.

This paper examines the role of government procurement as a social policy mechanism within a multilateral open trading system. Government regulations globally are being transformed to foster more responsible business conduct in multinational enterprises (MNEs). Yet, concern that sustainability may present a discriminatory barrier to trade has stalled the progress of sustainable public procurement (SPP) at the international level, raising questions regarding the role and scope of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) to align taxpayer-funded contracts with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals.

With a focus on social sustainability, this paper reviews the grey and academic literature to assess the changing landscape of public procurement policy and supply chain legislation in high-income countries.

Frontrunner nations are adopting a mandatory approach to sustainable public procurement and due diligence legislation is elevating supply chain risk from reputational damage to legal liability. While technological innovation and the clean, green production of manufactured goods dominates the sustainable public procurement literature, the social aspects of sustainability poverty, inequality and human rights remain underrepresented.

The scope of this paper is limited to the examination of government procurement covered by the WTO-GPA (2012). Smaller value contracts, under the WTO-GPA thresholds and the category of defence are beyond the scope of the paper.

The paper focusses on the underserved topic of social sustainability in business-to-government (B2G) – business to government – supply chains arguing that for responsible business conduct to become a competitive advantage, it must be more meaningfully rewarded on the demand-side of all taxpayer-funded contracts in organisation for economic co-operation and development countries. The paper introduces the idea of priceless procurement as a mechanism to build system capacity in the evaluation of non-financial sustainability objectives.

To build the capacity to stimulate competition based on social and environmental policy objectives, the paper introduces the concept of priceless procurement in B2G contracts.

Using Johansson-Sköldberg et al.’s (2013) descriptions of design discourses, this study aims to analyze teacher interviews, research notes and teacher and student artifacts to determine if engagement in design practices led to changes in the teacher’s thinking.

This article presents results from a year-long study that explored how a teacher enacted design discourses to engage in curriculum learning within an elementary school makerspace. The design-based study involved a collaborative partnership where a teacher and researcher co-designed, co-enacted and co-reflected on three cycles of making featuring curriculum studies in science, mathematics and social studies.

The authors determined that engagement in all four design discourses led to transformative changes in the teacher’s thinking about herself as a teacher and her students as learners. The evidence suggests the school makerspace can serve as a liminal design space for professional learning, given that implicit in the makerspace is the embodiment of design practices such as problem finding, iteration and reflection.

Engaging in design discourses in the makerspace can lead teachers to question the frames they hold about teaching and learning. However, teachers need ongoing support in developing discipline knowledge and prioritizing the time required for designing, iterating and reflecting on learning in the makerspace.

The makerspace provides a liminal space for teachers’ professional learning in that implicit in the makerspace is the embodiment of design practices such as problem finding, iteration and reflection.

This study is unique, in that it places the importance of teacher learning in the elementary school makerspace on equal footing with student learning, thereby creating a culture of inquiry for all.