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Research in care homes requires the co-operation of care home managers. Noting the challenges faced by the care home sector, the purpose of this paper is to consider ways in which research studies can encourage care home managers and their homes to participate in research.

The discussion is informed by two research projects which are used to explore methods of encouraging managers of care homes to participate in research. One of the studies included interviews with care home managers to understand their reasons for taking part in research.

This paper outlines and assesses three strategies for encouraging care home managers to participate in research: working in partnership, providing payment and providing personalised feedback on findings. Whereas all the strategies have the potential to encourage care home managers’ participation in research, partnership working in particular was found to be fraught with difficulties.

This paper suggests that the research projects could employ any of these strategies to encourage managers of care homes to participate in research. It also suggests that proactive measures could help ameliorate the pitfalls of partnership working.

This paper shows the advantages and disadvantages of using a combination of strategies for encouraging the participation of care home managers in research.

Looks at CaterClean, a new service from Rentokil Hygiene Division, which combines deep cleaning with rapid‐result testing. Outlines what the programme involves and concludes that this service will help operators to satisfy themselves, their customers and the enforcement authorities that they reach the required hygiene standards.

There is no universal definition of In3formation Management (IM) despite numerous discussions over the last decade about the meaning, content and use of IM in many disciplines. This is not to say, however, that a concept of IM is not developing. Indeed, three types of definitions (two of which are not dissimilar) have so far emerged from the literature: existential (the origins and elements of IM), operational (management of the information resource for strategic corporate objectives) and hybrid manager (organizational response to developments in information technology). This may cause some confusion about the nature of pure IM, but the key is to realize that its roots and possible development lie in a number of disparate but converging professional fields.

The purpose of this paper is to theoretically develop and empirically explore knowledge absorption, combination and desorption within and between organizations.

On the basis of knowledge-based view and absorptive capacity, the authors have conducted a multiple-case study to develop a theoretically grounded and empirically supported model of intra- and inter-firm knowledge cycles.

Firms identify their knowledge gaps and stocks, both tacit and explicit, undertaking efforts to fill the latter and maximize the value of the former. The paper finds that knowledge exploration, integration and exploitation both within the firm and between firms relies on absorptive, combinative and desorptive capacities. Further, as such capacities are organizationally expensive to maintain, firms will often emphasize one capacity over the other and focus either internally or externally to meet organizational goals.

While there is extensive research into absorptive capacity and some into combinative capacity, there is little empirical investigation of desorptive capacity and none into the integration of the three concepts; this paper seeks to fill that gap. Moreover, the resulting novel integrative model allows managers and researchers to identify the various capacities in use and their applications within the firm and between firms.

The vast cross‐disciplinary literature exploring work quality and job satisfaction has linked worker experiences to many individual, organizational, and social outcomes, yet this research has largely failed to shed much light on why cross‐national differences in worker satisfaction and its determinants persist over time. The purpose of this paper to: empirically test (using various bivariate descriptive procedures and comparative OLS regression) significant, cross‐national differences in job satisfaction and its determinants; and explore the reasons for these cross‐national differences, moving beyond the research of social psychologists and organizational behavior researchers, to also include import macro cross‐national factors that directly influence these differences.

In this research, the author applies and extends Handel's Post and Neo‐Fordist framework for understanding job characteristics and job satisfaction, using non‐panel longitudinal data from the International Social Survey Program (Work Orientations I, II, and III:, 1989, 1997, 2005 – survey questions on job characteristics and job quality) and various welfare state country‐contextual variables.

OLS regression results of job satisfaction by country show that for countries with relative higher levels of welfare state safety net provisions, intrinsic work characteristics provide greater overall predictability in overall perceived job satisfaction. Once more, extrinsic work characteristics generally have greater salience and predictability in overall perceived job satisfaction in countries relatively lower levels of welfare state safety net provisions. Furthermore, the results clearly show that regardless of country level of welfare state safety net provisions, intrinsic work characteristics add the most overall predictability to perceived job satisfaction of workers within the study countries. Finally, an often accepted job satisfaction model, commonly considered to be widely generalizable across a wide variety of cross‐cultural and cross‐national contexts, actually appears to have a lack of applicability across countries.

What are the key country‐level contextual and global‐macro variables driving these country differences in job characteristics and perceived worker satisfaction? Prior research could not answer this question. However, this research is the first and only empirical inquiry to look at the relationship between macro welfare state country‐contextual factors and job satisfaction. Like many work attitudes, job satisfaction is a dynamic construct that changes in response to personal and environmental conditions. Finally, monitoring job satisfaction over time and in different contexts allows one to better examine and understand the salient factors that affect job satisfaction.

Historically, Panama has always been “a place of transit.” While technically the isthmus formed part of Colombia in the nineteenth century, it was linked geopolitically to the United States soon after the California gold rush, beginning in the late 1840s. The first attempt at building a canal ended in failure in 1893 when disease and poor management forced Ferdinand de Lesseps to abandon the project. The U.S. undertaking to build the canal could only begin after Panama declared itself free and broke away from Colombia in 1903, with the support of the United States.

This paper aims to clarify the differences between students’ travel behaviours in Australia and China and the association between students’ environmental attitudes and their travel behaviours in both countries.

The paper extensively reviewed most of existing literature work on commuting patterns of higher education students with referring to different studies around the world and then used it to build a theoretical framework and conceptual model to relate the travel patterns of students to built environment, personal demographics and environmental knowledge/consideration. An online survey was used with 230 students at Mawson Lakes campus of University of South Australia and Beiyangyuan campus of Tianjin University (China). Statistical tests (i.e. mean test, one-way analysis of variance, factor analysis) were used to analyse the data.

The study reveals that a high dependence on private vehicles amongst students at the Mawson Lakes campus, whilst a more environmentally sustainable modal choice dominated at the Beiyangyuan campus. Those who studied at Mawson Lakes campus tended to have stronger involvement in environmental activities than their counterparts at Beiyangyuan campus, which presented a clear association between environmental awareness and the travel behaviours of the sampled students.

The study focussed on two respective campuses of both universities in Australia and China. Future work could be expanded with students at all campuses of two universities.

The study affirmed the value of nurturing environmental awareness for students in both universities to encourage more environmentally sustainable travel behaviours amongst students. The paper provides policy recommendations such as establishing infrastructure, and facilities for new stream of mobility included sharing bike schemes, which would be very practical due to flexibility and cost effectiveness within University campuses. The paper attempted to transfer lessons from Chinese bike friendly society to Adelaide’s car dominated campus.

This study brings remarkable contributions as comparing university students’ travel behaviours in two different nations. It is the first one in Australia, which links the environmental concerns among university students with their travel behaviours. The paper was successful in getting the gap between theory and practice filled to some extent. The paper has a capability to be used as an evidence-base work in the area of sustainability education.