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This paper explores the practice experience and dilemmas of being a social worker in a case management role. It draws on a case study taken from actual practice to highlight how social workers' training places them in an ideal position to smoothly manage the transitions that individuals and their families face. Permission of those involved has been sought and given, although names have been changed to protect confidentiality.The paper highlights how the fact that brain injury can be a ‘hidden disability’ can mean that its effects on both survivor and carers may be understated, with a consequent inadequate allocation of service provision and support.Support for those with brain injuries often comes from more than one statutory organisation and the challenges of managing and co‐ordinating this across organisational boundaries are discussed.

The field of nonmarket strategy has expanded rapidly over the past 20 years to provide theoretical and practical guidance for managers seeking to influence policymaking. Much of this scholarship has built directly on spatial and “pivotal politics” models of lawmaking. While extremely helpful at identifying crucial targets for lobbying, these models treat all policymakers as identical in their abilities to advance legislative agenda items through various policymaking hurdles. We build upon these earlier models, but include policymakers who vary in their relative effectiveness at advancing measures through the legislative process. We identify how the implications of our model deviate from those of conventional (pivotal politics) analyses. We then present an empirical strategy for identifying effective Lawmakers in the United States Congress, and illustrate the utility of this approach for managers developing nonmarket strategies in legislative institutions, relying on the case of banking and financial services reforms between 2008 and 2011.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

In his interview as part of the project to mark the 50th anniversary of the Comparative and International Education Society, Steve Klees offered sound advice to young scholars entering the field of comparative education, “Understand our debates, understand there are no right positions in our debates, and understand your own position in our debates and engage in the debates.”

In this chapter, the author argues that in recent years those theoretical debates that are central to comparative education have been ignored, or at least played down, resulting in a lot of work that is “atheoretical.” In this context, “atheoretical” does not mean that the work is not based on theoretical assumptions but that those assumptions are not thoroughly examined. Consequently, certain positions are adopted by default, seen as “natural.” This has not only affected comparative education but also is endemic to the field of educational research more generally, where methodological debate has been simplified to a choice between quantitative or qualitative methods.

This chapter will examine the epistemological, ontological, and sociological decisions that must be the foundation of any educational research, illustrating the points with key debates in the field of comparative and international education.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Centrolac, a Nicaraguan company engaged in processing ultra-pasteurized milk, and provides abundant information for readers to decide on vertical vs horizontal integration to deal with the changing competitive environment. It has been prepared to simplify discussion and knowledge about the competitive field (where to compete); generic cost-leadership and high-perceived-value strategies (how to compete); and the action required to attain positioning (how to implement it).

The case study is based on primary research conducted in conjunction with the company, including interviews with senior management and a broad document review. Secondary research was also conducted into the relevant environmental, industry and competitor trends and characteristics.

The case study presents topics of competitive positioning and how current company strategy can have a significant impact on future growth decisions.

This case study is for use in an MBA-level business strategy course with a focus on strategic positioning and growth paths. However, it can also be used for MBA corporate strategy courses in relation to corporate expansion on issues linked to organic growth within the same business (expansion into new dairy products) or vertical integration (integration into dairy-farming).

Este estudio de caso analiza Centrolac, una empresa nicaragüense dedicada al procesamiento de leche UHT, y proporciona abundante información para que los lectores decidan entre la integración vertical y horizontal para hacer frente al cambiante entorno competitivo. Ha sido elaborado para facilitar la discusión y el conocimiento sobre el campo competitivo (¿dónde compito?); estrategias genéricas de liderazgo en costos y alto valor percibido (¿cómo compito?); y la acción necesaria para alcanzar el posicionamiento (¿cómo lo implemento?).

El estudio de caso se basa en investigación primaria realizada en conjunto con la empresa, incluyendo entrevistas con la alta dirección y una amplia revisión de los documentos. También se llevó a cabo investigación segundaria sobre las tendencias y características relevantes del entorno, industria y competencia.

El estudio de caso presenta temas de posicionamiento competitivo y cómo la estrategia actual de la empresa puede tener un impacto significativo en las futuras decisiones de crecimiento.

Este estudio de caso fue escrito para ser usado en un curso de Estrategia Empresarial a nivel de MBA con un enfoque en posicionamiento estratégico y rutas de crecimiento. Sin embargo, también puede ser utilizado para un curso de MBA en Estrategia Corporativa en relación con la expansión corporativa en temas vinculados con el crecimiento orgánico dentro del mismo negocio (expansión en nuevos productos lácteos) o la integración vertical (integración en la producción lechera).

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast wine sales in neighboring franchise law and non‐franchise law states in order to determine impact on wine price, consumer choice, consumer satisfaction, and stakeholder perception.

The study used qualitative interviews with 14 wineries, distributors, and retailers, statistical analysis of Nielsen Scantrack data, and an online survey of 401 wine consumers in Georgia and Florida, USA.

Results show statistical proof that Florida offers more wine selection and lower wine prices on matching brands than Georgia. Qualitative interviews indicate wineries, distributors, and retailers perceive differences in wine choice, price, and overall operating costs in these two states. However, there was no statistical difference between a sample of 401 consumers from Georgia and Florida when asked about their satisfaction level with wine choice and pricing within their state.

For practical purposes, the research was limited to only two US states. It would be useful to duplicate this study in other states.

Practical implications include the need for new wineries desiring to enter franchise law states to carefully research regulations and distributors before making a commitment, as well as the social issue of less wine choice and higher prices for consumers in Georgia versus Florida.

This is the first empirical study in the USA to focus on the impact of wine franchise laws on consumer choice and wine price. It yields useful information that contributes to the body of knowledge for wine and policy research.

The purpose of this paper is to address the ideological narratives which came to comprise a new welfare consensus in the USA and subsequently a welfare state which was more fiscally austere, demeaning, and coercive. It also explores the role of the political and financial restructuring which facilitated the implementation of retrogressive reforms.

Macro-level historical forces are investigated through various texts such as policy statements, journal articles, press releases, political addresses, congressional transcripts and testimony, archived papers, newspaper articles, and occasional sound bites and popular culture references pertaining to welfare and which have come to construct the common understanding of it.

The formation of this consensus was due in part to three factors: first, the growth of and increased influence of an elite policy planning network; second, welfare program administration and financing had been decentralized which allowed greater autonomy of state and local governments to implement their own retrogressive reforms; and third, there emerged an overarching discourse and paradigm for structuring policy and explaining the causes of poverty which emphasized individual behavior.

This paper focusses on the materialization of the contemporary welfare consensus during the 1980s and 1990s in terms of its ideological and political history and on its persistence which has affected the ensuing policy culture and which continues to constrain anti-poverty policy discourse as well as what can be accomplished legislatively. The paper is of value for for readers, fields, courses with work that encompasses an examination of political and social theory, ideology, social policy, power/hegemony, poverty, inequality, families, gender, race, and meaning making institutions.

Management theorists suggest that entrepreneurially oriented firms manifest higher risk levels than more conservative companies, but executives of such firms and their consultants argue that the opposite is true. The purpose of this paper is to explore this issue and examine the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and idiosyncratic risk of firms.

Content analysis is applied to the 2018 third-quarter earnings call transcripts for 992 companies to measure five factors attributed to entrepreneurially oriented firms: autonomy, competitive aggressiveness, innovation, proactiveness and risk-taking, and their relationship to firm-level idiosyncratic risk. Multivariate regression analysis is used to examine the effect of these factors on measures of idiosyncratic risk obtained from the Wharton Research database Service's Beta Suite.

Results show that firms whose executives frequently use terms related to risk-taking tend to manifest higher levels of idiosyncratic risk, but those firms whose executives stress innovation-related terms tend to have lower levels of idiosyncratic risk. The degree to which executives use words related to the three other entrepreneurial orientation factors show no associations with idiosyncratic risk.

The results might suggest to managers which of the individual components of entrepreneurial orientation, if adopted, are likely to affect firm-specific risk and in what way.

This paper is the first to attempt to bridge the gap between the management concept of entrepreneurial orientation and the financial concept of idiosyncratic risk by studying the possible relationship between the two. The research also uses the novel methodology of applying content analysis to earnings call transcripts, which is uncommon in finance research.

The purpose of this study is to use a sample of oil and gas firms and examine the relationship between environmental disclosure in the USA Form 10-K and the stock market reaction after the BP oil spill.

The study focused on three important time periods associated with the oil spill: the time period beginning with the explosion on April 20, 2010 and ending August 5, 2010, one day after BP permanently sealed the oil leak; the period beginning with the explosion on April 20 and ending with the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 22; and the period associated with President Obama’s first public comments on the oil spill and his administration’s ban on oil drilling, i.e. April 29-30 and May 3.

The results show a negative relationship between environmental disclosure and stock market reaction.

The findings of a negative association could be the result of higher disclosure by firms with more environmental risk because they indeed are riskier and/or they engage in “window dressing” to legitimize their operations and practices and maintain acceptance by society.

The results in this study run counter to a positive association documented in prior research studying the effects of environmental disasters.