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Few public sector organisations or departments have escaped the attention of the Government's, sometimes justified, preoccupation with reform and increased efficiency. Inevitably the process is painful and enjoys variable degrees of success in differing settings. What is certain is that effective change will not be achieved without strong and imaginative leadership at all levels in an organisation. Because of their culture, public sector organisations often start the journey with managers in key positions who will not be able to ‘cut the mustard’, will inhibit culture change and can be an anchor on progress. Others may feel out of their depth with the demands being placed upon them and will need support and mentoring to develop their skills and gain confidence. Success will therefore only be achieved by a team effort. This paper examines the recollections and experiences of one senior manager in the transition of the Prison Service.

Accounting for locational effects in determining price is of fundamental importance. The demise of the mainstream property market has culminated in increasing appetite and investment activity within the private rental sector. The primary purpose of this paper aims to analyse the local variation and spatial heterogeneity in residential rental prices in a large urban market in the UK using various geo-statistical approaches.

Applying achieved price data derived from a leading internet-based rental agency for Belfast Northern Ireland is analysed in a number of spatially based modelling frameworks encompassing more traditional approaches such as hedonic regressive models to more complex spatial filtering methods to estimate rental values as a function of the properties implicit characteristics and spatial measures.

The principal findings show the efficacy of the geographically weighted regression (GWR) technique as it provides increased accuracy in predicting marginal price estimates relative to other spatial techniques. The results reveal complex spatial non-stationarity across the Belfast metropole emphasizing the premise of location in determining and understanding rental market performance. A key finding emanating from the research is that the high level of segmentation across localised pockets of the Belfast market, as a consequence of socio-political conflict and ethno-religious territoriality segregation, requires further analytical insight and model specification in order to understand the exogenous spatial and societal effects/implications for rental value.

This study is one of only a few investigations of spatial residential rent price variation applying the GWR methodology, spatial filtering and other spatial techniques within the confines of a UK housing market. In the context of residential rent prices, the research highlights that a soft segmentation modelling approaches are essential for understanding rental gradients in a polarised ethnocratic city.

Presents a series of articles on each of the following topics: digital strategy in the next millennium (Digital strategy – a model for the millennium; Searching for the next competitive edge; The technology link; Value web management opportunities; clash of the Titans: communications companies battle for new ground; and a guide through the maze); retailing and distribution in the digital era (The business case for electronic commerce; superdistribution spells major changes; VF Corp. sews up software operation; IBM seeks to harness digital revolution; Egghead’s bold move to a Web‐based strategy; achieving successful Internet banking; and enterprising uses for IT); and the changing shape of the aviation industry (boom times ahead for air cargo; United Airlines flies high through employee ownership; Asian practices to West at Cathay Pacific; and Ryannair strips to the bone).

Men and women are now being admitted to membership of the major UK professional accountancy bodies in approximately equal numbers. This trend has focused attention on the ways in which professional accountants combine careers and family life, particularly when women have children. Recognising the limitations inherent in the widely‐used term “work‐life balance” that polarises life and work, this paper instead seeks to consider the “work‐lifestyle choices” made by female accountants. Work‐lifestyle choices refer to the ways in which people place different emphases on the work and private spheres, according to their individual circumstances. Feminist researchers have argued that women's work‐lifestyle choices have been limited by structural constraints. Over the past decade, a newer argument, preference theory, has emerged, suggesting that women's choices owe less to inequalities in the workplace and more to the preferences of individuals, particularly, but not exclusively, women. The purpose of this paper is to explore the work‐lifestyle choices made by female members of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), in terms of both structural constraints and preferences, in order to present a more holistic understanding of the work‐lifestyle choices made by this particular group of well‐educated, middle‐class women.

The paper combines feminist theory and preference theory in the context of the results of a questionnaire survey of female members of ICAS and 14 interviews with female members of ICAS.

The responses of these accountants suggest that, while structural constraints are evident, many work‐lifestyle choices were driven by a desire to spend more time with children, and by women's perceptions of their mothering role. Most women, while recognising the opportunities forgone, were nonetheless happy with the choices that they had made.

The paper contributes to the literature by examining the voices of female accountants in order to explore how perceived gender roles impact on career decisions and work‐lifestyle choices.

DUBLIN DID NOT LACK literary talent in 1924. When Francis Stuart, his wife Iseult, and Cecil Salkeld decided to bring out a new periodical devoted to the arts, they found little difficulty collecting material. W. B. Yeats and Joseph Campbell contributed poems, Liam O'Flaherty a short story. Lennox Robinson—dramatist, director of the Abbey Theatre and secretary of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust's Irish office—was too busy to write anything specially, but offered a story written years previously in New York, ‘The Madonna of Slieve Dun’. The first issue of To‐morrow: a New Irish Monthly (price sixpence) appeared in August. Within six months the Carnegie Trust's Irish Advisory Committee was suspended and Robinson, its secretary, dismissed.

The undervaluing of care work, whether conducted informally or formally, has long been subject to debate. While much discussion, and indeed reform has centred on childcare, there is a growing need, particularly in countries with ageing populations, to examine how long-term care (LTC) work is valued. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the way in which employment policies (female labour market participation, retirement age, and precarious work) and social policies (care entitlements and benefits/leave for carers) affect both informal carers and formal care workers in a liberal welfare state with a rapidly ageing population.

Drawing the adult worker model the authors use the existing literature on ageing care and employment to examine the approach of a liberal welfare state to care work focusing on both supports for informal carers and job quality in the formal care sector.

The research suggests that employment policies advocating increased labour participation, delaying retirement and treating informal care as a form of welfare are at odds with LTC strategies which encourage informal care. Furthermore, the latter policy acts to devalue formal care roles in an economic sense and potentially discourages workers from entering the formal care sector.

To date research investigating the interplay between employment and LTC policies has focused on either informal or formal care workers. In combining both aspects, we view informal and formal care workers as complementary, interdependent agents in the care process. This underlines the need to develop social policy regarding care and employment which encompasses the needs of each group concurrently.

This study aims to investigate the customers’ behavioral intention and actual usage (AUE) of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots for hospitality and tourism in India by extending the technology adoption model (TAM) with context-specific variables.

To understand the customers’ behavioral intention and AUE of AI-powered chatbots for tourism, the mixed-method design was used whereby qualitative and quantitative techniques were combined. A total of 36 senior managers and executives from the travel agencies were interviewed and the analysis of interview data was done using NVivo 8.0 software. A total of 1,480 customers were surveyed and the partial least squares structural equation modeling technique was used for data analysis.

As per the results, the predictors of chatbot adoption intention (AIN) are perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived trust (PTR), perceived intelligence (PNT) and anthropomorphism (ANM). Technological anxiety (TXN) does not influence the chatbot AIN. Stickiness to traditional human travel agents negatively moderates the relation of AIN and AUE of chatbots in tourism and provides deeper insights into manager’s commitment to providing travel planning services using AI-based chatbots.

This research presents unique practical insights to the practitioners, managers and executives in the tourism industry, system designers and developers of AI-based chatbot technologies to understand the antecedents of chatbot adoption by travelers. TXN is a vital concern for the customers; so, designers and developers should ensure that chatbots are easily accessible, have a user-friendly interface, be more human-like and communicate in various native languages with the customers.

This study contributes theoretically by extending the TAM to provide better explanatory power with human–robot interaction context-specific constructs – PTR, PNT, ANM and TXN – to examine the customers’ chatbot AIN. This is the first step in the direction to empirically test and validate a theoretical model for chatbots’ adoption and usage, which is a disruptive technology in the hospitality and tourism sector in an emerging economy such as India.

Program budgeting and marginal analysis (PBMA) is a priority setting approach that assists decision makers with allocating resources. Previous PBMA work establishes its efficacy and indicates that contextual factors complicate priority setting, which can hamper PBMA effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to gain qualitative insight into PBMA effectiveness.

A Canadian case study of PBMA implementation. Data consist of decision-maker interviews pre (n=20), post year-1 (n=12) and post year-2 (n=9) of PBMA to examine perceptions of baseline priority setting practice vis-à-vis desired practice, and perceptions of PBMA usability and acceptability.

Fit emerged as a key theme in determining PBMA effectiveness. Fit herein refers to being of suitable quality and form to meet the intended purposes and needs of the end-users, and includes desirability, acceptability, and usability dimensions. Results confirm decision-maker desire for rational approaches like PBMA. However, most participants indicated that the timing of the exercise and the form in which PBMA was applied were not well-suited for this case study. Participant acceptance of and buy-in to PBMA changed during the study: a leadership change, limited organizational commitment, and concerns with organizational capacity were key barriers to PBMA adoption and thereby effectiveness.

These findings suggest that a potential way-forward includes adding a contextual readiness/capacity assessment stage to PBMA, recognizing organizational complexity, and considering incremental adoption of PBMA’s approach.

These insights help us to better understand and work with priority setting conditions to advance evidence-informed decision making.