Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of East African Muslim families who have a family member diagnosed with schizophrenia in the UK mental health system.

In-depth semi-structured interviews with East African Muslim participants who had a close family member diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed participants’ concerns over diagnosis, over the side effects of medication and over the lack of choice of treatment. They reported disappointment and frustration with the rejection by psychiatric services of alternative conceptualizations of mental distress incorporating religious beliefs. Participants called for more culturally sensitive service provision open to taking into account non-western conceptualizations of mental distress and its treatment.

Caution should be exercised in drawing firm conclusions from a pilot study with only four participants although generalization is not an aim of small-scale qualitative research.

The overall negative perceptions of psychiatric services in the participants’ accounts point to poor communication between services and service users and their families. If there are attempts at culturally sensitive service provision, according to this study, they are implemented elsewhere/not extensive enough/not reaching everyone – which warrants further investigation.

This study is valuable because it offers insights on how East African Muslim families living in the UK (an under-researched minority) experience the impact of living with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and contact with mental health services, within the context of a “Western” model of mental distress dramatically different from and rarely open to the conceptualization shared in their culture of origin.

The UK private finance initiative (PFI) public policy is heavily criticised. PFI contracts are highly profitable leading to incentives for PFI private-sector companies to support PFI public policy. This contested nature of PFIs requires legitimation by PFI private-sector companies, by means of impression management, in terms of the attention to and framing of PFI in PFI private-sector company annual reports. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

PFI-related annual report narratives of three UK PFI private-sector companies, over seven years and across two periods of significant change in the development of the PFI public policy, are analysed using manual content analysis.

Results suggest that PFI private-sector companies use impression management to legitimise during periods of uncertainty for PFI public policy, to alleviate concerns, to provide credibility for the policy and to legitimise the private sector’s own involvement in PFI.

While based on a sizeable database, the research is limited to the study of three PFI private-sector companies.

The portrayal of public policy in annual report narratives has not been subject to prior research. The research demonstrates how managers of PFI private-sector companies present PFI narratives in support of public policy direction that, in turn, benefits PFI private-sector companies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate accountability for farm animal welfare (FAW) in food companies. FAW is an important social issue, yet it is difficult to define and measure, meaning that it is difficult for companies to demonstrate accountability. The authors investigate a proposed solution, the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW), and how it has disrupted the informal rules or culture of the market. The research questions centre on the process of response to BBFAW and the necessary characteristics for BBFAW to play a performative role in the market.

This paper employs an analysis of published BBFAW reports (2012–2017) and case study interviews in five BBFAW firms, in order to address the research questions.

The authors present evidence of a dynamic, repetitive process, starting with recognition of the importance of FAW and BBFAW, followed by internal discussions and the commitment of resources, and changes in communication to external stakeholders. Three necessary characteristics for performativity are proposed: common language, building networks and expanding markets.

This paper reflects a socially important issue that is under-represented in the accounting literature. The results provide an insight into the use of external accounts to drive collaboratively the social change agenda. The performativity process and identified characteristics contribute to expanding this literature in the accounting domain.

Reviews a range of theories, concepts and learning approaches that are relevant to the development of professionals. Goes on to take a look at how professionals actually learn, once they are in practice. The latter is based on empirical research conducted across 20 professions. Reports on the range of experiences and events that practitioners had found particularly formative in helping them become fully competent professionals; this point often not having been reached until long after their formal professional training had ended. An attempt is made to relate the formative experiences reported to particular theoretical approaches to learning. The experiences are classified into a number of general kinds of “learning mechanism” and these are placed within a “taxonomy of informal professional learning methods”. The results of the research should be of use both to professional developers and to individual professionals. They should assist developers in their planning of placements or post‐formal training. They should help individual professionals to maximise their professional learning, by seeking out particular kinds of experience and making the most of those that come their way.

Every unexpected and sudden event (crisis) operates as a threat for an organization's reputation. British Petroleum (BP) came face to face with a crisis on 20 April 2010 when an explosion in the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig caused a huge oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico. The present case study aims to describe BP's serious communication mistakes with its stakeholders managing a serious hit to BP's reputation.

The present case study attempts to provide a detailed outline of BP's communication failures by conducting in-depth investigation of secondary data (newspapers, audiovisual material, social network sites).

BP's crisis communication was a weak link in its crisis management strategy. The lessons to learn are various, both for practitioners and researchers. Practitioners should learn from the leadership, culture and public relations (PR) mistakes made by BP and avoid them in a crisis of their organisation. They should select those strategies that foster their organization's strengths and correct its weaknesses in order to take advantage of external opportunities and counter external threats.

This study could be a valuable asset in communication literature, since BP's PR strategies during this oil spill have not been studied extensively. The communications solutions BP took during the crisis were examined and certain strategies BP should have followed in order to avoid its failed PR plan are suggested, which can help both practitioners and researchers to learn from BP's mistakes and give more attention to communication strategies, which are of critical essence to all crises.

Greatest…. largest…. highest…. best…. are some of the words that spring to mind when thinking of this year's SMART tour to Nepcon West. We have become used to smooth running SMART events, and although a number of members contributed in no small measure to the success of the tour, special mention has to be made of the effort put in by Tony Gordon to ensure a successful trip.

In the past few months in Britain, an unprecedented interest has been shown by The Government in the promotion of new opportunities for women to enter or re‐enter the labour market in the 1990‘s. This relatively sudden renewal of interest in equal opportunities derives from the anticipated reduction of labour supply of young people in the 1990’s. As Mr. John Patten, Home Office Minister colourfully argued “a demographic time bomb (is) ticking away under employers”(1). Due to a fall in the birth rate, the number of school leavers will fall by between 20% and 25% from 1991–1995(2).

From a study of graduates′ experiences after three years in the labour market, the author comments on differences between men and women in relation to occupational status and salary. Means of overcoming problems of women′s underemployment are examined (the study finds women to be at lower grades), namely through changes in the education system and initiatives for employees with families.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate about the existence and nature of a “gap” between theory and practice in management.

The putative theory/practice “gap” in management is investigated by examining the theory/practice debate in three cognate fields–economics, nursing and marketing.

The relationship between theory and practice is actively debated in all three of the fields. In economics, criticism has been directed at the implicit ontological assumptions made in formal mathematical methods employed by orthodox neoclassical economists. In nursing the debate has centred on the practical issues associated with implementing evidence based practice; in particular identifying and seeking to overcome barriers to implementation. In marketing, managers find most academic theory difficult to read and irrelevant; this may be because the goals of academics and the goals of practitioners are different.

Potentially fruitful topics for further research are identified at the pragmatic, epistemological and ontological levels.

The paper identifies lessons for the field of management research from economics, nursing and marketing. Each of these three areas provides a unique lens through which to view the research/practice “gap” in management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of earnings forecast revisions by equity analysts in predicting Canadian stock returns

The sample covers 420 Canadian firms over the period 1998-2009. It analyses investors’ reactions to 27,271 upward revisions and 32,005 downward revisions of analysts’ forecasts for Canadian quoted companies. To test whether analysts’ earnings forecast revisions affect stock return continuation, forecast revision portfolios similar to Jegadeesh and Titman (2001) are constructed. The paper analyses the returns gained from a trading strategy based on buying the strong upward revisions portfolio and short selling the strong downward revisions portfolio. It also separates the sample into upward and downward revisions.

The authors find that new information in the form of analyst forecast revisions is not impounded efficiently into stock prices. Significant returns persist for a trading strategy that buys stocks with recent upward revisions and short sells stocks with recent downward revisions. Good news is impounded into stock prices more slowly than bad news. Post-earnings forecast revisions drift is negatively related to analyst coverage. The effect is strongest for stocks with greatest number of upward revisions. The introduction of the better disclosure standards has made the Canadian stock market more efficient.

The paper adds to the limited evidence on the effect of analyst forecast revisions on the returns of Canadian stocks. It sheds light on the importance of analysts’ earnings forecast information and offers support for the investor conservatism and information diffusion hypotheses. It also shows how policy can improve market efficiency.