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A growing body of literature provides evidence for the efficacy of workplace health promotion (WHP). However, little is known about effective dissemination strategies for WHP interventions. The purpose of this paper is to describe how a WHP agency in Zurich, Switzerland, used bulk mailings, information events, telephone marketing and free initial consultations for the large-scale geographic marketing of WHP services, with a focus on tobacco prevention (TP).

To analyze the number of companies responding positively to solicitation, examine the predictors of positive responses and explore the reasons for negative responses, the authors used both quantitative (e.g. a standardized questionnaire) and qualitative (telephone interviews) methods.

The results show that except for telephone marketing (69 percent), the success rates of dissemination activities were very low (3-9 percent). Predictors for a positive response were institutionalization of WHP, the representative’s personal concern about TP, and problems with environmental tobacco smoke within the company. The most prominent reason for a negative response was that the companies had already implemented TP measures by themselves and needed no further external support.

It is suggested that TP was the wrong emphasis for a WHP program to be disseminated at that particular time, because a law on protection from passive smoking was introduced in Switzerland shortly afterwards.

The study examines dissemination strategies under real-life consulting conditions. It builds on on a large sample of companies and uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods. It reports specific numbers and success rates of marketing activities and thereby contributes to the knowledge about an important issue for intervention planning in the field of WHP.

This paper introduces the special issue’s six articles with different approaches to investigating gender perspectives on enterprising communities. The papers’ approaches are presented and discussed, and the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how they relate to the two main concepts of gender and enterprising communities.

This paper is conceptual.

Through the discussion of the articles, the concept of enterprising communities is found to be fuzzy and to contain a multitude of meanings. This paper elaborates on the community concept and its spatial and “of practice” dimensions.

First, the paper contributes by suggesting how the enterprising community concept could be delimited. Second, the research article contributes to gender perspectives on enterprising communities. It elaborates on what gendered enterprising communities are and how gender might influence enterprising communities.

This chapter is partially based on an unpublished Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) background report, titled ‘OECD Research Project on Diversity in the Workplace: Country Report Germany’, which was written by the authors of this chapter. While the OECD country report illustrates how diversity policies and related diversity instruments targeting various diversity dimensions have developed in Germany over recent decades, this chapter focuses solely on the management of ethnic diversity and its related policies. Diversity policies are broadly understood as any policy that seeks to increase the representation of disadvantaged social groups such as migrants and ethnic minorities, women, disabled persons, older workers and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, intersex and queer/questioning (LGBTIQ) in the workplace, both in the public and in the private sector. The central idea of this chapter is to provide an overview of which policies and instruments have been implemented for migrants and ethnic minorities at the workplace and to evaluate their success or failure where possible. In doing so, this chapter also discusses obstacles, success factors and challenges for policy implementation for the past and for the future.

Bryan Adkins is the president of Denison Consulting. His primary expertise is in the area of organizational culture and leadership. He is an experienced consultant and coach working with leaders and teams as they guide their organizations through transitions. Bryan has led a number of large-scale culture change projects and provides consulting services designed to leverage the data collected through the use of the Denison model and associated diagnostics. Bryan holds a master's degree in business from Penn State University and his doctorate in human and organizational studies from The George Washington University.

This paper is a brief historical examination of brand, organisation identity and reputation in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). The discussion is situated within the context of the challenges that the global knowledge‐based business environment poses to organisations of differing sizes.

The authors' approach is discursive. The argument is supported by findings from published studies and empirical reality. The authors analyse and distill our thoughts (and the empirical findings) in a way that is relevant to the activities of entrepreneurs and SMEs.

Organisations are better able to create strong firm by integrating branding, reputation building, relevant and appropriate organisational identity beyond their visual façade. They need to be more proactive, and also have to express and embed their brand value propositions within their identity and reputation in their dealings with customers. The authors surmises that researching about (and evaluations of) brand, reputation and organisation identity need to play more active roles in offering novel ways of conceptualising and documenting the realities of the contemporary (global) business environment in which firms operates.

The study offers new horizons on brand, organization identity and reputation as they relate to economic reality. The authors unequivocal articulation is that these concepts are critical factors in the success of enterprises and small businesses in competitive markets.

An optimal temperature monitoring is a prerequisite for cold chain management and thus for the production and supply of high quality and safe products as well as for the reduction of waste and economic losses. The aim of this paper is to identify and compare already existing temperature monitoring solutions in operation and novel temperature monitoring solutions with a view to their use for optimal temperature monitoring in meat supply chains. A special focus is placed on the identification and specification of challenges by the implementation of temperature monitoring systems which allow an optimal control of the temperature conditions in meat supply chains, as required by the new European food law.

The paper is a literature review of existing and novel temperature monitoring systems and challenges faced by the practical implementation of monitoring systems which allow continuous control of the temperature conditions in meat supply chains. First, the relevant literature relating to these aspects was examined and second, expert knowledge was applied with system developers of temperature monitoring and information management systems, participants in the meat supply chains and researchers

In the article different intra‐ as well as inter‐organisational challenges relating to the practical implementation of optimal temperature monitoring solutions have been identified and described.

The paper provides a holistic perspective of temperature monitoring solutions in meat supply chains. The challenges met when implementing temperature monitoring solutions have not been widely discussed in the literature. The proposed solutions to the specified challenges make an important contribution to developing guidelines for the implementation of optimal temperature monitoring systems in meat supply chains, resulting in improvements in food quality and safety.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the characteristics of the ex-garment workers that have turned to self-employment either in the formal or informal sector in the wake of the termination of the multi-fibre arrangement, which led to job losses. This move has given rise to a new community of entrepreneurs in the Mauritian landscape. Hence, this paper tells a story of women empowerment to disempowerment and finally the struggle for them to get re-empowered. This study also shows that there has been a limit to which self-employment led to empowerment for these women as their incomes are low, and they remain in vulnerable positions.

The study analyses the transformation of a sample of ex-garment workers into new entrepreneurs. The analysis in this paper rests on survey data collected from 92 ex-garment female workers, who are presently self-employed in either the formal or informal sectors, in different parts of Mauritius.

The findings reveal that the self-employed women in the sample, who are also ex-garment female workers, are essentially necessity-driven entrepreneurs. Most of them have only basic primary education and seem to have no other choice than to engage either formally or informally in similar activities, given their prior knowledge and experience in the textile and clothing industries. The authors also find evidence of statistically significant differences across age, marital status and household size between those women in the informal sector compared to those engaged in the formal sector.

Resource constraints aside, this study could benefit from a larger sample cutting across many other sub-sectors. So far, the results of this study are only applicable to the specific sample studied. In terms of implications, the study finds that the relevant authorities should come up with targeted policies to help these women and address and alleviate the barriers that they face.

This study provides an insight to help explain why a large group of women have gone into self-employment in Mauritius in the past 10 years. The authors find that self-employment has provided an empowerment outlet for these women so that they can financially contribute to their household income. From the policy-making perspective, this implies that it is important for the government to support the activities of these self-employed women with conducive policies.

The study helps to advance knowledge on self-employed women in a small vulnerable island economy context. Given that the transition from being employed to unemployed and then the move to self-employment happened in a rather short span of time for these women, the contribution of this study is also to put at the forefront the industrial changes and the individual coping strategies.

The purpose of the present paper is to describe a web-based consensus-finding procedure, resulting in an agreement among the group of participants representing global stakeholders regarding the interdisciplinary topic in a university master's seminar on “Global Studies”. The result of the collectively elaborated solution pertains to the forward-looking and jointly agreed topic of migration policies.

The core part of the web-based negotiation game “Surfing Global Change” utilised here is a controversial group discussion. A subsequent step creates an agreement among discussants. The group of participants, in this case co-authors of this paper, developed a final agreement on possible future political adaptations and guidelines to improve current standards in the global management of refugee and migration issues.

The findings offer several political possibilities for European and African states including structural recommendations as well as cooperative development policies.

The result is a catalogue of tentative recommendations to improve international policies relating to current migration problems, here focused on migration between Africa and Europe.

Considering the creativity of the entire procedural structure combined with an ordered scientific methodology, the outcome could promise an interdisciplinary result. Effects of group dynamics, cooperation, scientific research and diplomacy are integrated into consensus building.