Search results

Parental advocacy is an emerging area of research and policy interest in Wales and across the UK. Although there is little research in the UK context to date, international research has indicated that parental advocacy can improve the relationship between parent and professional in the field of child protection social work. This paper aims to ascertain how the implementation of a parental advocacy programme supports parents to play a meaningful role in decision-making when children’s services are working with them and their families.

This study used interviews, surveys and focus groups to obtain qualitative data from 18 parents, seven parent advocates, two advocacy managers and four social workers, to explore the potential impact of parental advocacy on decision-making. The study identified challenges in implementing parental advocacy, particularly relating to awareness of the service. Participants also discussed experiences of the child protection system and how parents are supported by advocates.

Despite challenges surrounding implementation, initial findings were encouraging, and generated examples of how parental advocacy services have helped parents to understand children’s services and develop relationships of trust with social care professionals. In doing so, this study identified potential mechanisms that may be useful to support future service delivery.

This paper and research is novel as it explores parental advocacy within the Welsh context. Although there has been research conducted into parental advocacy, this has largely come from the USA. This research comes from the evaluation of an innovative and promising parental advocacy scheme in Wales.

This article aims to critically explore current forms of neoliberalism and their impact upon the moral economy. The authors examine how the dominant neoliberal political economy impacts upon three overlapping registers: individual subjectivity, national reconstructions and organizational transformations. These three registers are fashioned by, and subsequently help to reproduce, the contours of the prevailing politico-economic system. The market-driven ethic of neoliberalism, however, is diametrically opposed to that of a moral economy concerned with universalism and equality in meeting human need.

This is a conceptual theoretical piece.

The result is that the latter have been replaced by competitive individualism as societies reconstruct themselves in the image of the market place. This profound cultural shift is well known, but in this article, the authors will claim that it has in turn had a profound impact upon individual subjectivities and the key institutions and organisations that have long formed the basis of the Western social democratic consensus.

It is original because it theorises the impact of neoliberalism on organisations.

The purpose of the paper is to present and discuss the findings of a study on flexitime as a novel people management practice emerging in Sri Lanka. Specifically, the paper presents and discusses factors that predict the level of satisfaction with flexitime, differences in attitudes towards flexitime, the effectiveness of flexitime as a strategy to attract and retain employees, and barriers that hinder its use.

A total of 108 employees involved in producing IT‐related output as their primary job function, from 30 software development companies, responded to the self‐administered survey questionnaire. In analysis, univariate, bivariate and multivariate techniques were adopted.

Flexitime allowed autonomy to employees to harmonize work and non‐work demands on their time, resulting in better workplace relations. Overall, the findings support a non‐traditional approach to people management. However, the findings also have important implications for the design or modification of flexitime arrangements.

The majority of flexitime research is criticized for its theoretical nature, a failure to include statistical treatment of the data, and failure to pay specific attention to managerial and professional employees. Further, there is a marked absence of research‐led literature in developing countries to clarify the way in which non‐traditional people management practices work in different contexts. Specifically, no such studies have been conducted in the context of Sri Lanka.

Examines the origins and workings of work‐life balance policies at Eli Lilly.

Forms part of a research report on Making Flexible Working Work, by Roffey Park Institute, which reviews the literature on flexible working, puts the business case, and includes case studies of Ford Motor Company (UK), the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Vertex, the Legal Services Commission, East Sussex County Council and Lilly UK.

Presents the business drivers for allowing individuals to work flexibly at Lilly, describes the flexible working options available, shows how flexible working has been aligned with the organization's core business strategies and emphasizes the importance of top‐management support.

Highlights the background against which flexible working operates best, and the instances where it is less appropriate.

Presents a number of useful lessons from the Eli Lilly experience of introducing flexible working.

A cross‐border shopping survey was mailed to 750 randomly selected Canadians, both Francophone and Anglophone, living in the Greater Montreal area. The survey sought to examine if the selected demographic characteristics were related to whether or not Canadian consumers cross‐border shop, to explore Canadian consumers' information sources and motivational attributes with regard to cross‐border shopping, and to determine how information sources and motivational attributes affect their cross‐border shopping behaviors. Approximately 42% of the respondents cross‐border shopped. A predominant segment of those who shopped in the U.S. spoke English at home. Two factors, Merchandise and Service Quality Motivations and Economic Motivations, showed significant relationships with selected cross‐border shopping behaviors.

The study aims to explore how the collective representations of stakeholders associated with an Executive MBA (EMBA) apprenticeship are conceptualised, and what value elements are perceived as relevant for personal, professional and organisational development.

Forty stakeholders participated in a mixed methods-based group concept mapping (GCM) approach, representing the tripartite relationship of an EMBA apprenticeship. This approach allowed the deconstruction and shared understanding of the value proposition of higher degree apprenticeships.

Analysis identified seven conceptualised value clusters around an eight central cluster “Professional Development”. Two regions of meaning were identified: the personal dimensions of apprentices and their contribution within and to their organisation. Findings showed that a work-based designed curriculum improves confidence and communication skills and that much of the value proposition is personal and self-managed by the apprentices. The tripartite relationship was shown to be incomplete and inconsistent, particularly regarding mentoring and reflective practice.

The pandemic has brought about significant changes in business practice. This study identifies several areas for improving higher degree apprenticeship pedagogy in readiness for the new business landscape, as well as identifying limitations of the tripartite relationship.

The study addresses a gap in the literature by exploring the value proposition an EMBA apprenticeship programme. The interrelatedness of cluster concepts has identified value elements missing from previous apprenticeship delivery. Deconstructing the senior leader apprenticeship enables educators to redesign and refine models of engagement for improving the apprenticeship experience.

Presents a new theory about the communication structure used by ocean‐living odontocetes. Draws conclusions from eight biological singularities in dolphin communication found in empirical research but not yet put into a systematic context. They suggest the interpretation that in dolphin communication information is encoded by way of SOund PAttern VAriation. Discusses the formal prerequisites of this theory; negative and positive predictions are made. Interprets both the results of Bastian's communication experiment and the scouting behaviour observed in the wild as evidence that dolphins possess a highly developed SOund PAttern VAriation LAnguage (SOPAVALA). Complements this by examining considerations concerning the evolutionary process which may have made this development possible. Discusses characteristic features of the proposed new language structure and suggests how to decode successfully and understand a dolphin's SOPAVALA, should it exist.

We develop and validate measurement instruments for the business partner, watchdog, and scorekeeper roles of controllers. This study addresses calls to enhance the quality of survey research in management accounting by devoting more attention to scale development and especially to construct validity. By focusing on the activity sets of the controllers’ roles, we provide a theoretically and empirically grounded picture of their current roles. The measurement instruments presented in this study enable systematic research progress on controller roles, their relationships, antecedents, and performance outcomes.

This chapter discusses textography as a strategy for researching academic writing in higher education. Textography is an approach to the analysis of written texts which combines text analysis with ethnographic techniques, such as surveys, interviews and other data sources, in order to examine what texts are like, and why. It aims to provide a more contextualized basis for understanding students’ writing in the social, cultural and institutional settings in which it takes place than might be obtained by looking solely at students’ texts. Through discussion of the outcomes of a textography, which examined the written texts submitted by visual and performing arts doctoral students at a number of Australian universities, we reflect on what we learnt from the study that we could not have known by looking at the texts alone. If we had looked at the texts without the ethnographic data not only are there many things we would not have known, but many of the things we might have said would likely have been right off the mark. Equally, had we just had the ethnographic data without the text analysis, we would have missed the insights provided by the explicit text analysis. The textography enabled us to see the diversity of practices across fields of study and institutions as well as gain an understanding of why this might be the case, all of which is of benefit to student writers and their supervisors.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.