Embedding consumer culture in health and social care education – a university office's perspective

Health and social care services are changing – and this change is radical. Service user and carer involvement has been a key aspect of health and social care policy for a number of years. In terms of the National Health Service (NHS), this has been significantly strengthened by the report ‘High Quality Care for All’. The NHS will no longer be a monolith dictating what services it offers. It is beginning to take seriously the views of its consumers: the patients, service users and carers. The NHS is starting to put the patient experience at the centre of everything it does, and its regulators are asking for evidence of public and patient involvement. This process may yet prove to be one of the NHS' greatest challenges as it transforms to prioritize the consumer viewpoint. Social care, though further down the line in relation to involvement, is now responding to the relatively new personalization agenda. This paper will consider what the university sector can do to embed the consumer and service culture within the education of health and social care professionals. It looks at the challenges of involvement and required culture change, highlighting the key points to address in the early and middle stages of involvement from a university office's perspective. It includes examples of consumer involvement in teaching, assessment and the selection of students and how their input is starting to make a difference. Finally, the paper outlines what is needed in a development office to establish and support effective service user and carer involvement on health and social care courses in higher education. The article concludes by acknowledging that there is much more work that needs to be done in this field to embed the work of a development office, but that early steps have been promising.     

Effects of Free Trade on Women and Immigrants: CAFTA and the Rural Dominican Republic

We construct a disaggregated rural economywide model with a focus on gender and immigration as well as on the allocation of time to wage work, household production activities, and housework (reproduction). We use this model to simulate the impacts of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) on rural incomes and welfare in the Dominican Republic. We find that elimination of agricultural import tariffs hurts both agricultural and non-agricultural households, via adverse factor-market effects, but impacts vary substantially by workers’ gender and country of origin. Females and Haitian immigrants tend to fare better than Dominican males, and there are ramifications for both market and non-market activities.     

The effects of role strain on the consumer decision process for groceries in single-parent households

Single-parent families are becoming a larger part of American society. But what is known about their decision-making processes? Role strain is of particular interest when studying single parents because of their need to serve multiple family roles otherwise carried out by dual-parent families. In this study, the consumer decision process for single parents is empirically examined in the context of grocery shopping. Role strain was found to have a significant effect on problem recognition style and reactive shopping behaviors. Advertising positively influenced proactive shopping behaviors and had a negative relationship with reactive shopping behaviors. Implications for food retailers are provided.     

An investigation into the relationship between training evaluation and the transfer of training

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between training evaluation and the transfer of training in organizations. We hypothesized that training evaluation frequency will be related to higher rates of transfer because evaluation information can identify weaknesses that lead to improvements in training programs and create greater accountability among stakeholders for training outcomes. The data were obtained from 150 training professionals who were members of a training and development association in Canada. The results indicated that training evaluation frequency is positively related to training transfer. However, among Kirkpatrick's four levels of evaluation criteria, only behavior and results criteria were related to higher rates of transfer of training, indicating that the level of evaluation criteria is important for training transfer. These results indicate the importance of organizational‐level initiatives such as training evaluation in addition to individual‐level practices for facilitating the transfer of training.     

Editorial

The relationship marketing paradigm is gaining increasing credence in consumer markets. Marketers need to get close to their customers to establish exchange relationships, and this “intimacy” is achieved using database technology and direct marketing communications. However, in implementing relationship marketing in this way, the potential exists for the use of technology to result in invasions of individual consumer privacy. The literature on relationship marketing and privacy are reviewed, and the findings of six exploratory focus group discussions, conducted in the UK, are presented. The study suggests that what some consumers define as “intrusion” is similar to what has been called “intimacy” by marketers. Nine propositions are presented which reflect the implications of current approaches to relationship marketing in consumer markets. In particular, the integral elements of meaningful relationships are absent or inhibited as a result of consumer concerns over intrusions of their privacy. Thus, marketers need to adapt their attitudes, behaviours, and processes in order to accommodate the participation of the consumer in the relationship. The implications for marketers are identified, and directions are offered for future research.     

松下幸之助的传奇

年轻的他家境贫寒,为了养家糊口而到一家大电器公司求职。矮小瘦弱,又破又脏的他被公司的人事部门主管谢绝了：＂我们现在暂时不缺人,你一个月以后再来看看吧。＂     

Stuck on gold: Real exchange rate volatility and the rise and fall of the gold standard, 1875-1939

Did the gold standard diminish macroeconomic volatility? Supporters thought so, critics thought not, and theory offers ambiguous messages. Hard regimes like the gold standard limit monetary shocks by tying policymakers' hands; but exchange-rate inflexibility compromises shock absorption in a world of real disturbances and nominal stickiness. A model shows how lack of flexibility affects the transmission of terms-of-trade shocks. Evidence from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century exposes a dramatic change. The classical gold standard did absorb shocks, but the interwar gold standard did not, supporting the view that the interwar gold standard was a poor regime choice.     

Making wellness the focus: one employer's story

The rising cost of health care threatens the very fabric of American society. With Americans widely practicing unhealthy life habits, such as using tobacco, eating imprudently and leading a sedentary lifestyle, they are at risk for health conditions that threaten to make them long-term liabilities to their employer. This article tells how one U.S. employer chooses to focus its workforce on wellness.