Personalised social care for adults with disabilities: A problematic concept for frontline practice

This paper explores the complexities and contradictions of frontline practice that pose problems for personalised social care through enhanced choice. It draws on semi-structured interviews with community care workers, social workers, occupational therapists and care managers in a social service department. Practitioners interviewed were asked about their current assessment and documentation system, including the assessment documents currently used; how they approached information gathering and the topics they explored with service users; and their experience of documenting assessment and care management. The paper argues that the validity and sustainability of personalised social care in frontline practice relies on developing a thorough understanding of the complex and implicit assessment processes operating at the service user/practitioner interface and the inevitable tensions that arise for practitioners associated with the organisational context and broader service environment. The findings demonstrate the variability among practitioners in how they collect information and more importantly, the critical role practitioners occupy in determining the kinds of topics to be explored during the assessment process. In so doing, it shows how practitioners can exert control over the decision-making process. More importantly, it provides some insight into how such processes are shaped by the constraints of the organisational context and broader service environment. Complexities and contradictions may be an inherent part of frontline practice. The issues discussed in this paper, however, highlight potential areas that might be targeted in conjunction with implementing personalised social care through enhanced choice for people with disabilities.

Customers as spatial and social influencers on other customers in the social-servicescape

In marketing, considerable attention has been devoted both to the understanding of consumer behaviour and the impact of the physical environment on the behaviour of consumers within these settings. Yet surprisingly, little attention has been given to the influence of customers on other customers in such settings. But within the environment it could be argued that social stimuli are likely to receive more attention than non-social or physical stimuli (Guerin, 1993). Psychologists have asserted that the mere presence (or absence) of people will affect the behaviour of others. Thus we argue in this paper that customers impact on other customers within the social servicescape. This paper presents the findings of an observational study of 225 episodes which took place within a selected servicescape - four cafes. We found that the presence of other customers appeared to positively influence duration of the stay (social influence), and that customers appeared to exhibit a desire for the presence of other customers in this social setting in that customers appeared to be drawn spatially to where customers were already seated (spatial influence). We draw from psychology, in particular, social facilitation theory (Platania and Morin, 2001; Zajonc, 1965), affiliative conflict theory (Argyle and Dean 1965; Knowles 1980, 1989) and from psychology and sociology in terms of the basic emotional need for a “sense of belonging” (Hagerty, Williams and Oe 2002) in order to develop the conceptual framework for this study. Theoretical and managerial implications of our findings are discussed, as well as directions for further research.

Taking strategy seriously:responsibility and reform for an important social practice

Strategy is a pervasive and consequential practice in most Western societies. We respond to strategy's importance by drawing an initial map of strategy as an organizational field that embraces not just firms, but consultancies, business schools, the state and financial institutions. Using the example of Enron, we show how the strategy field is prone to manipulations in which other actors in the field can easily become entrapped, with grave consequences. Given these consequences, we argue that it is time to take strategy seriously in three senses: undertaking systematic research on the field itself; developing appropriate responses to recent failures in the field; and building more heedful interrelationships between actors within the field, particularly between business schools and practitioners.

The Nuffield legacy:twenty years of social science influence on pharmacy practice research

Guest editorial

Online social capital:understanding e-impulse buying in practice

Socially constructed marketing imageries (e.g. e-atmospherics) help consumers while making choices and decisions. Still, human and retailing technology interactions are rarely evaluated from a social practice perspective. This article explores the potential impact of socially constructed e-atmospherics on impulse buying. A framework with three interrelated factors, namely social acoustic, co-construction and mundane language enactment is analysed. The way these allow for e-social norms to organically emerge is elaborated through a set of propositions. Retailing implications are subsequently discussed.