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Over the last decade there has been considerable debate about the merits of targets as a policy instrument. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implementation of two health targets that were cornerstones of New Zealand health policy between 2009 and 2012: immunisation rates for two-year-olds, and time to treatment, discharge or admission in hospital emergency departments.

For each policy target, the authors selected four case-study districts and conducted two waves of key-informant interviews (113 in total) with clinical and management staff involved in target implementation.

Despite almost identical levels of target achievement, the research reveals quite different mixes of positive and negative implementation consequences. The authors argue that the differences in implementation consequences are due to the characteristics of the performance measure; and the dynamics of the intra-organisational and inter-organisational implementation context.

The research is based on interviews with clinical and management staff involved in target implementation, and this approach does not address the issue of effort substitution.

While literature on health targets pays attention to the attributes of target measures, the paper suggests that policymakers considering the use of targets pay more attention to broader implementation contexts, including the possible impact of, and effects on related services, organisations and staff.

The research focuses specifically on implementation consequences, as distinct from target success and/or changes in clinical and health outcomes. The paper also adopts a comparative approach to the study of target implementation.

This is the eleventh article on science, technology, and medicine (STM) databases in a continuing series of articles summarizing and commenting on new database products. Two companion articles, one covering social sciences, humanities, news, and general (SSH) (Online & CDROM Review, vol. 22, no.3) and the other covering business and law (BSL) (Online & CDROM Review, vol. 22, no. 3) will appear in the next issue of this journal. These articles are based on the newly appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases. The Gale Directory of Databases (GDD) was created in January 1993 by merging Computer‐Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook (CRD) together with the Directory of Online Databases (DOD) and the Directory of Portable Databases (DPD).

The purpose of this study was to explore the views of autistic people, carers and practitioners regarding the barriers autistic employees face at work (Study 1) and to use these views to inform the design of an employment programme for autistic employees without learning disabilities (Study 2).

In Study 1, 16 (20%) carers, 17 (21%) practitioners and 47 (59%) autistic adults who had been or were currently employed, answered a survey regarding barriers at work. Study 2 evaluates the efficacy of a set of profiling assessment tools (PA) developed to help employers make individually-tailored adjustments for their autistic employees by delivering an employment programme consisting of 15, 8-week work placements.

In Study 1, only 25% of autistic adults reported having had adjustments in the workplace and all groups reported this as the main barrier – alongside employers’ lack of understanding. Two sets of results demonstrate the efficacy of the PA tools in addressing this barrier. First, a comparative cost simulation revealed a cost-saving in terms of on-job support of £6.67 per participant per hour worked relative to published data from another programme. Second, 83% of autistic employees reported having had the right adjustments at work.

This is an exploratory study that did not include a comparison group. Hence, it was not possible to evaluate the efficacy of the PA tools relative to a standard employment programme intervention, nor to assess cost reduction, which currently is only estimated from already available published data.

Overall the findings from these studies demonstrate that the time invested in the high-quality assessment of the profile of autistic employees results in saving costs over time and better outcomes.

The originality of the Autism Centre for Employment programme resides in that, unlike other programmes, it shifts the focus from helping autistic employees to helping their employers.

The controversy over genetically modified organisms in the UK came to a head with the publication of three official reports in May 1999. A review of the three reports leads to the suggestion that the controversy is exacerbated in part by the conflation of three sets of issues: the underlying uncertainty of the physical processes involved, the nature of scientific investigation and the social context surrounding scientific research. This has implications for the nature of scientific research, and the relationship between research and policy.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide the rationale for the public authorities’ direct interventions to realise benefits for the city and region of Glasgow acting as host city for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The methodology relies on an extensive literature review of the impact of large sporting and cultural events and of the evolution of the partnership approach to social and economic development and regeneration. One of the authors was critically involved in the construction of The Commonwealth Games legacy for Glasgow and so the chapter uses a participant researcher methodology.

The findings are consistent with the lessons from previous mega events as proposed following recent Olympic and Commonwealth Games and World Cups. The City Council was able to introduce a partnership approach which intervened to establish a viable legacy programme.

Research implications, as previous studies have argued, are of a need for evaluation of the legacy programme over a period of several years.

Practical implications follow from the success of the Glasgow Games which confirm the advantages of a partnership-based legacy programme being established early by the host city.

Social implications have been addressed over the short term by others and the longer term impacts of public sector interventions need to be analysed.

Originality/value of the chapter come from the description and assessment of the first legacy programme to be established before the event with wide stakeholder support.

Workshops are commonly used to up-skill staff and their usefulness can be determined by measuring whether or not learning needs have been met and, in particular, whether attitudes have changed. In the field of mental health, sensory modulation workshops have been introduced to educate staff about preventative measures that reduce the use of seclusion and restraint for service users with challenging behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of such a workshop.

A one-day workshop was developed based on a review of the literature and feedback from previous workshops, and with input from an industry-based reference group. An evaluation tool was designed to measure the learning outcomes, i.e., the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the 23 participants. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS v20) was used to analyse the data. Multi-variate analysis of variance was used to determine the relationship between variables.

A significant increase in the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of mental health staff was identified after the one-day workshop (F=106.346, df=1, p<0.000). When considering which participants showed most benefits, it was shown that the demographics had no effect, i.e., education level, practice discipline, years of work experience in mental health, and previous sensory modulation training.

Measuring learning outcomes provides essential information about whether or not the learning objectives have been met. This allows future workshops to be tailored to ensure that the learning opportunity is at the correct level for the learners. More traditional evaluations that elicit the views of the content covered and teaching methods should additionally be used to supplement this information.

Workshops are often evaluated on the basis of the participants’ subjective response to a quick questionnaire. Developing a tool to measure outcomes is a more effective way to determine what has been learned and to ensure that positive outcomes for individuals and their organisations can be reached.

After comprehensive review of discourse surrounding school-banking programmes and marketing to children, the authors develop evidence-based guidelines for such programmes. Guidance for organisations is provided to ensure they understand these products' impact on children and other vulnerable consumers.

A comprehensive, systematised review of literature related to school-banking programmes was undertaken during 2019, 22 Boolean searches were collated, appraised using a five-step quality appraisal framework and analysed against selection criteria. To accommodate literature across disciplines, quality appraisal combined two existing hierarchies of evidence and peer-review status.

Searches returned over 375,000 articles; 149 were relevant and met quality thresholds. Evidence supports the role of financial education in producing positive financial outcomes. However, education should involve communities and families to enhance consumer socialisation and limit negative consequences. From this, guidelines are presented accounting for students' and parents' ability to understand marketing messages and the impact of in-school marketing on students – including on longer-term perceptions, attitudes and behaviours.

Guidelines are to assist financial institutions, policymakers and schools balance the benefits of financial literacy and education with potentially negative consequences of school-banking programmes. Classifying programmes as marketing rather than CSR also benefits organisations contributing corporate resources and voluntarily engaging practices underpinned by commitment to community well-being.

Avoiding moral panic, the authors instead outline evidence-based guidelines on school-banking programmes. The quality appraisal process used in this review offers a new approach to synthesising inter-disciplinary evidence.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it is to introduce a knowledge‐based system for planning processes for families of final products, instead of component items, be they parts or assemblies. Second, it is to demonstrate the feasibility and potential of a prototypical system developed for planning processes families for truck families from a multinational company.

The authors first identify the challenges in planning process families, including data and knowledge representation and constraint handling. To accommodate these challenges, the paper adopts the integrated product and process structure (IP²S) and colored timed Petri nets (CTPNs) in the proposed knowledge‐based process family planning system. On top of the IP²S and CTPNs, XML‐based knowledge representation is employed to alleviate the difficulties in modelling complex product and process family data and planning knowledge while enabling information exchange across different operating platforms. In addition, in accordance with the correspondence between PNs and knowledge‐based systems, a mechanism is designed to cope with the generation of production rules, which model constraints.

The proposed system is able to automatically generate production processes for customized products. At a higher level, such production processes provide input (e.g. operations, machines) to downstream activities for planning process details to manufacture component parts or component assemblies.

Traditional trial and error approaches to planning processes limit production performance improvement when companies need to timely produce diverse customized products. Knowledge‐based systems should be developed to help companies better plan production processes based on the available manufacturing resources.

Unlike most reported studies addressing either detailed process planning or assembly planning for component parts or component assemblies, this study tackles process planning for final products, in attempting to maintain production efficiency from a holistic view.

The recent economic and political focus on rising income inequality and the extent of government intervention into pay policies has renewed the interest in executive compensation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of changing regulatory landscapes on executive pay and its components.

This study examines a recent 23-year period divided into three distinct intervals separated by two major regulatory changes, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) and the Dodd–Frank Act. Bonus, long-term and total compensation are separately modeled as a function of each regulatory change while controlling for firm size, performance and year. The model is estimated using panel data with firm fixed effects. An industry analysis is also conducted to examine sector variations.

Total compensation increased 29 percent following SOX and 21 percent following Dodd–Frank, above what can be explained by size, firm performance and time. Total compensation increased following both SOX and Dodd–Frank in all industries except for the financial services industry where total compensation was unchanged. Results are robust to using smaller windows around each regulation.

This study does not seek to determine whether executive compensation is at an optimal level at any point in time. Instead, this study focuses only on the change in executive compensation after two specific regulations.

The debate over the extent to which the government should intervene with executive compensation has become a frequent part of political and non-political discourse. This paper provides evidence that over the long-term, regulation does not curtail executive compensation. An important exception is that total compensation was restrained for financial services firms following the Dodd–Frank Act.