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Program budgeting and marginal analysis (PBMA) is a priority setting approach that assists decision makers with allocating resources. Previous PBMA work establishes its efficacy and indicates that contextual factors complicate priority setting, which can hamper PBMA effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to gain qualitative insight into PBMA effectiveness.

A Canadian case study of PBMA implementation. Data consist of decision-maker interviews pre (n=20), post year-1 (n=12) and post year-2 (n=9) of PBMA to examine perceptions of baseline priority setting practice vis-à-vis desired practice, and perceptions of PBMA usability and acceptability.

Fit emerged as a key theme in determining PBMA effectiveness. Fit herein refers to being of suitable quality and form to meet the intended purposes and needs of the end-users, and includes desirability, acceptability, and usability dimensions. Results confirm decision-maker desire for rational approaches like PBMA. However, most participants indicated that the timing of the exercise and the form in which PBMA was applied were not well-suited for this case study. Participant acceptance of and buy-in to PBMA changed during the study: a leadership change, limited organizational commitment, and concerns with organizational capacity were key barriers to PBMA adoption and thereby effectiveness.

These findings suggest that a potential way-forward includes adding a contextual readiness/capacity assessment stage to PBMA, recognizing organizational complexity, and considering incremental adoption of PBMA’s approach.

These insights help us to better understand and work with priority setting conditions to advance evidence-informed decision making.

While the gap between economic theory and companies’ practice, regarding to the pricing setting, has been extensively explored and explained, the new gap between the marketing normative view and companies’ practice needs further clarification. In this way, the paper aims to investigate whether marketing researchers’ claim that the use of cost-based price approach prevails over the use of value-based price approach is pertinent.

The paper is guided by the following research question: “Does price-setting based on cost plus margin go against the value-based price approach?” The answer to this question is grounded in reflections on results of previous research studies and in a case study conducted in an industrial company. Because of the qualitative focus of the present study, hypotheses are not established, but rather the following proposition: certain companies use the mechanics of cost plus margin in the sale price-setting process, but it does not necessarily mean that these companies set prices based on cost.

The arguments, propositions and the case study findings provide the logical sequence and the support required to conclude that price-setting based on cost plus margin does not always conflict with the value-based price approach. As a result, it may be claimed that the general proposition established is theoretically valid, i.e. using a price formula that contains the elements cost and margin does not necessarily mean that the company sets prices based on cost.

The key contribution of this paper is demonstrating that in certain business environments, such as, B2B, using the price formation mechanics based on cost plus margin is the way found by companies to enable the approach adopted. The approach may be cost-based or value-based price. This is the first study that explicitly reveals how B2B companies may set prices based on value while simultaneously preserving the simplicity of cost plus margin formulas. Researchers have significant misconceptions about these formulas: in previous studies, they classified all price-making companies as those adopting the cost-based price approach simply because they used formulas containing the element cost.

The primary objective of this study is to propose a robust multiobjective solution search approach for a mean-variance multiple correlated quality characteristics optimisation problem, so-called “multiple response optimisation (MRO) problem”. The solution approach needs to consider response surface (RS) model parameter uncertainties, response uncertainties, process setting sensitivity and response correlation strength to derive the robust solutions iteratively.

This study adopts a new multiobjective solution search approach to determine robust solutions for a typical mean-variance MRO formulation. A fine-tuned, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) is used to derive efficient multiobjective solutions for varied mean-variance MRO problems. The iterative search considers RS model uncertainties, process setting uncertainties and response correlation structure to derive efficient fronts. The final solutions are ranked based on two different multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques.

Five different mean-variance MRO cases are selected from the literature to verify the efficacy of the proposed solution approach. Results derived from the proposed solution approach are compared and contrasted with the best solution(s) derived from other approaches suggested in the literature. Comparative results indicate significant superiorities of the top-ranked predicted robust solutions in nondominated frequency, closeness-to-target and response variabilities.

The solution approach depends on RS modelling and considers continuous search space.

In this study, promising robust solutions are expected to be more suitable for implementation than point estimate-based MOO solutions for a real-life MRO problem.

No evidence of earlier research demonstrates the superiority of a MOO-based iterative solution search approach for mean-variance MRO problems by simultaneously considering model uncertainties, response correlation and process setting sensitivity.

The purpose of this study is to propose and examine an integrated learning model for improving training effectiveness in workplace learning. Specifically, this study investigated the effect of achievement goal-setting intervention across three groups of new employees from a multinational medical company. During a three-day remote training program, the role of each achievement goal orientation (AGO) in goal setting intervention and their relations with trainees’ applied learning strategies were examined. This study proposed and validated an integrated training model for improving remote workplace learning effectiveness.

This study was based on two data sources, the pre- and posttests scores; time on task (deep learning: completing reflective practice) and time on content learning (surface learning: watching tutorials) retrieved from an adaptive learning platform. A total number of 133 participants were recruited in this study, and they were randomly assigned to three interventional groups. The intervention was grounded from the AGO theory and goal setting theory. A series of statistical analysis were conducted to examine the effect of each type of achievement goal setting as a prompt for new employees’ learning behavior and performance.

Results indicated that setting mastery goal at the beginning of the training program leads to productive learning outcomes. Compared with the groups being required to set performance goal (final rank) or not to set any goal for the training purpose, trainees’ who were assigned to set a mastery goal (final performance score) performed statistically significantly higher than the other groups. Additionally, learners who set mastery goal spent higher proportion of time on deep learning than learners from the other groups. The results proved mastery goal setting as an effective prompt for boosting workplace learning effectiveness.

Organizations and institutions can take setting mastery approach goals as a prompt at the beginning of the training to increase learning effectiveness. In this way, trainees are promoted to apply more deep learning strategies and achieve better learning outcomes while setting mastery goal for their training purpose.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to combine the intervention of goal setting and types of AGOs into workplace learning. This study adds to previous research on goal setting theory and AGO theory for the practical application and proposes an effective model for learners’ adaptive remote learning. Findings of this study can be used to provide educational psychological insights for training and learning in both industrial and academic settings.

The purpose of the paper is to consider the opportunities and difficulties in developing health‐promotion work in early years settings in the UK.

As the first study of its kind conducted in the UK, a multi‐method approach was adopted involving: an overview of health‐related guidance and of effective interventions in early years settings to promote health among young children; 26 interviews with key informants in the early years and health fields, regional coordinators for the National Healthy Schools Programme (NHSP) and Foundation Stage regional advisers; a survey of 145 local Healthy Schools Programme coordinators with a response rate of 75 per cent; and six case studies of early years settings representing promising practice in the promotion of health and wellbeing.

There is considerable enthusiasm for health promotion work within early years organisations, and interest in developing such work in early years settings. The study suggests that building on existing early years curriculum frameworks, developing partnerships between health and early years professionals, engaging both parents and practitioners, and adequate national and local resourcing will facilitate development of health promoting work in the early years sector.

This paper and the outputs from the study offer useful evidence for health and early years professionals who are developing health‐promoting work in early years settings.

The paper reports on the first study of its kind in which the perceptions of both early years and health professionals are brought together to consider the issues involved in developing healthy early years practice.

Public sector interest in methods for priority setting and program or policy evaluation has grown considerably over the last several decades, given increased expectations for accountable and efficient use of resources and emphasis on evidence‐based decision making as a component of good management practice. While there has been some occasional effort to conduct evaluation of priority setting projects, the literatures around priority setting and evaluation have largely evolved separately. In this paper, the aim is to bring them together.

The contention is that evaluation theory is a means by which evaluators reflect upon what it is they are doing when they do evaluation work. Theories help to organize thinking, sort out relevant from irrelevant information, provide transparent grounds for particular implementation choices, and can help resolve problematic issues which may arise in the conduct of an evaluation project.

A detailed review of three major branches of evaluation theory – methods, utilization, and valuing – identifies how such theories can guide the development of efforts to evaluate priority setting and resource allocation initiatives. Evaluation theories differ in terms of their guiding question, anticipated setting or context, evaluation foci, perspective from which benefits are calculated, and typical methods endorsed.

Choosing a particular theoretical approach will structure the way in which any priority setting process is evaluated. The paper suggests that explicitly considering evaluation theory makes key aspects of the evaluation process more visible to all stakeholders, and can assist in the design of effective evaluation of priority setting processes; this should iteratively serve to improve the understanding of priority setting practices themselves.

School health promotion is said to be most effective when implemented through a comprehensive, settings‐based, whole‐school approach. The purpose of this paper is to address the current lack of knowledge about the current state of teacher education for health promotion and its potential to further the development of settings‐based approaches.

This paper focuses on an analysis of initial teacher education for school health promotion in Austria by studying the curricula of the Universities of Teacher Education, as well as interviewing representatives from these institutions. A content analysis of the identified modules and a thematic analysis of the interview transcripts were conducted.

While there is more behaviour orientation than setting orientation identified in the curricula, the interviewees showed a broad understanding of health promotion that encompasses a settings view. The situation at the Universities of Teacher Education mirrors the situation in schools: there are similar supporting and hindering factors for the implementation of healthy settings.

A greater degree of focus in teacher education on the settings approach and the promotion of the skills required to implement it is needed, as well as the creation of health‐promoting Universities of Teacher Education.

The study makes recommendations about how to prepare future teachers to support the development of more effective approaches of school health promotion.

Argues that the general area of commercial sponsorship activity, while attracting increasing interest from marketing practitioners as an important strategic option in marketing communications, has not been the subject of sufficiently rigorous and comprehensive investigation by theoreticians. States the purpose is to establish and consolidate the available body of knowledge combining an overview of the standard conceptual approaches to marketing communication with an examination of the recent academic research in sponsorship, while maintaining a focus on current marketplace practice. Argues for a coherent and structured approach to the management of sponsorship expenditure through the application of a ‘management by objectives’ approach. Parameters are established in terms of a working definition of sponsorship, a review of its commercial development and an overview of current activity. Develops a commercially ration framework within which sponsorship activity may be undertaken. Views objective‐setting as the cornerstone of sponsorship management and outlines a classification of sponsorship objectives that subsumes current practice clarifies the range of potential benefits. Examines the criteria that govern rational sponsorship selection and proposes an evaluation strategy based on stated criteria. Methods of evaluating effects of marketing communications (sponsorship particularly) are examined and new evaluation techniques are advanced to facilitate the implementation of this rigorous scientific approach.

This paper responds to ongoing calls to develop alternative management theory to guide management practice. In particular, the purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the merit of developing sustainable management theory and organizational practices that parallel conventional management theory and practices. Sustainable theory is based on a variation of virtue theory that seeks to achieve multiple forms of well-being for multiple stakeholders in the immediate as well as distant future. To illustrate the approach, the authors develop a sustainable variation of goal setting theory.

The paper includes three parts. First, the authors establish the need for developing sustainable management theory (based on virtue theory) that parallels conventional management theory. Second, the authors identify and briefly review the main tenets of goal setting theory and then describe a Sustainable variation of this theory. Finally, the authors discuss the implications of the paper for management and organization theory and practice.

The conceptual arguments for a sustainable version of goal setting theory based in virtue are supported by research and practitioner examples.

Although there is growing concern regarding the shortcomings of management theory and practice based on a materialist-individualist moral-point-of-view, few alternatives have been discussed in detail. This paper presents an alternative based in virtue theory and illustrates how it relates to goal setting theory and practice.

Goal setting is a crucial aspect of client-centered practice in occupational therapy (OT) for mental health conditions. However, it remains to be seen how goal-setting has been delivered in mental health, particularly the OT process. The purpose of this scoping review was to explore the nature and extent of goal setting delivered in mental health and informed OT practice.

The authors followed the guidelines of Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and searched three databases using key search terms: “mental disorder,” “goal setting,” and “occupational therapy” and their synonyms.

After excluding duplicate records, the authors initially screened 883 records and resulted in 20 records in total after the screening process. Most of the identified articles used goal-setting delivered by both a health professional and a client (n = 14), and focused on people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (n = 13), but three interventions were delivered by occupational therapists. Further research needs on goal-setting in mental health OT, exploring the reliability and validity of different goal-setting strategies and investigating the effectiveness of goal-setting for promoting behavior change and client engagement across various mental health conditions and settings.

The scoping review has some limitations, such as not investigating the validity and reliability of goal-setting strategies identified, and excluding conference papers and non-English articles.

This scoping review presents a mapping of how goal-setting has been delivered in mental health and informed OT practice. The findings suggest limited research in OT and highlight the need for more studies to address the evidence gap in individualized client-centered OT.