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Background: Degree apprenticeships (DA) help employees gain new knowledge and skills by allowing them to study towards a university degree while working full time. For these programmes to be effective, the learning design should be adapted to the needs of these students, who are goal oriented (i.e. they want to gain only knowledge that can be applied within their workplace), have limited time for studying, and usually have not attended formal education for some time. As these programmes are relatively new, there is limited research on how these students can be supported to achieve the programmes' learning goals by using information and communication technologies. Objectives: This paper aims to understand whether a learning design that combines game‐based learning with online flipped classrooms can engage DA students in their learning and help them develop their reflective skills. Methods: Two focus groups were conducted with DA students that study at a UK Business School towards gaining the Chartered Manager status. The focus groups recordings have been analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results and Conclusions: The three main themes, "change can be helpful and challenging at the same time", "the ideal game", and "the effect of others", show that DA students find game‐based learning and online flipped classrooms useful, with the right support. Simulation games can be more fulfilling to DA students than quiz games, even if they take more of their out‐of‐class time. In addition, instructors are advised to work more closely with diverse teams to enable students share their work experiences and learn from each other. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic?: Online flipped classrooms offer flexibility in learning, but instructors need to find solutions to challenges, like students' limited e‐learning readiness and lack of motivation.Game‐based learning has been found to facilitate learning in general, but there is a need to identify the specific circumstances (i.e. settings, gaming elements) under which it is effective.Degree apprenticeship students need more support with their learning compared to traditional university students, as they face additional challenges in terms of family life‐work balance and connecting their learning to their working experience. What this paper adds?: Game‐based learning can be useful to degree apprenticeship students providing that focuses on the application of knowledge and provides feedback.Despite facing challenges related to maintaining work‐study‐life balance, degree apprenticeship students are willing to complete the flipped classroom's out‐of‐class activities, if they see a clear benefit from doing so.Online group activities can be challenging for degree apprenticeship students, if they are not able to form teams with other learners that work for the same organisation. The implications of study findings for practitioners: Avoid quiz‐like games and select the ones that use real‐life scenarios for degree apprenticeship students to help them link their learning to their practice.Formative feedback should be provided by both the instructor and the game to motivate degree apprenticeship students to spend the additional time to complete the out‐of‐class activities.Students should be reminded frequently of the purpose of any new learning elements (e.g. learning analytics) as they may not have the time to explore them on their own.When forming student teams based on students' workplace is not possible, spend more time in each breakout room to facilitate the online group discussion and help students bring their different working experiences together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive Design (ID) has not been widely seen as a mainstream tool for innovation, or as a strategy for business and the public sector. Methods, case studies and frameworks exist, but were not widely accessible outside of academic publication. The authors of this paper, from Norway and the UK, recognised a need for a definitive publication on ID to present the concept, benefits and tools. Their collective forty years of experience lead to the publishing of 'Innovating with People—The Business of Inclusive Design' in 2010. A second edition followed in 2019, 'Innovating with People—Inclusive Design and Architecture'. These brought together experts and practitioners to create a practical guide from primary and secondary research, drawing on personal experience and insights. The content and processes inside the publications are discussed, describing the outputs and assessing effectiveness. The paper outlines content, structure, and the intention behind the work of the authors, drawing on their complementary experience from Business and Design. The paper describes a multi‐author, multi‐contributor and multi‐disciplinary book about ID outlining eight ID activities for Design and nine for Architecture. The book has been distributed to more than 45 countries and is used by academia, consultancy, government and industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While town centre management (TCM) has proved to be a successful strategy to maintain, improve and regenerate town centres through local partnership, there has been relatively little attention drawn to the marketing of TGM schemes. This paper explores the issues surrounding the use of key performance indicators (KPIs) for the marketing of TGM schemes in the context of wider place marketing activities undertaken by towns and cities. Drawing on evidence from a questionnaire survey of town centre managers, it is posited that they might usefully employ carefully selected KPI data to maintain and attract private investment to TGM schemes from internal and external town centre stake holders. The paper then introduces a typology for the use of KPI marketing in town centre management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful fixed exchange rate regimes impose policy disciplines that are likely to lead to conformity in the business cycles of the participating countries. This conjecture is borne out in the present paper by the evidence that the business cycle affiliation of ERM member countries has shifted from the United States to Germany since the formation of the ERM. This effect is bolstered by growing links in trade and finance between the European countries. The United Kingdom is conspicuous among these in that its business cycle affiliation did not change in the period of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a linguistic reinterpretation of Welford's 1997 hijack hypothesis, arguing that the hijack of the discourse of the radical environment is simply a process of appropriation, i.e., the adoption of particular words in order to make use of them within the green corporations' own frames of experience. Results are presented from an empirical study using two large ‘databases’ of language. These are electronic collections of texts taken from British environmental organizations – the radical non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and UK corporations that wish to be environmentally friendly – green business. The results show that there are very marked differences in the physical contextualization of a selection of words which are used by both the radical NGOs and green business. The paper concludes by noting the need to take the analysis a stage further by comparing the usage of particular words by the two discourse communities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central thesis of this paper is that Corporate Community Involvement (CCI) is not a neutral activity with positive and mutual benefits for all involved. Rather, it is a much more complex activity which may also have negative impacts. Using Donaldson and Preston's (1995) explanatory model of the stakeholding concept as a framework, this paper explores: (1) the practice of CCI in the UK (with some reference to US experience from which UK firms have drawn extensively), (2) the grounds on which it is justified, and (3) the material consequences of such activity for corporate governance. It concludes by arguing that there is a case for a review of the law on CCI to assess the need for fuller public disclosure so as to allow shareholders and other interested groups the opportunity to assess the impact and effectiveness of CCI more thoroughly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationships between firm size and employees' experience of work stress. We used a matched employer-employee dataset (Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2011) that comprises of 7182 employees from 1210 private organizations in the United Kingdom. Initially, we find that employees in small and medium-sized enterprises experience lower level of overall job stress than those in large enterprises, although the effect disappears when we control for individual and organizational characteristics in the model. We also find that quantitative work overload, job insecurity and poor promotion opportunities, good work relationships and poor communication are strongly associated with job stress in the small and medium-sized enterprises, whereas qualitative work overload, poor job autonomy and employee engagements are more related with larger enterprises. Hence, our estimates show that the association and magnitude of estimated effects differ significantly by enterprise size. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changing population demographics within the UK have become a source of increased interest to marketers as companies have realized the importance of targeting their products and advertising efforts towards minority and ethnic groups. In addition, as the UK’s ethnic minorities grow in both numbers and in terms of prosperity, so does the commercial significance of this market. A clearer understanding of both the nature of changing markets and the relative importance of different minority ethnic groups as consumers is imperative to facilitate both consumer understanding and business development; marketers need to understand better how to target these people, what they have in common with the mainstream and where the differences lie. This paper seeks to describe current understanding of ethnic consumers and their impact on the marketplace while highlighting an area where future research is potentially of considerable benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the state of the field of the sub-disciplines within UK management research, based upon the submissions of 94 UK higher education institutions to the Business and Management Studies Panel in the UK's 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). It offers observations on the UK model of the assessment of quality in, and funding of, research conducted in publicly funded higher education institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marks & Spencer (M&S) was one of the world's great retailers, enjoying legendary and iconic status, being often held up as one of the best managed and admired businesses in the world. Its ‘fall from grace’ has been spectacular and dramatic and the company is currently fighting for its life. Based on extensive in-depth interviews with company managers and utilizing a case-study approach, this paper provides an exploratory study into failure at M&S and presents this in the context of the wider literature on organizational and managerial failure. It concludes that whilst external factors in the various trading environments affected the business, there were internal aspects of the crisis which exacerbated the situation and the problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]