This study presents an innovative analysis of the policing of petty offending and the work the police in Cumbria: it problematizes conceptions of policing and its history. This study uses the neglected minutiae of police and court records to deconstruct the role of the police, discretionary policing by men on the beat, public expectations of the police, and the growth of police bureaucracy, which then calls into question the idea of a ‘golden age’ of policing. These are the issues that dominate the contemporary discourses on policing, though this study makes clear that assumptions are made today that are not supported by the history. The themes of this study are as relevant today as they were 150 years ago, for this work is interdisciplinary, situated in the social sciences, particularly criminology and history. This study examines the police’s role at a time of social, economic and bureaucratic change. It links the development of police expertise and professionalism with the process of state formation. The historiography and nature of Victorian policing are tested by this study of Cumbria, a remote and unique region which was culturally, economically and agriculturally quite atypical of Victorian England.

As many changes in society, such as increased geographic mobility and improved technological advances, have led to generations frequently becoming segregated from one another, the development of intergenerational shared sites (IGSS) presents a unique opportunity for exchange and interaction between the generations. This study ‘tells the story’ of the development of the UK’s first IGSS – a purpose-built intergenerational centre (the Centre).

The focus of this thesis is upon the Adoption Support Plan (ASP), one of the documents constructed for new adoptions of children in the UK. The Adoption and Children Act, 2002, made provision for support in adoption through the right to request an assessment of support. The recognition of support for adoption has emerged as the nature of adoption has changed with fewer children being relinquished at birth. Children adopted from social care are generally older and more likely to have experienced trauma and broken attachments. The ‘closed’ nature of the adoption of babies has become more ‘open’ with arrangements such as contact with birth families and access to birth records (Lowe, 1999). It is now understood that adoption is associated with life-long periods of adjustment which can require different levels of support. However little is known about how support is assessed and introduced for new adoptions. A documentary analysis method explored the ways in which the ASP operated within the wider adoption context. Qualitative interviews were also undertaken. The findings highlight that the ASP focused mainly on the matching arrangements concerning the child’s past and present needs, with little consideration of potential future support that might be required. Adopters were largely unaware of the existence and purpose of the ASP to support the adoptive family and their future. Two proposals are made to raise the status and visibility of the ASP during the arrangements for adoption. Firstly, the document should be redesigned and it should be ‘co-produced’ following the placement, allowing the Review to agree the negotiated support requirements. Secondly, a strategic interagency commitment to space for adoption support within mainstream family support services should be established, requiring a programme of information for the public and training for all providers regarding the normative aspects of adoption and the value of support.

This research responds to gaps in the literature about the evolution of physiotherapy practice and to uncertainties emerging from within physiotherapy about its professionalism and practice. It aimed to generate a theoretically informed understanding of the tensions present in contemporary physiotherapy practice by producing an embodied account of the process of becoming a practice profession. The research aim was achieved by a genealogical study of existing literature, documentary data from physiotherapy’s qualifying curricula and oral accounts of practice generated by depth interviews with physiotherapists who qualified during the 1940/60s. These data were subject to a Foucauldian discourse analysis and a phenomenological analysis to explore the events, discourses and actions shaping physiotherapy practice over time. Unlike existing historic accounts that trace the evolution of physiotherapy’s professional identity, this research prioritises the bodies doing physiotherapy over time so offers a fresh perspective on physiotherapy as a practice and as a profession. From a ‘doing’ perspective, professionalism ceases to be an acquisition that is externally bestowed and becomes a dynamic process of experiencing/producing autonomous problem-solving in practice. Physiotherapy’s professional practice can be traced back to the 1945 curriculum. It was enacted through the integration of physiotherapy movement/touch and by the discipline of movement, which generated autonomous problem-solving practices that cut across ward/disease boundaries established by medicine from the 1950s onwards. While still subject to medical supervision, physiotherapy’s movement/touch crossed the division of labour to develop capacity to produce diagnosis-inference-treatment once its technical autonomy was recognised in 1977. Once free of medicine, physiotherapy’s professional practices multiplied to provide moving/touching solutions for an increasing variety of movement disorders. My research complements the existing (disembodied) critical histories of physiotherapy as a profession and demonstrates the value of embodiment as a lens for tracing movement in physiotherapy’s professional identities and practices over time. It adds to sociological understanding of the organisation of healthcare occupations and practices by offering an account of a body that is a moving part of a division of labour organised around the dominant profession of medicine.

The 12 Step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA, 2001) is a set of principles that provides a way of life for those that follow it and is based upon a ‘spiritual awakening’ (AA, 2001 pp59-60). The thesis is the first to examine how managers who follow this spiritual programme apply it in their organisational role through general management competencies (New, 1996). This mixed method, phenomenology-led research is placed within a social constructionist setting. A comprehensive and wide ranging literature review was conducted. The data was generated using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, 1996), the Integrated Spiritual Intelligence Scale (Amram and Dyer, 2007) and Workplace Observation (Lucia and Lepsinger, 1999). The findings explain psychological antecedents, mechanisms and pathways that inform the sample of AA managers in their work role. The discussion identifies relationships with existing efficacious management styles and concepts. Areas of heuristic value for future research are identified. These areas include exploring the 12 Steps specifically as antecedents to emotional intelligence (Payne, 1985) and strengthening the statistical validity of instruments to measure humility and honesty in context of spirituality. Limitations of this research are also identified and discussed and important reservations about the concept and constructs of spiritual intelligence (Zohar, 1997) are raised. In conclusion, the 12 Step spiritual programme was found to be the primary influence in how the sample conduct their organisational management function. The research calls for human resource processes to re-consider how those who have adopted successful recovery techniques to overcome personal crises such as dependency issues are viewed and argues that they should be more highly valued by organisations as such experiences help develop management competencies.

This thesis aims to extend current understandings of the production of organisational space, with particular attention paid to its embodied characteristics. Empirically, this thesis explores the everyday lived experience and understanding of organisational space of employees and volunteers at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in England. Current empirical studies exploring the phenomenon of organisational space do so primarily from the perspective of space and the body, separating the body from space and viewing the body as being in space as opposed to of space. This perspective provides only a limited view of the lived experience of organisational space, for it does not consider that space and the body are intertwined, with the body shaping space and space shaping the body. To address this research gap, the thesis draws on the work of Lefebvre's (1974/1991; 1992/2004) theorisation of space. Data is collected through the methods of shadowing, photo-elicitation and hermeneutic conversations. Underpinning all of the stages of the data collection and interpretation is a Gadamerian approach to hermeneutics, which requires a joint interpretation of the data between myself and the research participants. The three main findings of the thesis extend existing conceptualisations of the lived experience of organisational space. The findings show that first, artefacts play a role in contesting the conceived spaces (Lefebvre, 1974/1991) of the organisation, producing spaces to dwell. A second key finding is the role that gestures play in understanding the lived experience while the third key finding highlights the role of the imaginary, in particular memory, death and nostalgia to spatial understandings. The latter are especially considered hitherto underexplored areas of the lived experience of organisational space. The final chapter of the thesis presents the overall conclusions, establishing how the conceptual contributions provide alternative ways of exploring and understanding the lived dimension of organisational space.

The main contribution of this work is the proposal of a conceptual framework that integrates internal (to the firm) conditions with external influences at two geographical proximity levels, local and non-local, with respect to four types of innovation performance: product innovation, process innovation, managerial/organisational innovation and marketing innovation. This is quantitatively evaluated in a sample of 186 coffee farmers from Latin America. Following the Resource-Based View of the Firm (RBV), the internal conditions include two firm capabilities: technological capabilities and marketing capabilities. The external influences incorporates the evaluation of horizontal and vertical linkages with purposes of innovation at the local level (cluster geographical context) and non-local level (extra-cluster geographical context). The tests are controlled by the variable country of origin, which is not much relevant in these evaluations, as well as the variable for size, which is mostly significant although with a negative impact. The results suggest that internal conditions seem to be the most relevant factors related to innovation performance in this sample, whilst extra-cluster linkages are the external conditions with the highest relative importance in the explored models. This last outcome suggests the predominance of global value chains and its dynamics in relation to the innovative results of companies located in primary industries from developing countries. This seem to be the case even in the case of highly clustered activities within a region, such as the agricultural coffee production in Latin America.

Since its instigation by patrons supporting struggling artists centuries ago, the relationship between arts and business has been marked by dilemmas of who benefits from the value created. The perceived self-interested regard that blighted the magnanimous acts of the pioneers of arts philanthropy has transformed into outright scepticism with the move towards "selfish capitalism" in the 1970s. Despite the financial assistance, ubiquitous in society is the perception that business exploits the arts for window dressing purposes. The thesis studies value creation through transactional collaboration, focusing on the arts context. The contradictions in the phenomenon are examined to construct an understanding of how the organisations working together can lead to societal betterment . Utilising a multi method interpretive strategy, the thesis presents a conceptual framework of the principles, manifestations and functions of the business partner in societal value creation through transactional arts and business collaboration. The thesis argues that transactional collaboration can and does generate value that can contribute to societal betterment. The stipulations relate to transactional hybrids and collaboration portfolios at the organisational level, and a co-creative response to the process of value creation of beneficiaries. Transient value and cumulative value are two distinct value modes. Cumulative value can induce sustainable societal betterment when business assumes the role of a benefits provider. Human factor and organisational learning condition cumulative societal value creation in transactional collaboration. The Thesis contributes to the literature on cross-sector collaboration. The thesis contributes to the literature on cross-sector collaboration by highlighting the importance hybrid relationships and relationship portfolios in creating societal value in transactional collaboration. It also demonstrates the beneficiary-centric standpoint is a salient factor when developing a holistic understanding of how collaboration contributes to societal betterment. As such, contributions are made to the value creation literature by showing the salience of the co-creative response of the beneficiary to the process of value creation in relational contexts. Managerial and policy implications, and future research avenues are also proposed.

Recent UK policy rhetoric has emphasised the need for wider society to recognise their shared responsibility for the well-being and safety of young people. This thesis explores the ways in which communities can have an impact upon the welfare of local children and young people in a particular, non-deprived commuter suburb. Government policies in England and Wales have asserted that children’s well-being is ‘everybody’s business’. Similarly, political rhetoric in England about the ‘big society’ and neighbourhood based programmes in Wales have echoed this shift in responsibility for improving children’s lives from central government to local communities, although both are ambiguous about how this should be done. Drawing on primary, qualitative research, this thesis explores how communities facilitate the well-being of children in a non-deprived, modern suburban neighbourhood in South Wales. The ethnographically driven study included interviews with 35 residents and over 200 hours of observation in a variety of community settings. The findings suggest that in Newtown Common there are a number of ways in which community can be conceptualised as influencing the well-being of children and young people in its midst. These include the role of: the social and environmental hazards in the neighbourhood, in the built environment; the ensuring of children’s safety and access to facilities by community organisations and those that work in the area; and the value of local informal networks of support for children and families. The thesis concludes by reflecting on the methodological, sociological and policy implications of these messages.

Co-production has attracted increasing interest from the public and voluntary sectors. It is an approach that repositions users and community members as more central to the design and delivery of public services, a practice that Bovaird (2007: 846) has described as ‘revolutionary’. A growing movement aims to embody the principles of co-production in practice is time banking (Cahn 2000a). Time banking is a community currency that operates on the reciprocal exchange of skills and services. This thesis reports on a multi-method, qualitative case study into the implementation of a time bank in a Welsh secondary school. It explores the extent to which time banking can be used as a mechanism for facilitating co-productive relationships between young people, community members and the school. Drawing on empirical data gained from ethnographic methods and a participatory approach with young people, the research follows the time bank unfolding in practice. It explores the ‘who, how and why’ of youth participation in time banking and charts the development and implementation of the time bank in question. Importantly, the thesis gives voice to young people, exploring their experiences of participation. This research makes an original contribution to generating understanding of the complexity and difficulty of undertaking youth-based time banking in institutional settings. In doing so it shows how these initiatives may benefit young people, in such a way as to extend their entitlements (Welsh Assembly Government 2002), but also how barriers are faced that may ultimately impact on potentially positive outcomes for young people. It augments current debates concerning the position of young people in society and how perceptions of young people can influence the impact of a policy. The thesis problematises the theory and practice of co-production and questions whether, in its current form, it is achievable or, indeed, desirable with young people.