Decision makers are often faced with situations where they have several choices from which to select, and each will produce a different outcome based on an external event. There are several prescriptive strategies that can be implemented in such situations depending on the desired outcome.

The strategy of expected value will produce the highest long-term-average results when the situation is repeated many times. If the decision maker wishes only to have the opportunity for the highest payoff one time, no matter what the risk, the maximax strategy will make that possible. If the goal is to avoid the worst-case outcome, the maximin strategy will be best. With pairwise comparisons, inadmissible alternatives can be eliminated. By calculating the expected value of perfect information, the decision maker can determine the upward limit on what they should be willing to pay to know the future with certainty.

Experiencing emotions is part of human nature and our daily life. Sometimes, emotions can be too intense and we need or want to control them. Emotion regulation (ER) is a term that describes management of emotional experiences, regardless of whether we downregulate negative emotions or upregulate positive ones. Conscious, cognitive efforts to regulate an emotion have been subsumed under this term, as well as unconscious, implicit regulation of emotion. Effective ER has been associated with a number of positive outcomes, such as an increased general well-being, improved performance at work and in personal and professional relations, and, most importantly, enhanced mental and physical health. In contrast, deficits in ER are observed in severe psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Consequently, understanding the neural underpinnings of ER has become one of the most popular topics in affective neuroscience throughout the last two decades.

Understanding, managing and building positive culture within a workplace are key responsibilities of leadership and management. This chapter outlines what workplace culture is, the effects of poor culture on an organisation and what managers can do to improve workplace culture. the Austrian American management theorist Peter Drucker once famously said, ‘Culture eats strategy over breakfast’. This might seem implausible, because there is an expectation that healthcare managers plan, set out, implement and then evaluate strategy. Drucker’s point is that unless there is a positive workplace culture, seeing a strategy move to successful implementation and adoption is very difficult, sometimes impossible.

A 2021 report on a study of workplace conflict in the United Kingdom concludes that, in 2018–19, more than 35 per cent of respondents reported workplace conflict, with an estimated 485 000 employees resigning as a result. Managers need to understand that conflict does not resolve itself; rather, it tends to gather intensity and energy. Gupta, Boyd and Kuzmits have found that ‘employees spend as much as 42 percent of their time engaging in or attempting to resolve conflict and 20 percent of managers’ time is taken up by conflict-related issues’. Managing conflict is one of the primary responsibilities of managing staff and teams, particularly in multicultural work environments. Understanding what is ‘culturally normative in terms of self-worth, confrontation, emotional expression, and managerial intervention can help [staff] involved in workplace conflict understand what they are experiencing’. Additionally, it can help managers intervene appropriately. In this chapter, different types and origins of conflict are discussed, as well as approaches to managing and resolving conflict.

The construct of emotional intelligence (EI), also interchangeably referred to as EQ, has engendered considerable scholarly attention within the field of psychology over the past three decades. Despite its significant appeal in business, education and popular literature, EI remains a theme of scientific controversy and investigation. This scrutiny arises from discernible disparities between popular and scholarly interpretations of EI, which are further complicated by the methodological challenge of devising reliable measurement instruments.

Geopolitical forces are fundamentally altering the landscape of e-commerce and digital trade. Cross-border e-commerce is increasingly fragmented along geopolitical lines, as e-commerce companies are forced to reckon with the security implications of their operations. This includes governments’ concerns about data security and sovereignty. When foreign firms collect extensive data on the behavior of the country’s customers, there is potential for those data to be exploited in shaping consumer behavior or spreading information in the country. Additionally, when a foreign firm plays an important role in the domestic economy, local governments have limited means to encourage those firms to act in the “national interest” or broader societal and economic goals beyond maximizing profits. Because of these concerns, governments have adopted policies to shape the behavior of e-commerce companies. This includes shaping market access, level playing field, investment security, and institutional alignment. E-commerce companies have adopted various strategies to manage corporate nationality and geopolitical tensions, including masking country of origin, diversifying supply chains, relocating control rights, focusing on alternate markets, and corporate diplomacy.

We have already explored how students learn both individually and socially, and how teachers draw from a range of learning theories to provide opportunities that motivate and engage students by optimising resources in the learning environment. In this chapter, we drill down into specific teaching approaches and strategies that are aligned with constructivist and sociocultural learning theories. You will undertake the groundwork to prepare you with an array of ideas and tools to be well equipped for teaching. We consider how to foster a classroom environment that supports a rich learning culture, implementing different ways of teaching that, used in combination in professional practice, can assist your students to become effective learners. If you are to foster learning partnerships in the classroom where students have ‘voice and choice’, you will need to understand how to promote their active participation. The chapter concludes with an examination of frameworks that promote powerful learning and effective teaching, and enable students to learn how to learn.

When we speak of prevention in the context of public health, we usually think of what is sometimes called ‘primary prevention’, which aims to prevent disease from occurring in the first place; that is, to reduce the incidence of disease. Vaccination against childhood infectious diseases is a good example of primary prevention, as is the use of sunscreen to prevent the development of skin cancer. However, somewhat confusingly, the term ‘prevention’ is also used to describe other strategies to control disease. One of these is the use of screening to advance diagnosis to a point at which intervention is more effective, often described as ‘secondary prevention’. What is sometimes called ‘tertiary prevention’ is even more remote from the everyday concept of prevention, usually implying efforts to limit disease progression or the provision of better rehabilitation to enhance quality of life among those who have been diagnosed with a disease.

This final chapter offers advice on the opportunities and challenges of being a composer, and is intended to be useful and encouraging for anyone developing their practice. It suggests ways to build a professional profile through growing networks and understanding effective working habits.

Older people are one of the biggest populations requiring hospital care, and the demand is expected to rise. There is a compelling need to transform hospital environments to meet older-people physical, psychological, and emotional needs. In the UK, certain hospital circumstances such as ward configuration, mealtimes, noise levels, and visiting hours can be detrimental to patients admitted with delirium and to those living with dementia. In rehabilitation settings, lack of meaningful activities, isolation, and boredom are additional key challenges.

Models of good hospital practice catering for old people exist, both in the UK and internationally, and there is strong evidence for their clinical effectiveness. Environmental strategies to maintain orientation and enhance safety in hospital are crucial for a positive experience. Arts-based programmes in acute care settinsg can improve the experience of a hospital admission.

A cultural shift is warranted to champion the delivery an elderly-friendly service. Creating the right environment requires a hospital-wide system, a ward-based service, and a specially trained clinical team. In this chapter we will present examples of essential ingredients for hospitals and wards, and desirable qualities in clinicians who work in collaboration to deliver the best outcomes for an older population.

Executive functions refer to the higher-order skills we use to engage in purposeful and goal-directed behaviours (Carlson et al., 2013). ‘Purposeful’ means that we call on these functions when we have a goal in mind. Developmental psychologists compare the brain with a bustling airport, referring to executive functions as the mind’s ‘air traffic control’ system (Center on the Developing Child, 2011). In the same way that an air traffic controller manages the arrival and departure of several aeroplanes at the same time, the brain’s executive functions enable us to manage a lot of information. Executive functions help us to focus and resist distractions, to think before acting, and to cope with frustrations and rules simultaneously. Young children use executive functions in all aspects of their everyday lives, such as remembering the rules of a game, resisting temptations or impulsive reactions, waiting their turn, staying focused, recalling routines and respecting different points of view. This chapter begins by defining executive functions and their role in children’s learning. It then describes how educators work across the early years to promote executive functions. The final section of the chapter lists questions that may help early years educators to reflect on the ways in which they support children’s emerging executive functions.