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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractDrawing on research based on interviews with small firms in north-east England, looks at the process of learning in and by small organisations (with 50 or fewer employees). Finds that the dominant culture of small organisations points to the need to develop alternative approaches to HRD that do not rely on business plans or training needs analyses. Examines small organisations in terms of five key characteristics: adaptability; planning; information and knowledge; human resource development; and growth. Finds that small organisations are characterised by: a paternalistic culture; an informal approach to planning; the importance of an individual's ideas and character; learning by working with others (rather than formal training); and a belief in the importance of growth. Calls into question the validity of the often quoted "training deficit" from which small organisations are said to suffer and suggests that the networking function of the entrepreneur may be less important than other functions and qualities.

Employment is essential to the rehabilitation of offenders, yet employers routinely check criminal records and rely on them to deny offenders employment. To manage these practices many jurisdictions use spent conviction and anti-discrimination schemes; there have also been recent campaigns aimed at 'banning the box', requiring that questions about criminal record are deferred to a later point when the person could address them in interview. This article draws on findings from surveys and interviews with human resources personnel about their criminal record checking practices to identify some key concerns of employers and highlight areas for challenging employer practices. The study highlights the influence on employment decisions of external factors-legislation, government policy and industry regulation-and of internal considerations about proximity of the decision maker to the applicant and potential proximity to other staff. The willingness of some employers to engage with applicants opens up the possibilities for people with a criminal record to demonstrate their readiness to desist from offending and to counter stereotypes about offenders. Where there is no scope for, or willingness to attempt, such discretionary engagement, however, it is likely that employers will prioritize a risk-averse approach to employment, pre-emptively excluding potentially productive employees, and putting such ex-offenders at risk of deeper exclusion.

The confidential reporting of sexual assaults can play an important role in support processes for victim-survivors and has the potential to improve the rate of official reporting of sexual assault to police. However the self-reporting forms currently used for this purpose are not developed in line with the research evidence regarding forensic interviewing techniques, and nor have they been trialled and evaluated for their effective use in sexual assault investigations. This situation leads to substantial inconsistencies between the information gathering practices used by police in formal interviews, and the information gathering practices used in confidential, self-reporting contexts. In this article, we engage in a conceptual and critical consideration of current forms used in response to sexual assault. Ultimately, we propose that a Written Response Interview Protocol (WRIP), has potential to improve the completeness and accuracy of evidence, as well as the consistency and experiences of victim-survivors of sexual assault.

Nation states increasingly apply electronic surveillance techniques to combat serious and organised crime after broadening and deepening their national security agendas. Covertly obtained recordings from telephone interception and listening devices of conversations related to suspected criminal activity in Languages Other Than English (LOTE) frequently contain jargon and/or code words. Community translators and interpreters are routinely called upon to transcribe intercepted conversations into English for evidentiary purposes. This paper examines the language capabilities of community translators and interpreters undertaking this work for law enforcement agencies in the Australian state of Victoria. Using data collected during the observation of public court trials, this paper presents a detailed analysis of Vietnamese-to-English translated transcripts submitted as evidence by the Prosecution in drug-related criminal cases. The data analysis reveals that translated transcripts presented for use as evidence in drug-related trials contain frequent and significant errors. However, these discrepancies are difficult to detect in the complex environment of a court trial without the expert skills of an independent discourse analyst fluent in both languages involved. As a result, trials tend to proceed without the reliability of the translated transcript being adequately tested.