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Manufacturing companies are increasingly moving up the value chain by expanding their value offering to include service components, namely Product Service Systems (PSS). Due to the fundamental differences between the provision of products and services, many struggle to effectively integrate the two into a single cohesive offering. This is particularly true of companies operating in the medical device field as, due to the high level of regulatory requirements and controls, implementation of the ‘soft' components of service provision is difficult. The aim of the research is to facilitate companies to move up the value chain from product to product-service provision. Once identified, barriers can then be directly addressed and overcome, thereby allowing the development of a cohesive PSS offering. This will be achieved by identifying existing cultural barriers in relation to the application of PSS strategy within a product-orientated business. This information can be used to facilitate the application of PSS models with produc-orientated companies. This paper details qualitative research, undertaken with eight product-orientated medical device companies and two service practitioners, which establishes, details and analyses the primary cultural barriers in relation to product to product-service transition. These cultural barriers are further extrapolated through a supporting literature research.

A simulated consultative exercise on behalf of the European Commission. The topic is regulation of social robots in care settings (e.g. dementia care), currently underdeveloped in Europe. There may be a need for targeted regulation at EU, national, local or industry level; conversely, existing regulation (e.g. health and safety, product liability, medical devices standards) may be sufficient to guide practice in this emergent care field. The simulation is based on a fictional scenario and participants will develop and present their views from a specific stakeholder viewpoint. The aim is to agree on the parameters of any such future regulatory framework.

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Set up against the background of increasing concerns in the Irish media and government discourses around a childhood obesity epidemic since the 2000s, this chapter critically unpicks the ways in which particular truths are created about childhood obesity by a complex range of institutional actors, and become the basis for interventions and actions targeted at particular groups. Specifically, it explores how data from the National Longitudinal Study of Children, Growing up in Ireland (GUI) has been used to construct a particular reality of the ‘problem’ of childhood obesity, grounded in an uncritical acceptance of medical norms and instruments (such as the Body Mass Index). This chapter points to the sheer complexity of both the institutional actors (medical and social scientists, policy makers, and the media), and types of knowledges, invoked in the problematisation of obesity, whilst also highlighting the limits of interventions that place responsibility for tackling the ‘risk’ of obesity at the feet of children, parents (and most specifically, mothers), and schools through individualised interventions to act on the behaviours and bodies of children.