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The purpose of this paper was to document the development of a major regional department store from the firm’s start to the completion of a single block structure including the warehouses required to support its operations.

The study is based on a survey of historic materials including the recently available archival materials in the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.

The study reveals the interaction of vision, planning and risk taking in a family enterprise over two generations. It illustrates the search for information as to what was required and the importance of architectural elements in the construction and operation of their store.

The archival materials are extensive; however, over the years, much of the operating data were destroyed or lost. Although family members remain in Oregon, they are reluctant to discuss the store’s history, even though the matters that affected them took place many years after the study’s period.

Much of the information collected in the study had never been used in previous work.

This article aims to explore how and why the creation of technological innovation during a merger can end in failure. The objective is to propose new analytical elements to improve the formulation and execution of the integration process between an SME (small and medium enterprise) and a large enterprise.

The authors develop a theoretical framework based on the main research results from several fields, including technology transfer, innovation dissemination, and management. This case study then focuses on a merger in the IT sector in real time.

This study allowed the authors to test theoretical elements, especially the choice of the integration method, which may favour the creation of technological innovation during the integration period. The authors present new reasons for the failure of co‐created innovation between an SME and a large enterprise in the IT sector. This case study allowed them to test theoretical elements such as the choice of an integration method which could favour the creation of technological innovation during the integration period while enriching scientific knowledge by proposing a dynamic approach to the integration process.

Before managers can envisage symbiosis between two merging firms, they first need to go through a period of exploration, which may entail costly mistakes. Yet this exploration period may be necessary to enable them to discover the limitations of a strictly rational approach to the integration process and to broaden their normal frame of reference. For this in‐depth study, the authors benefited from free access to a substantial amount of information that is generally unavailable for scientific research, which greatly contributed to their work. The authors' theoretical framework is not exhaustive, but they tried to incorporate the most significant research results.

Incentives are effective at enhancing productivity, but research also suggests that performance incentives can have “unintended negative consequences” including increases in hazard/injuries, increases in errors, and reduction in cooperation, prosocial behaviors, and creativity. Relatively overlooked is whether, when, and how incentives can be designed to prevent such negative consequences. The authors review literature in several disciplines (construction, healthcare delivery, economics, psychology, and [some] management) on this issue. This chapter, in toto, sheds a generally positive light and suggests that, beyond productivity, incentives can be used to improve other outcomes such as safety, quality, prosocial behaviors, and creativity, particularly when the incentives are thoughtfully designed. The review concludes with several potential fruitful areas for future research such as investigations of incentive-effect duration.

This paper aims to discuss ideas of factoring in external loss data to the internal loss data sets to obtain a true picture of operational losses for non-bank financial services firms, focusing on a case study of the interdealer brokers business and a specific Basel II category of the operational risk capital charges. As it transpires, financial services firms are increasingly required by regulators to merge external loss data with their internal data sets when using a loss distribution approach. However, there is a significant constrain on the availability and completeness of the external data for non-bank financial services firms.

Embarking on a modified Kaplan-Meier method is a clever way of factoring in external loss data into the internal data set. It allows non-bank financial firms to choose which fragments of the data constitute “the best fit”. In choosing the external data, this paper posits that such firms need to rely on loss-type events that display similar patterns in probabilities of occurrence. This method eliminates over-reliance on the external data that are specific for a different entity. One of the most important assumption underpinning the method presented in this paper is the fact that constant time intervals between the recorded operational loss events are assumed. Hereto, reaching a certain level of loss is used as the event of interest in both groups. For simplification purposes and to eliminate the noise and capture significant losses, we set this level as a multiplicity of the interdealer broker’s loss threshold.

Obtaining external loss data is difficult for the non-bank financial services firms. Furthermore, institutions operating as interdealer brokers are exposed to different levels of operational risk that affect their own Advanced Measurement Approach to capital charges under Basel II. The existing consortium data sets are not suitable for non-bank financial institutions. With this in mind, the non-bank firms should select only the parts of the external data that fit their business environment.

This paper should be of interest to any financial services firms that is required by regulators to merge its internal loss data sets with external loss data. Furthermore, this paper makes strong recommendations for regulators who should understand that the contemporary operational risk consortium data sets are not suitable for non-bank financial services firms.

The authors describe a hypothetical course that educators can use as a resource and model to (1) inform students about the transformations currently occurring as societies grounded in practices of the 20th century Industrial Age experiment with the emergent systems and structures of the 21st century Innovation Age, (2) identify experiential learning strategies that actively engage students in practicing the collaboration skills they will need to be successful, and (3) expose students to the field of positive psychology to understand their psychological strengths and to learn how to use them strategically to enjoy more success across multiple social networks. These multiple social networks present a complexity to learners that require students to develop a navigational compass. Psychological strengths refer to personality traits and competencies that enable people to do things well. In this three module course, students learn how moments of positive emotion can contribute to the high levels of engagement that occur when operating from strengths. Awareness and use of strengths energize the drive for achievement, sustain resilience, and improve performance. Students systematically identify their strengths and learn to spot strengths in others. In portfolios, they document engaged experiences to understand what truly energizes them and improves productivity. They reflect on how strengths and moments of positive emotion affect their self-esteem and self-efficacy. In class activities, students explore how to deploy strengths effectively in different settings. In the last module, they set goals and work with teams to discover why collaboration and communication are essential to maximizing the value of strengths-based learning in social networks.

This paper examines the dividend smoothing (DS) behaviour in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in emerging markets where the response to news and the economic environment are different from those of developed countries.

The authors examine the effect of share price informativeness on DS in the GCC markets using unbalanced panel data for a sample of 628 GCC-listed firms during 1994–2016. For the regression analysis, the hypotheses are tested using panel regressions and generalised method of moments (GMM) estimation.

First, the Lintner model shows that the DS degree in GCC firms is comparable to that of a developed market. Second, and importantly, the results reveal that the DS in GCC firms is sensitive to private information of share prices. Finally, the findings indicate that information asymmetry (IA) and agency-based models affect the tendency to smooth dividends in the GCC markets.

This study is the first study to measure the degree of DS using data for all GCC countries. The authors also identify other determinants of DS behaviour and test the agency and IA explanations for DS in GCC-listed firms. The findings are highly recommended to financial managers and analysts dealing with the GCC markets. This study helps financial analysts to use the share price informativeness as an indicator for the presence of the IA. The study results are beneficial to researchers in understanding the relationship between DS and share price informativeness.

Since the 1960s many alphanumeric to tactile data conversion methods have been investigated, mainly with the ultimate aim of assisting the blind. More recently, interest has been directed toward the display of pictures on haptically explorable surfaces – tactile imaging – for a range of medical, remote sensing and entertainment purposes. This paper examines the technologies which have been utilised for haptically explorable tactile displays over the past three decades, focussing on those which appear commercially viable in the immediate future.

This chapter describes tenets of complexity theory including the precept that within the same set of data X relates to Y positively, negatively, and not at all. A consequence to this first precept is that reporting how X relates positively to Y with and without additional terms in multiple regression models ignores important information available in a data set. Performing contrarian case analysis indicates that cases having low X with high Y and high X with low Y occur even when the relationship between X and Y is positive and the effect size of the relationship is large. Findings from contrarian case analysis support the necessity of modeling multiple realities using complex antecedent configurations. Complex antecedent configurations (i.e., 2–7 features per recipe) can show that high X is an indicator of high Y when high X combines with certain additional antecedent conditions (e.g., high A, high B, and low C) – and low X is an indicator of high Y as well when low X combines in other recipes (e.g., high A, low R, and high S), where A, B, C, R, and S are additional antecedent conditions. Thus, modeling multiple realities – configural analysis – is necessary, to learn the configurations of multiple indicators for high Y outcomes and the negation of high Y. For a number of X antecedent conditions, a high X may be necessary for high Y to occur but high X alone is almost never sufficient for a high Y outcome.

Increasing physical activity can reduce obesity risk among adolescents. This study analyses how behaviours, ethnicity and various sociocultural characteristics may influence the likelihood of engaging in active commute and other healthy activities. The authors analyse data from the 2010 National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey. The sample included US Hispanic high school students from 9th to 12th grade. Quasi-Poisson regression was used to understand the association between 24 possible variables and the number of days physically active at least 60 minutes per day. This study will present findings by race and ethnicity: non-Hispanic whites and blacks, as well as Hispanics. The research findings uncover that walking is the most predominant physical activity among Hispanics, especially from school to home, which indicates engagement in active transportation. This study shows the need for tailoring physical activity and health programmes by race and ethnicity. Interventions that encourage active commute can be effective for adolescents to achieve physical activity guidelines – at least 60 minutes per day.

This paper seeks to determine the relationship among school size, school culture and students' achievement at secondary level in Pakistan.

The study was descriptive (survey type). It was conducted on a sample of 90 secondary school head teachers and 540 primary, elementary and high school teachers working in the government boys secondary schools of Punjab province. Data was collected through three sources: first, statistics on education from Education Management Information System (EMIS) Punjab; second, annual results of grade 9 and 10 students of Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISEs) Punjab; and third, a questionnaire which contained 39 items at five‐point rating scale and ten items in yes/no form. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were ensured through experts' opinions and pilot testing in early 2006; the overall reliability was established at 0.967.

There was a significant correlation between school size and school culture, and school size and students' achievement. Small schools revealed positive school culture and performed better than medium and large schools.

The policy makers, administrators and managers, and teachers at secondary level may improve school culture by bringing schools to a reasonable size, which may improve the students' achievement in Pakistan. The findings may be useful for other countries of almost similar socio‐economic status to improve the quality of teaching‐learning at secondary level.