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A problematic issue for new approaches to prefabricated timber construction is simply that there is insufficient productivity measurement data to assist estimation of resource usage, speed onsite and best practice. A lack of information potentially results in increased pricing behaviour which may slow the uptake of prefabricated construction. The purpose of this paper is to measure installation productivity onsite for prefabricated timber floor cassette panels and develop sufficient understanding of the process to suggest improved practices.

A time and motion approach, paired with time-lapse photography was used for detailed capture of prefabricated cassette flooring installation processes onsite. An emphasis was placed on work flow around crane cycles from three case study projects. Time and date stamping from 300 crane cycles was used to generate quantitative data and enable statistical analysis.

The authors show that crane cycle speed is correlated to productivity including gross and net crane time scenarios. The latter is refined further to differentiate uncontrolled outlying crane cycles from normally distributed data, representing a controlled work process. The results show that the installation productivity rates are between 69.38 and 123.49 m²/crane-hour, based on normally distributed crane cycle times. These rates were 10.8–26.1 per cent higher than the data set inclusive of outlier cycles. Large cassettes also proved to be more productive to place than small.

The contribution of this research is the focus on cranage as the lead resource and the key unit of measure driving installation productivity (in cassette flooring prefabricated construction), as distinct from past research that focuses on labour and craft-based studies. It provides a different perspective around mechanisation, for resourcing and planning of work flow. Crane cycles provide a relatively easy yet reliably repeatable means for predicting productivity. The time-lapse photographic analysis offers a high degree of detail, accuracy and objectivity not apparent in other productivity studies which serves to enable quantitative benchmarking with other projects.

The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and human resources management researchers, we aim to contribute to the respective bodies of knowledge to provide both employers and employees with a workable foundation to help with those problems they are confronted with. However, what research on research has consistently demonstrated is that the scientific endeavor possesses existential issues including a substantial lack of (a) solid theory, (b) replicability, (c) reproducibility, (d) proper and generalizable samples, (e) sufficient quality control (i.e., peer review), (f) robust and trustworthy statistical results, (g) availability of research, and (h) sufficient practical implications. In this chapter, we first sing a song of sorrow regarding the current state of the social sciences in general and personnel and human resources management specifically. Then, we investigate potential grievances that might have led to it (i.e., questionable research practices, misplaced incentives), only to end with a verse of hope by outlining an avenue for betterment (i.e., open science and policy changes at multiple levels).

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of audit client importance on future bank risk and systemic risk in US-listed commercial banks.

The authors use archival research method.

The authors mainly find that client importance is negatively related with future bank-specific crash risk and distress risk, and also with sector-wide systemic crash risk and systemic distress risk in the future. The authors also report some evidence that these relations become more pronounced during the crisis period than during the non-crisis period. Moreover, the effect of client importance on systemic risk is found to strengthen in banks audited by Big-N auditors, by auditors without clients who restate earnings, and by auditors with more industry expertise.

These findings contribute to the auditing and systemic risk literature.

This study has implications for regulating the banking industry.

This study provides original evidence on how client importance affects bank-specific risk and systemic risk of the banking industry.

Despite several efforts during the last years, the web model and semantic web technologies have not yet been successfully applied to empower Ubiquitous Computing architectures in order to create knowledge‐rich environments populated by interconnected smart devices. In this paper we point out some problems of these previous initiatives and introduce SoaM (Smart Objects Awareness and Adaptation Model), an architecture for designing and seamlessly deploying web‐powered context‐aware semantic gadgets. Implementation and evaluation details of SoaM are also provided in order to identify future research challenges.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to understand how and why employee attitudes to change might change over time; and to demonstrate what type of research might best capture this change.

The paper brings together three studies of the same organization, conducted at different times by the same researchers.

Employee attitudes to change in the three episodes are portrayed in terms of the assumptions that seem to underpin them. The first episode is characterized by a challenge to the basic assumptions employees have about their work; the second, by a fragmentation of assumptions according to sub-group; and the third, by the confirmation of a new set of assumptions about what work involves.

The paper concludes that fieldwork of a longitudinal nature is something quite rare, and its incorporation into research design needs to move beyond dealing with it through an uneasy combination of retrospection and extended organizational exposure.

The paper provides a rare and valuable account of how employee attitudes to change might change over time. The research design on which it is based, though fortuitous in nature, overcomes a number of the weaknesses of more conventional studies in this area.