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1 – 10 of 115
Article
Publication date: 1 February 1983

Keith Fletcher and Alan Napier

Examines the threats posed to the UK rental industry by consumers' decision to buy. Traces the history of the UK rental industry, including the decline of black and white against…

Abstract

Examines the threats posed to the UK rental industry by consumers' decision to buy. Traces the history of the UK rental industry, including the decline of black and white against the boom of colour, and the rise of brand consciousness. Addresses marketing issues including pricing and the location of showrooms. Discusses the consequences of competition in the marketplace. Highlights the results of a survey into consumers' attitudes on buying or renting. Asserts that consumer motivations to continue or renew a rental agreement are not the same as at the initial decision to rent, so rental companies must adopt new marketing tactics. Concludes that rental companies must reverse the trend for replacement decisions to favour purchase over renting or their future looks bleak.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 17 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1985

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover…

16649

Abstract

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 23 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

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Article
Publication date: 1 May 2020

Alan Lowe, Yesh Nama, Alice Bryer, Nihel Chabrak, Claire Dambrin, Ingrid Jeacle, Johnny Lind, Philippe Lorino, Keith Robson, Chiara Bottausci, Crawford Spence, Chris Carter and Ekaterina Svetlova

The purpose of this paper is to report the outcome of an interdisciplinary discussion on the concepts of profit and profitability and various ways in which we could potentially…

2046

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report the outcome of an interdisciplinary discussion on the concepts of profit and profitability and various ways in which we could potentially problematize these concepts. It is our hope that a much greater attention or reconsideration of the problematization of profit and related accounting numbers will be fostered in part by the exchanges we include here.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper adopts an interdisciplinary discussion approach and brings into conversation ideas and views of several scholars on problematizing profit and profitability in various contexts and explores potential implications of such problematization.

Findings

Profit and profitability measures make invisible the collective endeavour of people who work hard (backstage) to achieve a desired profit level for a division and/or an organization. Profit tends to preclude the social process of debate around contradictions among the ends and means of collective activity. An inherent message that we can discern from our contributors is the typical failure of managers to appreciate the value of critical theory and interpretive research for them. Practitioners and positivist researchers seem to be so influenced by neo-liberal economic ideas that organizations are distrusted and at times reviled in their attachment to profit.

Research limitations/implications

Problematizing opens-up the potential for interesting and significant theoretical insights. A much greater pragmatic and theoretical reconsideration of profit and profitability will be fostered by the exchanges we include here.

Originality/value

In setting out a future research agenda, this paper fosters theoretical and methodological pluralism in the research community focussing on problematizing profit and profitability in various settings. The discussion perspectives offered in this paper provides not only a basis for further research in this critical area of discourse and regulation on the role and status of profit and profitability but also emancipatory potential for practitioners (to be reflective of their practices and their undesired consequences of such practices) whose overarching focus is on these accounting numbers.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 1233 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

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Article
Publication date: 26 November 2021

Nigel Craig, Nick Pilcher, Alan M. Forster and Craig Kennedy

The spirits industry is a major economic contributor worldwide, often requiring years of maturation in barrels that is associated with significant release of ethanol into the…

Abstract

Purpose

The spirits industry is a major economic contributor worldwide, often requiring years of maturation in barrels that is associated with significant release of ethanol into the surrounding environment. This provides carbon nutrition for colonisation of black fungal growths, one type being Baudoinia compniacensis, or Whisky Black. Although growth is localised in production areas, numerous sites exist globally, and this paper's purpose is to investigate the extent and implications of colonisation.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper presents and discusses the results of a visual survey of the area surrounding a site where whisky is maturing in nearby bonded warehouses. The evaluation considers radial zoning distance from the ethanol source and material substrate types and surface textures. Classical key stages of Building Pathology, namely manifestation, diagnosis, prognosis and therapy, are considered.

Findings

Key findings are that the colonisation of the fungus is non-uniform and dependent on the substrate building material. Additionally, rougher-textured building materials displayed heavier levels of fungal manifestation than smooth materials. Aspects such as distance, wind direction and moisture are considered relative to the extent and level of fungal growth.

Originality/value

This investigation provides the first assessment of the extent and nature of the fungal growth in properties built in surrounding areas to bonded warehouses. Such information can facilitate open dialogue between stakeholders that recognise the aspirations of values of corporate social responsibility, whilst balancing the economic importance of distilling with recognition of the fungus's impact on property values and appropriate recurring remedial treatments.

Details

International Journal of Building Pathology and Adaptation, vol. 41 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-4708

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Article
Publication date: 21 January 2022

Angélica Vasconcelos, Alan Sangster and Lúcia Lima Rodrigues

The main aim of this paper is to illustrate the importance of avoiding Whig interpretations in historical research. It does so by highlighting examples of what may occur when this…

Abstract

Purpose

The main aim of this paper is to illustrate the importance of avoiding Whig interpretations in historical research. It does so by highlighting examples of what may occur when this is not done. The paper also aims to promote interdisciplinarity, in the form of working with those from other disciplines, as a means to avoid this occurring.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper includes an in-depth study of the bookkeeping and financial reporting of two 18th century Portuguese state-sponsored companies using archival sources. The companies were selected because of conflicting insights across disciplines concerning the quality of their bookkeeping and financial reporting – historians have been very critical, while accounting historians have seen little wrong. These differences of opinion have never previously been investigated. The authors demonstrate how information was distributed among the account books and other records of the two companies. The approach adopted enabled a reader to fully understand the recorded economic events. The authors also present and explain the procedures, criteria and accounting terminology used in their annual reports.

Findings

This paper demonstrates how easy is to inadvertently adopt a Whig interpretation of accounting history when the focus of interest is something of which the principal researcher has insufficient understanding or expertise. It also illustrates how important it is to embrace interdisciplinarity by working with those from other discipline to avoid doing so.

Research limitations/implications

The conclusions from the case study are company-specific and cannot be generalised beyond those companies. However, the implications of this study go beyond the companies in its illustration of the importance of fully understanding historical evidence within its own context.

Originality/value

This paper unveils primary archival sources never previously presented in the literature. It also contributes to the literature by providing an evidence-based justification for the calls previously made to accounting historians to study accounting in its social context and engage with historians from other disciplines.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 35 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 November 2014

Paul Barron, Anna Leask and Alan Fyall

The purpose of this study is to present strategies that hospitality and tourism organisations might adopt as a means of encouraging employee engagement, thus enabling the more…

5309

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to present strategies that hospitality and tourism organisations might adopt as a means of encouraging employee engagement, thus enabling the more effective management of an increasingly multi-generational workforce. This paper evaluates current strategies being adopted that might encourage employee engagement by a selection of hospitality and tourism organisations and develop recommendations for organisations wishing to more effectively engage the multi-generational workforce.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopts a mixed methods approach and presents findings based on a series of semi-structured interviews with management and self-completion questionnaires aimed at employees.

Findings

The relationship between the supervisor and the employee remains a key enhancer regarding engagement and employees are increasingly demanding more contemporary methods of communication. Employers should take note of generational characteristics and adopt flexible policies attractive to all employees.

Practical implications

This paper contributes no t only to the debate regarding generational differences in the workplace but it also identifies that the various generations evident in tourism organisations are desirous of similar working conditions and benefits. Organisations should consider the development of a range of packages that focus on linking employees with their purpose, their colleagues and their resources as a means of encouraging employee engagement.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the debate regarding employee engagement and compares and contrasts initiatives that various tourism and hospitality organisations are adopting as a means of encouraging employee engagement. The study also elicits the views of the organisations employees to understand the extent of the effectiveness of such initiatives and makes recommendations regarding the most effective initiatives from both a management and employee perspective.

Details

Tourism Review, vol. 69 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1660-5373

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2003

Jo Carby‐Hall

Proposes to treat social law contracts by covering the two most important aspects of the contract of employment, and also the collective agreement. Covers the contract of…

2661

Abstract

Proposes to treat social law contracts by covering the two most important aspects of the contract of employment, and also the collective agreement. Covers the contract of employment in full with all the integral laws explained as required, including its characteristics, written particulars, sources or regulations, with regard to employers, are also covered. Lengthy coverage of the collective agreement is also included, showing legal as well as moral (!) requirements, also included are cases in law that are covered in depth.

Details

Managerial Law, vol. 45 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0558

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2001

Kwaku Appiah‐Adu, Alan Fyall and Satyendra Singh

The purpose of this exploratory empirical study was to examine the link between effective marketing practices and business performance in the financial services industry. Based on…

5867

Abstract

The purpose of this exploratory empirical study was to examine the link between effective marketing practices and business performance in the financial services industry. Based on a multi‐item construct of marketing effectiveness, data were generated from 52 banks and building societies. The effects of different marketing effectiveness dimensions upon profitability and growth as well as customer‐based performance indicators were investigated. Our results suggest that organisational variables such as customer philosophy, operational efficiency, marketing information and integrated marketing organisation are generally, significantly and positively associated with business performance. To conclude, managerial implications of the findings, study limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 15 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 October 2020

Bradley Bowden and Peta Stevenson-Clarke

Postmodernist ideas – most particularly those of Foucault but also those of Latour, Derrida and Barthes – have had a much longer presence in accounting research than in other…

Abstract

Purpose

Postmodernist ideas – most particularly those of Foucault but also those of Latour, Derrida and Barthes – have had a much longer presence in accounting research than in other business disciplines. However, in large part, the debates in accounting history and management history, have moved in parallel but separate universes. The purpose of this study is therefore one of exploring not only critical accounting understandings that are significant for management history but also one of highlighting conceptual flaws that are common to the postmodernist literature in both accounting and management history.

Design/methodology/approach

Foucault has been seminal to the critical traditions that have emerged in both accounting research and management history. In exploring the usage of Foucault’s ideas, this paper argues that an over-reliance on a set of Foucauldian concepts – governmentality, “disciplinary society,” neo-liberalism – that were never conceived with an eye to the problems of accounting and management has resulted in not only in the drawing of some very longbows from Foucault’s formulations but also misrepresentations of the French philosophers’ ideas.

Findings

Many, if not most, of the intellectual positions associated with the “Historic Turn” and ANTi-History – that knowledge is inherently subjective, that management involves exercising power at distance, that history is a social construct that is used to legitimate capitalism and management – were argued in the critical accounting literature long before Clark and Rowlinson’s (2004) oft cited call. Indeed, the “call” for a “New Accounting History” issued by Miller et al. (1991) played a remarkably similar role to that made by Clark and Rowlinson in management and organizational studies more than a decade later.

Originality/value

This is the first study to explore the marked similarities between the critical accounting literature, most particularly that related to the “New Accounting History” and that associated with the “Historic Turn” and ANTi-History in management and organizational studies.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. 27 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1348

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 September 2000

Jonathan C. Morris

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and…

31557

Abstract

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Details

Management Research News, vol. 23 no. 9/10/11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0140-9174

Keywords

1 – 10 of 115