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The purpose of this paper is to investigate similar and different wayfinding strategies used by novice and expert patrons at an academic library.

The study employed a usability study approach. In total, 12 people, places, or things were identified as important for students to be able to locate within an academic library. Students from one of three groups (high school, freshmen, and seniors) were randomly assigned a scenario requiring them to find the indicated person, place, or thing. Student researchers video recorded participants and took field notes during the wayfinding activity and conducted an interview about participant’s experience following the exercise.

Total and average time needed to locate the person, place, or thing indicated in the scenario were determined for each group. In addition, wayfinding tools (signs, maps, help desks, technology, and experience) used by participants were identified.

The research compares novice and expert wayfinding strategies. It is unique in its use of student researchers as part of a sociology class project, to collect and analyze the data.

The contribution revisits existing research on human impacts on the performance of mergers and acquisitions. Findings are grouped into three categories: individual-, organizational- and managerial-related factors. Results show that while research seems various and abounding, influential factors are often studied as static setting approached in isolation, without measuring their direct relation to post-acquisition outcomes.

VoiceStream was a strong brand within the digital wireless communications industry at the time CEO Robert Dodson led the company. It had a loyal following of customers and a strong reputation for value. Despite pushback from senior management, CEO Robert Dotson made the decision to undergo a rebranding strategy during a period of declining revenue and growth. As VoiceStream transitioned to T-Mobile, it had initial success, but faced the challenge of how to position the brand long term.

This case study was written with the historical background of a well-known company and traces key decisions made during the company’s rebranding transition. This case comes complete with insights from then current CEO, Robert Dotson.

This case is suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses in marketing, management or strategy, where students are studying brand management. Additionally, this case will be valuable for courses that include advanced branding strategies such as rebranding. This case could also be used for discussion in positioning and advertising techniques. This case includes, via in-depth interviews, critical strategic insights from CEO Robert Dotson. The case illustrates some of the major opportunities and threats associated with the VoiceStream/T-Mobile rebranding strategy.

For work organizations and their members, establishing and maintaining mutually satisfying employment relationships is a fundamental concern. The importance that scholars attach to employment relationships is reflected in research streams that explore the optimal design of strategic human resource management systems, the nature of psychological contract fulfillment and violation, and the factors associated with achieving person-environment fit, among others. Generally missing from theory and research pertaining to employment relationships is the perspective of individuals who reside at the employee-employer interface – managerial leaders. We argue that, for managerial leaders, a pervasive concern involves the tangible and intangible resource requirements of specific employees. We then provide the groundwork for study of the leader’s perspective on employment relationships by proposing a model that identifies how employees come to be perceived as low versus high maintenance and how these perceptions, in turn, influence leader cognition, affect, and behavior.

Children experience toxic stress if there is pronounced activation of their stress-response systems, in situations in which they do not have stable caregiving. Due to their exposure to multiple poverty-related risks, African American children may be more susceptible to exposure to toxic stress. Toxic stress affects young children’s brain and neurophysiologic functioning, which leads to a wide range of deleterious health, developmental, and mental health outcomes. Given the benefits of early care and education (ECE) for African American young children, ECE may represent a compensating experience for this group of children, and promote their positive development.

This chapter is devoted to budget investments in the Russian Federation, which nowadays have a double meaning. This fact often causes confusion and misunderstandings in the implementation of investment activities.

Traditional Russian understanding of investment corresponds to the concept of capital expenditures or investments in fixed assets. As a result of budget investments, according to the budget legislation, the cost of public property necessarily increases. Such investments are budget expenditures for the creation (or purchase) of new capital assets. In this case, the budget investments are like a synonym for capital expenditures.

A new approach to the concept of cost of investments is linked to perception and rethinking of the concept of investment prevailing in the countries of Western Europe and North America. Under this approach, investments are understood as a commercial activity of the foreign investors, which consist of investing their funds in an unlimited range of objects of entrepreneurial activity in the territory of Russia. This approach is also embodied by the legislation of the Russian Federation.

However, in the second (not traditional for Russia) meaning, investment are carried out at the budget execution. These are, for example, assets of sovereign wealth funds of the Russian Federation, which are called the Reserve Fund and National Welfare Fund. These funds are formed by part of the revenues associated with oil production in the case of it exceeding its cost base per barrel, and the free assets of these funds are located in certain foreign currencies and securities.

The thesis of this book is that library measurement needs to move on and away from the idea that it is a process of counting and comparing the resources deployed by our libraries. The current emphasis on output measurement is an improvement but not the answer, refreshing as it is to judge a library by the quantity of what comes out instead of by the quantity of what is put in. The author believes that the nature of the library service is that of a “broad aim” social programme, best judged (evaluated) by gathering “politically significant information on the consequences of political acts”. “Political” here implies that the aims and intentions of those funding, organising and using libraries arise from more than one set of social values and from more than one definition of what the library is, and that they differ in priorities even when they do not directly conflict. Information about the library service will be in the form of a spectrum of measures reflecting the inputs, the processes, the outputs and the impact of the library, relating the various values in various ways. The difficulty in measuring library services, it is argued here, arises from the conflicts and lack of clarity about the aims of the service, and from uncertainty about how the process affects the outcomes. The technical problems of measurement are secondary. Chapter One aims to survey the range of measures available, whilst the rest of the book discusses how they might be used.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a new model for the measurement of the constitution and effects of the country image as a central target construct in international public relations.

The authors combine concepts from reputation management (Eisenegger and Imhof, 2008; Ingenhoff and Sommer, 2007), national identity theory (Smith, 1987), and attitude theory (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) to derive a four-dimensional model, conceptualizing country images as stakeholder attitudes toward a nation and its state, comprising specific beliefs and general feelings in a functional, normative, aesthetic, and emotional dimension. Furthermore, the authors develop a path model to analyze the country image’s effect on stakeholder behavior. This model is operationalized and tested in a survey regarding the country image of the USA and its effects on travel behavior.

Results show how functional, normative and aesthetic image dimensions vary in affecting the formation of the affective image component. It is also demonstrated how the affective image di-mension acts as a mediator in the image’s effect on stakeholder behavior.

For international public relations and public diplomacy practice the developed model supplies a new approach for country image analyses which will serve and improve the development and evaluation of cross-national communication strategies.

The paper introduces a new theory-grounded approach to clarify the dimensionality of the country image construct. It is the first to operationalize cognitive and affective dimensions of the country image by combining formative and reflective indicators in a mixed specified construct.

The milk supply of our country, in one form or another, has been the subject of discussion year after year at Congress meetings. Its importance is an admitted fact, but, notwithstanding, I again venture to call attention to the matter. On this occasion, however, I do not propose to touch much of the ground already covered by former papers, but to consider the results of experiments and observations made while dealing with milk supply under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts. For many years dairy regulations have been in force throughout the country which deal with the construction of floors and walls, and with lighting and ventilation. The owners of dairy farms in many parts of Scotland have spent large sums of money in improving their farms. Indeed, some enthusiasts have gone the length of introducing a system of heating and mechanical means of ventilation. It is only reasonable to pause and consider the practical results of these improvements, and to discover who are reaping the benefits from a milk supply standpoint. Do the owners of dairy farms receive anything like a fair return for their capital outlay? No. It is a well‐known fact that rents are on the down grade. Is the farmer of to‐day in a better financial position than formerly? No. He will tell you that the working of a “modern dairy” is more expensive than in the old steading, and that there is less flow of milk from the cows in the large airy byre than in the small old “biggin.” The price of milk is considerably less than it was fifteen or twenty years ago. At that time it ranged from 10d. to 1s. per gallon, and it is well known to you that hundreds of gallons of milk are now sent into our large cities for at least a distance of 100 miles, carriage paid, at 7½d. per gallon. In some cases the price is 9d. per gallon during the winter and 7½d. in summer. A farmer I know has a contract with a dairyman to supply him with 20 gallons of sweet milk, 16 gallons of skim milk, and 4 gallons of cream every day at an average rate of 7½d. per gallon all the year round. I have proved, by having test samples taken of the sweet milk, that it contains an average fat of 4.89 per cent. in 16 gallons. Neither the owner nor occupier of the farm can be any better off so long as such small prices prevail. Does the profit then come to the consumer? It does not.