Search results

Mergers and acquisitions are frequent occurrences in the world of business. While a merged firm may convert an acquired asset to other brands, the restaurant industry tends to acquire the same brand name and does not change the name of the acquired assets. Acquisitions can prove to be a risky proposition in any industry. This study attempts to determine if a product-diversified acquisition in the restaurant industry is a value-creating decision. By comparing focused and diversified acquisitions, we try to find if focused acquisitions create value and that diversified acquisitions do not. Our initial expectation was that focused acquisitions create more shareholder value. We find that both focused and diversified acquisitions make significant positive abnormal returns for acquirers.

This paper aims to investigate the presence of varying price points on the impact of product valuations in both English and reverse auctions on potential bidders, that is, those not yet engaged in the auction. Internet auctions, both English style and reverse, constitute one of the success stories of digital commerce.

As its method of research, this paper uses an experimental approach to explore the effects of multiple reference prices.

While previous research has done well to show that a lower initial price decreases barriers to entry and can lead to a higher final price in English-style auctions, this research shows that such a strategy may harm potential bidders’ product perceptions due to multiple reference prices. The authors explore situations of multiple reference prices in the context of reverse auctions, where both higher and lower reference prices are shown to be able to increase product valuations.

Additional research of a variety of products and using a representative sample would enhance the findings of this paper.

The findings show that reference prices have differing impacts, which are dependent upon the goal of either maximizing or minimizing the distance between the initial price and the price consumers are willing to pay in an online auction.

The investigation links differing goals created by the type of auction to the potential impact of the reference price. In addition, we explore the effects of multiple reference prices on consumer valuations.

Failing to effectively play their leadership role can have a devastating effect not only on leaders, but also on the group or team they are responsible to lead, as well as on the organization or organizations they belong to and/or serve. In the following example of a leadership failure, the author’s inability to come to the plate to play her required role as a leader had a negative impact on her professional standing, as well as on a number of individuals who she was called to lead. This example illustrates the necessity to master “leading oneself” prior to leading others. Cleaning out the cobwebs in one’s own psyche and mastering emotional intelligence are pre-conditions for effective leadership. This is especially true when leading in a foreign cultural context as this chapter shows. A leader always faces the possibility of having to deal with individuals who bring out those inner parts of oneself that have not yet been dealt with and healed. This chapter focuses on the importance of the key ingredient of leading oneself, namely emotional intelligence. Within emotional intelligence, the author examines her leadership failure in relation to self-awareness and self-regulation while leading a US government foreign assistance project. She highlights the negative impact on her leadership of fear that arose from unresolved past conflicts remaining in my shadow side. “Self-betrayal” emerged as a key factor also in her leadership failure.

THE Library Association Record will, no doubt, produce the appropriate account of the initiation of Mr. Charles Nowell, at Manchester, as President of the Library Association. Only a few words are necessary here to assure the new president of our satisfaftion with the recipient of our highest honour and our assurance of our loyalty. He has had the full apprenticeship from his youth up in the ways of public librarianship and the great work he has done since he has been Chief Librarian of Manchester has had the approval both of the citizens there and, we venture to assert, of the nation. It was specially appropriate that the ceremony, as was the case with Mr. Cashmore at Birmingham, should take place in his own city where the citizens, his Lord Mayor—who entertained the guests splendidly—his Committee and fellow City Officers could share in our tribute. It was even more fitting that that city should be the cradle of librarianship, having our pioneer of pioneers, Edward Edwards, as its first Librarian, and having also had a succession of fine library committees served by a series of quite eminent librarians. One word more; the speeches were worthy of the occasion and Mr. Gordon transferred his own powers to Mr. Nowell with the grace and eloquence he has shown consistently. Our readers will have seen the capital portrait—a speaking likeness—of Mr. Nowell in the January Record.

Digital technologies can enable engagement online as well as in physical infrastructures like large lecture theatres. Avoiding a tech-first approach to curriculum design, this article reviews a key resource for the use of a pedagogy-first, co-design approach in a specific instance of developing curriculum for connected learning at scale.

This article summarises key guidance for applying a co-design approach to a large educational transformation project (connected learning at scale) and reflects on the application in the UK (a developed economy) and in Vietnam (one of the fastest growing economies).

The guidance is found to reflect similar co-development processes in the UK and Vietnam, but adds additional layers of infrastructure and support to enable rich co-design processes. These are seen as proportionate given the impact of large-scale curricula.

This is the first time a review has been conducted from the perspective of different countries.

The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize published contemporary hospitality financial management research from 1998 through 2009 and provide future research directions.

The authors began their initial literature search by entering into the ABI/INFORM database via ProQuest 19 pre‐identified keywords (i.e. debt, financing, ownership) related to the major functions of financial management, namely investing, financing, and dividend decisions, as well as commonly indexed keywords in hospitality finance research. The paper then expanded the authors' literature list through the reference lists of the studies that they initially identified. The authors limited their search to published studies between 1998 and 2009 and within hospitality journals written in English.

The paper identifies 98 published papers that represented the major work and efforts in expanding the body of knowledge in both the theoretical and practical perspectives of hospitality financial management. The major categories of papers include hospitality financing, investing, dividend policy, financial condition, and performance. Areas that warrant further investigation are noted throughout the paper.

The papers review provides academics and practitioners an overview of the updated body of knowledge in the field and suggests the need for further in‐depth research to extend the literature and prompt better financial decision making for practitioners.

Since Harris and Brown's and Atkinson and Jones's reviews of past hospitality accounting and finance studies which mostly focused on the former, hospitality financial management research alone has grown noticeably in terms of diverse topics and sophistication of methodologies. To the authors' knowledge, no updated reviews that focus solely on hospitality finance research have been published in the last 12 years, and the need for such a task motivated them to conduct a review of recent research on this topic.

The objectives of this article are: 1 to give an overview of some basic ideas that were outlined in an earlier review paper by the author; 2 to bring it up to date by outlining the more important theoretical developments that have been reported since then; 3 to mention briefly some speculations arising from work in progress which has not yet been published.

The purpose of this case study is to discuss and analyze the process of developing and sustaining a multi-institutional digital humanities projects across several institutions.

This case study will provide an overview of a multi-institutional digital humanities project from the planning phase to implementation. In particular, this case study will discuss identifying institutional partners, collaborating with a design, designing for curricular integration and best practices for sustaining a project of this size and scope.

Sustainable collaboration develops slowly over time. Communication and consensus-building are key components to completing and sustaining a multi-institutional digital project. Scalable design is a crucial step in planning for project expansion.

Though many journal articles articulate “best practices” for collaboration among geographically dispersed institutions, very few case studies discuss “best practices” within the context of project development, from initial idea to completion.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the economic environment affects the merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in the restaurant industry.

The M&A transactions in the restaurant industry between 1981 and 2013 (n = 1,415) were examined. Data were collected from the Securities Data Corporation (SDC) database. Using an autoregressive distributed lag approach, this study developed three error correction models to explore the short- and long-term relationships between restaurant M&A activities and four macro-economic factors.

This study found that there was a long-term equilibrium relationship between the M&A activities and the four economic factors and that economic outlook had a significantly positive impact in the long term, while the effect of cost of debt was significantly negative in both the short and long terms. The findings suggest that restaurant firms are more likely to adopt M&A strategy when they are optimistic about the future economy and can take on debt at a low cost.

The findings of this study are expected to help practitioners make informative M&A decisions in the restaurant industry taking into consideration the economic environment. They will also help investors effectively manage their portfolios by predicting and ascertaining the proper time to invest in the restaurant industry based on the changes of economic environment.

No known study has been identified that examined the relationship between macro-economic factors and M&A activities in the restaurant industry. The findings of the study are expected to fill the gap in the literature by demonstrating the economic environment and the M&A activities in the restaurant industry are in a long-term equilibrium achieved by self-correction of their short-term disequilibrium.

The aim of this study was to determine the bona fide occupational requirements of general duty police work, and use this information to re‐validate a physical abilities test used in the police recruit selection process. A systematic random sample (n = 267) of general duty police officers completed two questionnaires: one concerning “average” duties, and one concerning the most physically demanding critical incident occurring in the 12 months prior. Of those completing the surveys, observational data were collected on every second officer, resulting in observational data collected for 121 officers, involving the recording of all physical activities and movement patterns observed throughout a ten hour shift. Data collected suggest there is a core of bona fide occupational requirements for general duty police work – walking, climbing stairs, manipulating objects, twisting/turning, pulling/pushing, running, bending, squatting and kneeling, and lifting and carrying. Many of these are involved in physical control of suspects, and can be tested using a well designed physical abilities test that simulates getting to the problem, controlling the problem, and removing the problem.