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This study aims to investigate whether social reputation via corporate social responsibility (CSR) awarding facilitates access to debt and decreases the cost of debt and whether governance mechanisms moderate this relationship.

The sample covers the period between 2002 and 2021, during which CSR award data were available in the Thomson Reuters Eikon/Refinitiv database. The empirical models are based on country, industry and year fixed-effects regression.

While the main findings produced an insignificant result for access to debt, they indicated strong evidence for the positive relationship between CSR awarding and the cost of debt. Moreover, the moderating effect highlights that while the sustainability committee helps CSR-awarded companies access debt more easily, independent directors help firms decrease the cost of debt via CSR awarding. Furthermore, the results differ between the US and the non-US samples, earlier and recent periods, high- and low-leverage firms and large and small firms.

For the first time, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors assess whether social reputation via CSR awarding facilitates access to debt and decreases the cost of debt in an international and cross-industry sample. Little is known about the effect of social reputation on loan contracting, although social reputation conveys broader information that goes beyond the firm’s internal (performance) and external (reporting) CSR practices. The authors also draw attention to the differing roles of distinct governance mechanisms in leveraging social reputation for loan contracting.

This paper aims to explore consumer perceptions of product design awards (PDAs) and their impact on consumer product evaluation and attitude formation about the award-winning product, the award-winning organization and the award-granting organization.

Based on the grounded theory approach, an exploratory qualitative study is conducted, using 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews with Turkish consumers through discussions on real-world examples.

Results show that consumers develop emotional responses to PDAs (e.g. interest, curiosity and confusion), hypothesize reasons for products receiving awards and cite rewards as confirmation of their existing judgments about products. PDAs are perceived as extrinsic cues signaling quality and price, and their impact is increased when consumers feel that the award is based on functional feature superiority. Consumer responses to PDAs are also influenced by the perceived expertise of the award-granting organization and beliefs about the award-granting process. Finally, PDAs can lead to positive brand-perception outcomes, influencing consumer perceptions of the product company as resourceful, competent and prominent.

This study shows that it is critical for companies to inform consumers about the specific features that resulted in a given product receiving a design award, as well as to provide information about the PDA itself.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to explore consumer perceptions of and reactions to PDAs, with significant implications for both the marketing managers of PDA-winning products and award-granting organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the procedures under section 17 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 (“The Act”) for enforcement proceedings to recover an awarded sum. This paper will demonstrate that the procedure is unclear and confusing to the party wall surveyors, the magistrates, the county court officers and the legal profession who express conflicting views on the appropriate method of enforcement. The intent of this paper is to examine and explain the procedures that will allow the recovery of costs and other contingencies, as a civil debt within the Magistrates’ Court, with a comparison of the more traditional route of the County Court.

The author has reviewed the relevant sections of the statutory acts and the limited publications that discuss and promote various methods of enforcement of actions that have been awarded and are recoverable summarily as a civil debt. Accordingly, the options to enforce payment within the magistrates’ and county courts will be considered, explained, and discussed within this paper.

This paper makes a contribution to the limited existing literature and theoretical interpretation of section 17 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, to provide a framework for considering the procedures and principles necessary to enforce payment of costs awarded under the Act. The paper makes a comparative analysis of the differences between the two recognised approaches and explains why a particular method (the Magistrates’ Court) will normally be the preferred option.

The paper demonstrates that there is confusion surrounding the appropriate method of enforcement, and provides a structured and detailed explanation of the appropriate method of enforcement.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform recently released a preliminary report with recommendations on cutting costs in the federal government, and one of its recommendations included the elimination of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, formerly known as the Malcolm Baldrige Nationality Quality Award Program. Established by an act of Congress in 1987, during the Reagan Administration, the goal of the Malcolm Baldrige Nationality Quality Award Program was to stimulate and reward product quality excellence. Since the inception of the award, however, there has been a long‐standing controversy among industry leaders and academics on whether winning this award does enhance future financial performance and ultimately shareholders' wealth. This debate has again been recently fueled by the possible elimination of the program by the US government. This study, aims to shed further light on this subject by examining the academic research on the financial performance of the Baldrige Award winners.

The paper examines academic and professional research on whether the Award adds value to firms and their investors.

The conclusion, perhaps not surprisingly, is somewhat mixed; although there is parsimonious evidence to suggest that Award winners do witness an increase in market value. By and large, the authors feel that when all the benefits of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program are considered and given the short‐term focus of studies in this area, the elimination of the program would be a terrible mistake.

The paper offers an original review and synthesis.

This paper sets out to examine the use of an automatic acquisition plan to acquire international children's award book winners in academic libraries and to offer suggestions for promoting these resources.

The paper examined the vendor's website, vendor‐created spreadsheets detailing award‐winning children's books from 2007‐2009, and book award websites.

The findings show that acquiring international children's award book winners using an automatic acquisition plan is an excellent starting‐point for developing international children's award collections. Featured awards favor works in English. Award books from all continents and regions are not available, but award winners chosen by ethnic and international organizations can be selected to broaden the ethnic and cultural diversity of the resources.

This paper details a beginning point for acquiring and promoting international children's award book winners for academic libraries in order to support multiculturalism and globalism by diversifying curriculum materials collection and providing vital resources for future educators and the larger campus community.

The purpose of this paper is to outline some of the benefits and limitations of the new Welsh Hygiene Award Scheme.

The benefits and limitations of the scheme are considered in relation to consumers and the industry.

The Welsh Hygiene Award Scheme appears to be popular with award winners, some of the local authorities and most of the public who are aware of it. It is too early to determine whether the initiative has resulted in an overall improvement in the hygiene standards of businesses. Unfortunately, the initiative does not inform the public of actual standards in food premises. This lack of transparency mainly relates to a lack of information for businesses and the public, limited publicity for the scheme in the media and the evident need to educate the public.

It adds to the limited literature on the evaluation of similar initiatives. Given that the FSA is considering the option of launching a national food hygiene award scheme, there is a need to carefully evaluate this and other schemes before finalising options.

The aim of this paper is to determine whether firms that have received quality awards (understood as an indicator of the implementation of quality systems) obtain higher profitability than those that have not.

The study was performed on a sample of Spanish firms that received TQM prizes at the national or regional level between 1997 and 2003 and a sample of control firms for drawing comparisons.

The work suggests that pioneer firms that applied this innovation are those that achieved profitability, especially when the model resembles in cases where the EFQM model.

The study may provide firms and institutions with some useful guidelines for the planning of future actions to promote the adoption of these management systems.

The paper analyses whether the results are influenced by factors such as the time when the award is achieved, the sector to which the firm belongs, or the nature of the award.

Quality awards, commonly, have basic criteria and sub-criteria to evaluate applicants based on the quality management principles and philosophies. The purpose of this paper is to examine the method of selecting award winners and its consequences.

Award winners’ and non-award winners’ performances of the Ethiopian Quality Award are the study groups. The criteria and sub-criteria evaluation results of the award were collected and analysed by the Mahalanobis-Taguchi System.

The research assumed that award winners’ performances are exceptionally outstanding. However, the result does not justify the assumption. Hence, the drawback of aggregating multivariate performance measures in a quality award is proven. Mahalanobis distance is proposed as alternative approach to evaluate and select organizations.

The outcome of this research will help award givers, evaluators and participants to understand the real difficulty to select very few organizations among applicants. Furthermore, it helps to consider the possible error when aggregating individual performance.

Aggregating performances is a common practice in quality awards evaluation process but this paper proved its drawback.

Interest arbitration is a collective bargaining procedure in which an independent arbitrator determines the terms of a binding contract. Because the union and employer each has the power to veto arbitrators from participating in future cases, the arbitrator exchangeability hypothesis suggests an arbitrator strategy of rendering awards similar to those awarded by past arbitrators to avoid veto. Arbitration theory, however, predicts that arbitrators will tend to select similar awards even if such strategy is not deliberately pursued This paper produces empirical evidence that arbitrators will tend to choose the same awards with or without the use of past awards as a guide.

The IFLA International Marketing Award was brought out in 2002 to libraries to employ marketing and bring out better results and identify the best marketing practices the world over. Now, the award has become a success story and through this paper efforts have been put up to showcase the award before library and information professionals around the world.

The primary data relating to award applications received each year have been collected and used to analyse and interpret in a meaningful way.

The IFLA International Marketing Award was introduced in 2001 and was awarded for the first time in 2002. Since then, this award recognises the first, second and third runner‐ups each year based on the marketing project in all kinds of libraries, worldwide. The award has attracted 276 applications from 55 countries during the last ten years. The paper analyses the award applications chronologically, geographically and by type of library. It also discusses the winning libraries and their marketing activities. It concludes that the award has become a success story and is expected to reach two new countries each year and 750 libraries from 75 countries in the next ten years.

The paper will be useful for library and information professionals to understand the value of marketing being practised around the world and will encourage them to employ a better marketing approach in the libraries.