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The purpose of this paper is to advance an understanding of the concept of advice and its relationship to documents, information and knowledge.

A conceptual analysis of a sample of 48 relevant advice studies and two books, directly informed by documentation and information theories, was conducted to find out how researchers have approached advice conceptually since 1940. Further gains in understanding advice came from analyzing its relationship with environmental uncertainty.

Researchers have studied advice in the context of human-human, machine-machine and information and communication technology-intermediated interactions. Advice has been conceptualized and categorized in many different ways. Over time, conceptualizations of advice have broadened and become more general. In this light, it is theorized that advice is as an information object targeted at an unmade decision. This conceptualization of advice permits situated and momentary advice documents. A newly developed content-based framework of advice leads to an advice typology with four content-based categories of best possible advice: correct answers, probabilities, possibilities, and acknowledgments of the unknown.

The refined advice theory, content-based advice framework and related typology of advice contributed here are small steps toward improved clarity about the nature of advice. These findings are limited in their focus to advice theory and advice categorization.

Scholars, practitioners and information system developers may reconsider advice theory and make use of the content-based framework and related advice typology in their work. These contributions will help advice-givers and the developers of advice-giving information systems and advice networks to provide better advice.

This paper fills a need for a clear and straightforward overall conceptualization of advice that accounts for advice documents and is informed by how advice has been previously conceptualized in multiple scientific fields.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how stakeholders in the food and nutrition field construct and conceptualise “appropriate” national dietary advice.

In total, 40 voluntarily written stakeholder responses to updated official dietary guidelines in Sweden were analysed thematically. The analysis explored the logics and arguments employed by authorities, interest organisations, industry and private stakeholders in attempting to influence the formulation of dietary guidelines.

Two main themes were identified: the centrality of anchoring advice scientifically and modes of getting the message across to the public. Stakeholders expressed a view of effective health communication as that which is nutritionally and quantitatively oriented and which optimises individuals’ capacities to take action for their own health. Their responses did not offer alternative framings of how healthy eating could be practiced but rather conveyed an understanding of dietary guidelines as documents that provide simplified answers to complex questions.

Policymakers should be aware of industrial actors’ potential vested interests and actively seek out other stakeholders representing communities and citizen interests. The next step should be to question the extent to which it is ethical to publish dietary advice that represents a simplified way of conceptualising behavioural change, and thereby places responsibility for health on the individual.

This research provides a stakeholder perspective on the concept of dietary advice and is among the first to investigate referral responses to dietary guidelines.

This study introduces the concept of financial advice deserts (FADs), including financial advice received from personal financial advisors (PFAs) and Certified Financial Planners™ (CFP professionals) and investigates the association between living in these FAD states and the retirement planning activities of individuals.

This study uses merged data gathered from multiple sources including (1) available state-level information on CFP professionals from the CFP board website, (2) state-level information on PFAs from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and (3) individual levels of retirement planning behavior and other personal characteristics from the 2018 FINRA National Financial Capability Study. Using web data extraction tools and logistic regression analyses, this study examines the association between a series of individual retirement planning activities and living in the FAD states.

The study found that living in the FAD states was negatively associated with both having retirement accounts and contributing regularly to retirement accounts. Overall, the findings of this study underscore the need for providing greater access to financial advice and improving financial literacy among financially marginalized populations who are residing in FAD states in the United States of America.

This study makes unique contributions to the literature by raising the issue of geographic inequality in terms of access to financial advice and introducing the innovative notion of FADs. The findings provide fresh insights into the understanding of retirement planning and preparedness from the perspective of state-level inequality of financial advice through PFAs and CFP professionals, thereby expanding the previous knowledge that emphasizes only individual- and household-level differences. Significant implications for public policies and practitioners are also discussed.

Consumer protection was an important motivating factor behind the introduction of polarization in the Financial Services Act. Despite the potential benefits to the consumer of using independent financial advice as a source of information and a medium for the purchase of financial services, the majority of consumers appear to attach little value to the status of a financial adviser per se and instead attach importance to the image and reputation of particular suppliers. Reports a survey by in‐depth interviews of 140 consumers in the East Midlands, UK, that confirms the relatively low level of interest in independent financial advice, with the groups most likely to use such advisers being identified as the younger consumers from higher social class groupings who do not regularly collect product information from alternative sources such as newspapers and television.

Mr and Mrs Martin, the claimants, received financial advice from Mr Sherman, a representative of the Life Association of Scotland in 1991. The long‐term insurance business of the Life Association for Scotland was transferred to Britannia Life Ltd. in 1994, hence their position as Defendant to this claim. The financial advice the Martins received involved, in brief, a remortgage of their house, the surrender of a number of existing life policies which were collateral security for an existing mortgage on the house, the taking out of a new endowment policy and a pension policy with the new endowment policy being charged as collateral security on the mortgage. The judge described Mr Sherman as being, at the material time, a self‐employed financial consultant but he was actually for the purposes of the Financial Services Act 1986 a company representative of the Life Association for Scotland (LAS) authorised only to advise, market and sell that group's products. Mr Sherman was therefore a company representative of LAS within the meaning of rule 1.2 of the then applicable rules of the Life Assurance Unit Trust and Regulatory Organisation (LAUTRO).

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of how the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) of 1974, as amended , applies to securities professionals such as registered investment advisers, registered broker‐dealers and individual registered representatives and financial planners who advise, manage, or trade for investment portfolios of private employee benefit plans and individual retirement accounts.

The paper is designed as a primer to familiarize securities professionals with the terminology, scope and subject‐matter of ERISA as it applies to benefit plan investment transactions. When appropriate, the regulatory framework of ERISA is compared and contrasted with the more familiar securities law regulatory scheme.

The various Federal laws loosely known as “ERISA” significantly impact securities professionals in connection with the marketing of financial products and services to employee benefit plans, including IRAs, and it is critical that securities professionals have a general overview of how they do so.

The research set out is only a broad summary, and covers an area of law that is rapidly developing. It should not be considered a definitive summary of the law but a starting‐point for further, in‐depth inquiry.

Any financial professional seeking to develop or market financial products and services to benefit plans can use the paper to become familiar with the framework and terminology of ERISA.

This is a reprint of a paper first published in 2004, with extensive revisions to reflect sweeping changes in the law and new developments in the financial marketplace, plus an overview of “hot topics”.

The Financial Services Authority’s (FSA) Consultation Paper 121 suggesting depolarisation in the retail financial services sector has generated a great deal of debate. The motivation for the reforms, primarily to improve the position of the consumer, cannot be disputed. Nevertheless, in attempting such a wide‐sweeping change, it is clear that the reforms could bring difficulties as well as improvements. This paper argues that, to the extent that the current polarisation regime is detrimental for the consumer, this can be addressed without dismantling the basic framework of the current advice system. It acknowledges that there is a need for greater consumer education in this area, and that more needs to be done to address the needs of lower‐income consumers. Nevertheless, it is argued that the advantages anticipated as a result of the more radical reforms in the Consultation Paper are likely to be accompanied by problems that could negate the overall benefit accruing to consumers.

Defining authority is a topic of current interest in quality management. The problem of insuffient definitions of authority appears in different forms: overlap in authority, a hiatus in the division of authority, insufficient balance between responsibility and authority, etc. Defines the concepts of structure, hierarchy, responsibility and authority. Describes managerial method to define authority: the TRA‐session (TRA = task, responsibility and authority). The TRA‐session is a method where, at a team meeting, the authority divisions for over 200 responsibility areas are discussed. For each responsibility area it is indicated who is/are authorized to take decisions and who is/are authorized to give advice. In the TRA‐session management is encouraged to delegate authority. Gives an illustration to show what the authority division concerning product development could look like.

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate how the advice-giving affects innovative capability by involving knowledge exchange and combination as a mediator and contextual ambidexterity as an important contingency.

Based on a survey of 96 Chinese teams, a set of hypotheses was tested using regression analyzes.

The findings showed that contextual ambidexterity moderates the indirect effect of advice-giving on innovative capability through knowledge exchange and combination. When contextual ambidexterity is high, workers engage in more knowledge exchange and combination for the team at intermediate levels of advice-giving, the indirect effect of advice-giving at low levels and at high levels exist. When contextual ambidexterity is low, there is no indirect effect of advice-giving at any level.

Managers should be aware of the inverted U-shaped relationship between advice-giving and innovative capability and strengthen the construction of contextual ambidexterity.

This paper makes up for the theoretical gap between advice-giving and innovative capability. Furthermore, it provides a theoretical reference for practitioners to improve their innovative capability.