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Purpose: An examination of the uptake and application of Robotic, Artificial Intelligence and Service Automation (RAISA) technologies by the events industry.

Design/methodology/approach: Academic and practitioner literature review and analysis pertaining to the relevance of RAISA in events.

Findings: The events industry has tended to rely on automation in staging and event production and the application of RAISA in events has been limited but holds great potential for the future. Whereas, in the hospitality and tourism industries RAISA has been applied across a range of service functions. For example, in such industries, artificial intelligence, machine learning and service robotics technologies have become commonplace. Nonetheless, the same level of adoption of RAISA in events is less evident particularly in front-of-house operation, due largely to the incompatibility with the raison d'être of event attendance – the purposive congregation of people seeking an event experience.

Research limitations/implications: The findings are the views of the authors and are therefore reliant upon existing events management literature on RAISA and their interpretation of this information and its application to the events industry.

Practical implications: RAISA has the capacity to play a crucial technical function in the events industry. However, it needs to be acknowledged that an event is essentially an experiential product which is simultaneously delivered and consumed in a particular setting/venue. RAISA applications and techniques avail event management immense sustainability and growth potential.

Social implications: Events are expressions of human social interactions and activities. Given the recent trend in sports media consumption as a substitute for live event attendance compounded by barriers to event attendance such as heightened terrorism threat and high expense/cost, there is a real risk of degradation of the social significance of the events industry. The prudent uptake of RAISA has the potential to emolliate the barriers to attendance while facilitating effective marketing and industry sustainability.

Originality/value: This chapter provides a new perspective in focusing on the potential applicability of RAISA in event management practice.

The purpose of this paper is to use an experiential learning model in an introduction to events unit/module in partnership with Sport Canterbury (one of 17 regional Sports Trusts, throughout New Zealand). During this unit/module students explored the creation and manipulation of an event experience and gained real-life hands on experience. Through their engagement in this process, students were able to acquire skills and knowledge that helped them experience the whole event planning cycle in planning, implement and evaluating an event. Experiential learning approaches are a valuable tool to overcome the knowledge-practice gap recognised in many vocationally orientated disciplines, including event management.

This paper uses a mixed methods approach including an on-line questionnaire, a number of interviews with students enrolled in the unit/module a survey involving the evaluation of those involved in the events organised by the students and a review of critical reflection diaries, written by students.

This paper highlights that an extensive range of event skills both personal and team based were acquired, developed and practised during the unit/module and students were able to relate the theory of event studies to the practice of managing an event. In particular students reported that they were able to utilise, record and reflect on their experience and adapt their learning to organising a real-life event. The experiential learning model used in this study resulted in students being actively engaged in their learning through involvement and active participation in an actual event, where they were able to apply what they had learnt in the classroom to the real world. The connection between theory and practice is therefore, pivotal and is a prevailing theme of this paper.

This paper demonstrates how students of event management were provided with the skills and knowledge to run events, by personal involvement in a real-life event in a student centred learning environment. Students enrolled on this unit/module were made responsible for every aspect of managing the annual Rebel Kiwisport Challenge (a series of recreation-based events held over a half day period for primary schoolchildren based in the Canterbury region). Balancing the theoretical input with the practical aspects of events in the introduction to events module/unit enabled students to become multitasking and as a result gain highly portable skills that will help them succeed in their future careers in events. Indeed, in a survey involving 1,100 employers in Australia Neilsen (2000) reported that the five most important skills needed for graduate employment were oral business communication skills, creativity, problem-solving skills, independent and critical thinking skills and flexibility. Similar research undertaken by Greenan et al. (1997) in the UK and Braxton et al. (1996) in the USA, report the same findings. Although, there is a dearth of literature in the social sciences on experiential learning, the same debate within event management education is sadly lacking and it is hoped that this study will help fill a gap in the literature.

Presents a portfolio model for multi‐sales channel effort deployment. Shows how the approach can help sales management restructure sales channels. Notes that combining an organization′s selling effort into multiple sales channels can be facilitated through an analytical approach that considers variations in customer requirements, buying power and contact costs. Concludes that implementing a successful multiple sales channel strategy offers impressive productivity opportunities.

This article provides a discussion of the unaccompanied British juvenile migration programme to Australia by the Salvation Army (henceforth, the Army) within the context of the imperialist ideas of William Booth and the racist White Australia Policy, as well as Booth’s ideas regarding the ‘training’ of children. The programme was complex in character and diversity, particularly in relation to its philosophy, aims and objectives. One of the central themes of the Army’s programme was support for British imperialism and expansion of the British Empire by populating its Dominions with large numbers of white British migrants: hence it was referred to as ‘emigration and colonisation’. Such migration was regarded as vital to generate economic growth and a strong defence of the Empire. The Army claimed that its migration programme would be of national benefit as it could provide Australia with migrants with significant economic potential.

REGULAR READERS of this column will have noted, perhaps with relief, the self‐restraint I have applied in recent months in connection with the game of cricket, not a word about which have I imparted to you throughout the summer.

There are many actions‐at‐law in which chemical problems come up incidentally for consideration; there are other cases in which they are the very essence of the matter in dispute. Especially does this apply to proceedings under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts. There the main, if not the whole, question at issue is purely chemical in its nature; and yet the tribunal sitting in judgment need not have, and generally has not, any chemical training or knowledge. Of necessity, this leads to decisions of an unsatisfactory nature, and which are not infrequently at variance with the obvious and generally admitted deductions from chemical analysis. Another consequence is that on practically the same set of facts, diametrically opposite decisions may be given. This is well exemplified in the two following cases of alleged adulteration of ginger‐wine and lime‐juice cordial respectively with salicylic acid.

Recent research in the public finance literature has developed a new model for the analysis of tax structures. Unlike the traditional income elasticity methodology, this model examines a structure in terms of its growth rate and volatility of receipts. Once a structure is analyzed, the model demonstrates how revenue volatility may be reduced without sacrificing the rate of growth of receipts. This study applies this special methodology to the indirect tax structure of Turkey, in order to demonstrate how revenue instability can be minimized in a developing country. Results of the empirical analysis show how the indirect tax structure could be modified to obtain an acceptable rate of growth and volatility in receipts, to support essential government services.

Two competing hypotheses have been developed in the public economics literature to explain the growth of government spending. The first, termed the fiscal illusion hypothesis, holds that governments have incentives to induce a misperception in the population about the cost of government. By constructing complex systems of taxation that obscure the true cost of government services, governments can lead the taxpayer to demand a larger quantity of services. The other hypothesis, the fiscal stress hypothesis, holds that tax complexity diversifies revenues, leading to less revenue variability and, hence, lower costs. Taxpayers, then, demand more government services. The two hypotheses make very different assumptions about the incentives of governments in regard to an informed electorate. The fiscal illusion hypothesis suggests incentives to obscure information, while the fiscal stress hypothesis suggests incentives to reveal true costs.

Accounting and financial reporting can play a role in revealing fiscal information to taxpayers, directly or indirectly, through information intermediaries. If the fiscal illusion hypothesis describes the behavior of governments, we would expect that such governments would attempt to protect the information advantage that is conveyed by a complex tax structure by minimizing accounting disclosures. On the other hand, the fiscal illusion hypothesis suggests that a government with a complex tax structure has no reason to minimize disclosure, and may have incentives publicize lower service costs.

This study examines the association of tax complexity and financial disclosure. We find that there is more disclosure in cities with more complex tax systems, a result that supports the fiscal stress hypothesis.

This paper examines the historical background of accountingization, colonization and hybridization in the health services by exploring the relationship between hospital accounting and clinical medicine in Britain between the late 1960s and the early 2000s.

The paper draws on an analysis of professional journals, government reports and other documentary sources relating to accounting and medical developments. It is informed by Abbott's sociology of professions and Eyal's sociology of expertise.

The paper shows that not only accountants but also elements within the medical profession sought to make the practice of medicine more visible, calculable and standardized, and that accounting and medical attempts to make medicine calculable interacted in a mutually reinforcing manner. Consequently, it argues that a movement towards clinical forms of quantification within the medical profession made it more open to economic calculation, which underpinned hospital accounting reforms and the accountingization, colonization or hybridization of health services.

The paper demonstrates that a fuller understanding of the relationship between accounting and public sector professions can be developed if we examine their mutual interactions rather than restricting ourselves to analyzing accounting's effects on public sector professions. The paper moreover illustrates instances of intraprofessional conflict and inter-professional cooperation, and draws on the sociology of expertise to suggests that while hospital accounting reforms have curbed the power of medical professionals, they have also enhanced the power of clinical expertise.