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As a result of reorganisation within the Company, AVX Limited have appointed Keith France as General Manager, Sales and Marketing. Previously General Manager, Sales, Europe, Mr France now assumes the added responsibility for the marketing of AVX products throughout Europe.

In 1969, the annual per capita income of Singapore was $650. By 1981, Singapore's gross national product per capita was $5,240. Such productivity placed this small developing state among the very wealthiest non‐OPEC developing countries of the world, with an unequalled 1960–82 average annual growth rate of 7.4 per cent. During the decade to 1982, real per capita GNP grew by an average of 9.2 per cent each year. In 1982, gross domestic product amounted to $14 billion. In 1983, Singaporean real GNP grew by 7.2 per cent, a performance matched only by Hong Kong and Taiwan. Unemployment was held to a level of 2.3 per cent and inflation to an even more modest 1.1 per cent. Singapore also achieved the highest national savings rate in the world, at 42 per cent of GDP. These trends produced a 1985 GNP per capita of $7,420, larger than those of Italy, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Portugal and New Zealand; and not much less than those of either Belgium or Britain (World Bank, 1987, p. 203). If the nation's GDP contracted by 1.9 per cent in 1985, it resumed expansion thereafter, at an inflation‐adjusted rate of 1.8 per cent in 1986, and 8.6 per cent in 1987 (Wall Street Journal, 1988, p. 12).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of macroeconomic cyclical indicators and country governance on bank non-performing loans in African countries.

Data was collected from the 53 African countries covering 2005–2021. The paper develops an empirical model to examine the impact of country governance in reducing macroeconomic cycle-induced adverse effects on bank credit risk. This research estimates Random Effects models and the General Method of Moment to examine the link between microeconomic and governance factors on bank non-performing loans. Stata version 15.1 was used to conduct panel regression analysis.

The findings of the study revealed that the generalized method of moments findings contributes valuable insights into the persistence of NPLs over time and the specific effects of variables on NPL levels. The study findings highlight that the debt-to-GDP ratio, unemployment, regulatory quality, government effectiveness and inflation have significant relationships with NPLs, shedding light on their specific contributions to credit risk dynamics.

The focus on a specific set of determinants for NPLs, which may not capture all the factors that influence NPL levels. Thus, the study did not consider the impact of macroeconomic shocks, such as natural disasters or global economic crises, which can have a significant impact on NPLs.

Policymakers should prioritize maintaining sustainable debt levels, promoting employment growth and controlling inflation rates to mitigate credit risk and reduce nonperforming loans. Also, enhancing regulatory quality and government effectiveness is crucial in ensuring financial stability and minimizing non-performing loans in Africa.

This paper provides a new possible solution to minimise bank non-performing loans risk by examining interactions of country governance regarding the macroeconomic cycle behaviour.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0729

The growing public concern that private corporations should not only earn reasonable profits and provide fair returns to shareholders, but also operate as good corporate citizens and socially responsible organizations, has spread to the largest transnational corporations (TNCs), and seems to have been taken up by companies in both richer and poorer countries. Sustainable development calls for people and organizations to meet their present needs in such a way that does not hinder future generations’ ability to do the same. Many TNCs are creating voluntary environmental programs to manage more effectively the environmental impacts of their plants, facilities, and operations. These initiatives are especially important in developing countries with hazardous environmental conditions, social conditions, and non‐existent or poorly implemented regulatory protection.

One challenge facing the digitalized workplace is communication control, especially emotion regulation in which individuals try to manage their emotional experiences and/or expressions during organizational communication. Extant research largely focused on the facilitating role of a few media features (e.g. fewer symbol sets). This study seeks to provide a deeper understanding of media features that individuals, as receivers of negative emotions expressed by communication partners, could leverage to support regulating negative emotional communication in the workplace.

This study used qualitative research methods to identify media features that support regulating negative emotional communication at work. Data were collected using interviews and was analyzed using directed content analysis in which media features discussed in media synchronicity theory (MST) were used as the initial coding schema but the researcher was open to media features that do not fit with MST.

In addition to media features (and capabilities) discussed in MST, this study identified five additional media features (i.e. message broadcasting, message blocking, receiving specification, recipient specification and compartmentalization) and two underlying media capabilities (i.e. transmission control capability and participant control capability) that may support regulating negative emotional communication. Two major mechanisms (i.e. reducing or eliminating emotion regulation workload, and providing prerequisites or removing obstacles for emotion regulation) via which media features support emotion regulation were also identified.

This paper provides a more comprehensive understanding regarding communication media features that may support emotion regulation in particular and communication control in general. Findings of this study contribute to several literatures and may also transfer to other similar contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi‐dimensional, holistic model that: avoids the variable interdependency found in earlier tools; and integrates multiple factors that characterize menu item costs more accurately by considering more than gross profit.

Using data gathered during a three‐month period from three same‐brand units of a full‐service chain restaurant firm, the paper applies data‐envelopment analysis (DEA), a non‐parametric approach that accounts for both controllable (discretionary) and uncontrollable (non‐discretionary) variables, producing a single relative‐to‐best index based on an efficiency rating calculated on a 0 to 1 scale.

The findings suggest that the DEA‐equipped model, which is not constrained by the limitations of traditional matrix approaches, supports a more robust approach by incorporating more cost determinants than traditional menu engineering approaches.

The paper consists of only a single restaurant concept and the evaluation results are purely theoretical. Future research should include the application of the menu analysis recommendations to an actual menu to determine the effectiveness of the model on actual operation profitability.

The research suggests that DEA is an effective tool in the evaluation of a restaurant menu by evaluating individual menu items based on attributes of labor and profitability factors.

The paper shows that by combining DEA with traditional menu analysis methodologies, a more efficient menu analysis tool may be utilized to evaluate menu items without the arbitrary allocation of non‐food costs.

Computer‐based modelling is something with which many retailers are now familiar, especially simulation modelling, financial modelling, and decision support modelling. The writer argues that these models are largely tools to help solve important, clearly‐defined, operational business problems. But, he says, there is a vast range of broad, complex, “fuzzy” problems which are less operational than strategic. These are the problems which can be tackled by the use of strategy support modelling.

“A mad hatter's tea party” is the way one reporter describe the October 1975 Limits to Growth Conference. In his view something thoroughly silly was going on at that meeting in Houston. But, as in Alice in Wonderland, whatever nonsense there may have been on the surface, profound matters were the true subject of the conference. Some day that reporter may wake up and wonder how he failed to see the significance of the debate over growth. By that time we could be firmly in the clutches of no‐growth policies.

In many studies of the family there is an assumption that the family unit consists of the father as the principal (or even sole) wage earner and contributor to the family finance, with the mother having a subordinate role in earning; the children are usually seen, in this idealised account, as living at home and being financially dependent on the parents. Dennis, Henriques and Slaughter, for example, describe the family as “normally a group of father, mother and children all dependent upon the wage of the father”. The family, however, is not static, but changes in structure and function over time. In a very early study, for example, Rowntree suggested that, after the financial difficulty of the child rearing phase, there came a stage of relative affluence when unmarried children are working, still living at home, and contributing to the total family income.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of the “audience exchange” approach for audience development and research, and to highlight the insights offered by peer-to-peer dialogue in understanding experiences of unfamiliar arts.

Using a case study with contemporary arts audiences, and setting this in the wider context of studies with other first-time attenders at a range of arts events, the paper explores the use of the “audience exchange” method, in which facilitated conversations after performance events allow newcomers to reflect upon and deepen their first-time encounters with live arts.

The study demonstrates the way in which conversations about arts events can enrich audience experience, and shows how participants use exploratory and emotional language to articulate their understanding of unfamiliar arts events. Peer-to-peer learning occurs through these conversations, in ways that could be further supported by arts organisations as a valuable tool for audience development. The audience exchange discussions also reveal the varieties of participation from “drifting” to full attention that are all part of audience engagement.

This is a small-scale, qualitative study, and the method has potential to be tested in future studies with a greater variety of participants (e.g. younger or more ethnically diverse groups).

Use of the audience exchange for enriching experiences of first-time attendance could be adopted by arts organisations as a regular part of their audience engagement. Greater understanding of how new audience members draw on prior cultural experiences in finding the language to articulate their first impressions of an unfamiliar arts event could be valuable for targeted marketing and increasing accessibility.

The originality of this study lies in its elaboration of the audience exchange method, and its focus on the language and peer-to-peer learning evident in the facilitated post-performance discussions.