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This article seeks to look at the need for a library request system that can provide improved relationship management and personalized services, and meets public expectations about advances in technology and self‐service applications. In this case, a homegrown solution fills a need in an efficient, cost‐effective and gratifying manner.

After investigating established reserves systems and finding them lacking in relationship and process management features, the libraries got to the point where library staff started looking for internal solutions to request tracking and workflow issues when a homegrown automated solution was discovered; Library Systems, the libraries' internal technical support unit, had developed a very versatile “Helpdesk” system that tracked the status of computer work and problem requests. This system had been adapted by other libraries and organizations around the country for a similar purpose and provided a simple yet versatile interface that would lend itself well to developing a system for reserve request tracking and process management.

After making use of this system over three terms including a busy Fall 2006, ResDesk has made a huge positive impact on workflow and communication. Instructors can, and do, check the status of their requests at their own discretion resulting in fewer visits from stressed out instructors. The system itself has been phenomenal in managing the request, allowing reserves processing, even though there are more requests than ever, to be more efficient than ever. For comparison, even though the number of requests has steadily increased, the amount of processing time, with the implementation of ResDesk, has steadily decreased.

While there have been many articles published on customer‐relationship management systems, they are firmly entrenched in the business sector and there has been little discussion in library literature about a system that would automate all communications and workflows surrounding interaction with patrons, from request to completion.

The purpose of this paper is to transform a user‐authentication process for a document delivery and borrowing service into a simplified and unified logon access method consistent with other library services by leveraging a University Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

Data fields were analyzed from the Texas A&M University Libraries' interlibrary loan and document delivery application (ILLiad) to determine the unique information that was critical to maintain account security and historical usage. As an added feature, plans were made and implemented to provide account authentication with another system entity through the use of Shibboleth software.

The campus LDAP proved a popular added feature. Since the implementation of the new authentication and authorization methods, usage of the service has increased even though the number of actual live accounts has decreased. Account security and user affiliation statistics were greatly improved.

More efficient authentication and authorization processes increased the effectiveness of the document delivery service. Use of the LDAP protocol and Shibboleth software enhanced the authentication process for both the library and the user. Eliminating the need for a separate set of credentials for use of the document delivery service reduced the potential for password fatigue.

The creation and implementation of different technologies to further refine migration and systematic processes. A guide to the steps taken to facilitate moving from one authentication method to a more advanced system leveraging Shibboleth and .ASP for quality assurance.

Business sustainability urges firms to simultaneously address economic, ecological, and social concerns. It innately combines different potentially competing organizational elements. Therefore, sustainability represents a suitable context for the study and practice of hybridity. Based on an understanding of hybridity as a continuum, in this chapter, the author distinguish between four different forms of hybridity for business sustainability, depending on the degree of integration and autonomy of sustainability initiatives in business organizations. With ceremonial hybridity, businesses only leave the impression to pursue business and sustainability goals but focus their practices on conventional business priorities. Contingent hybridity denotes an approach where ecological and social concerns are only pursued to the extent that they align with business goals. With peripheral hybridity, firms pursue sustainability initiatives in their own right but do not integrate them with core business activities. Full hybridity puts both business as well as sustainability at the core of the organization without emphasizing one over the other. These different forms of hybridity in business sustainability are illustrated with examples from various business organizations. By characterizing different degrees of hybridity in business sustainability, the argument and the examples highlight how organizational hybridity and business sustainability can fruitfully inform one another. The author develop research opportunities for using business sustainability as a context for studying different degrees as well as the dynamics of hybrid organizing and for using different degrees of hybridity for achieving a better understanding of different pathways toward substantive business contributions to sustainable development.

From two bodies of literature, the purpose of this paper is to generate theory for an updated conceptual model of drivers of Six Sigma project success by integrating extant psychology theory and empirical general team project results with a history of eight recent Six Sigma projects and extant Six Sigma literature. The new theory emphasizes the need for project leads to process information simultaneously, as well as develop prioritization abilities. Also, the new theory reverses the relations of three existing theories from general team composition theory. The new theory suggests that Six Sigma belt trainers should focus more on soft skill development.

A literature review of the two bodies of literature previously mentioned.

Eight new propositions related to the success of Six Sigma projects are developed. Further, two new constructs, “project leader simultaneity of thought” and “prioritization ability” are suggested for further investigation.

The authors suggest a few practical implications: first a greater emphasis on soft skill training would be beneficial in Six Sigma belt training. A second new point of emphasis in belt training is developing greater internal locus of control in belt candidates. Third, the authors suggest that during the team member selection process a diversity of backgrounds would be beneficial to Six Sigma project success.

In this paper, I use 33 interviews with songwriters to explore the relationship between songwriting and emotion, particularly as it relates to the lived and embodied aspects of emotional experience. I contend that songwriting can be understood as a form of sensual reflection and inquiry, one that synthesizes the emotional and evocative properties of both music and language. For songwriters, the creative process of songwriting serves as an embodied vehicle through which to assign meaning to lived emotional experience and the self. Resultant performances represent an expressive forum in which to communicate the outcomes of this process. For sociologists of emotion, examining the neglected process of songwriting represents an opportunity to extend the study of emotion beyond discursive and dramaturgical approaches, lending fresh insight into the lived, embodied character of emotion.

Small social enterprises (SEs) face many challenges as they seek to secure their survival, sustainability and performance, but little is known about the interrelations among these challenges and how these SEs might mitigate their challenges by using online platforms.

Drawing on the results of 19 in-depth semi-structured interviews with founders of small SEs in Australia, the authors present two integrative frameworks: one demonstrates how different challenges directly or indirectly influence SE performance, and the other represents the linkage between online platforms use and SE performance.

The authors’ findings indicate that SEs face social, economic and organizational challenges, and that SEs use online platforms to mitigate these challenges and improve their performance. Online platforms enable these enterprises to identify funding opportunities, recruit staff and volunteers, connect with other SEs, form partnerships, promote their organization, market their products and services, and avoid competition and duplication in their ecosystem.

The authors provide a guiding model for further research on using online platforms to mitigate challenges for small enterprises to improve performance. This study advances current understanding of why some SEs fail to thrive, while others survive, flourish and grow.

The authors’ study advances the resource-based view by identifying how online platforms offer a valuable resource to improve SE performance, and assist managers to maintain the strategic direction of their enterprise.

Though environmental management accounting (EMA) is a globally recognized accounting practice, its application and development within several developing economies remain stunted. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the extent to which EMA practices have been implemented by local manufacturing companies in Nairobi, Kenya.

We measure the degree to which EMA methods have been adopted by manufacturing entities and hypothesize that firm size, financial performance, and regulation are positively associated to the extent to which EMA techniques are applied by Kenyan corporations. The chapter employs a mixed methods research approach and combines the use of surveys with semi-structured interviews to gain insights into drivers of EMA and the extent to which these methods are applied locally.

We find environmental regulation and financial performance are positively associated with the level of EMA practices applied by manufacturing entities.

The findings illustrate the complexities of applying EMA practices within an emerging context and provide evidence that EMA practices are still predominantly used by entities to meet local regulatory requirements. The qualitative findings indicate there could be some companies who engage with EMA at a more sophisticated level.

Many jurisdictions fine illegal cartels using penalty guidelines that presume an arbitrary 10% overcharge. This article surveys more than 700 published economic studies and judicial decisions that contain 2,041 quantitative estimates of overcharges of hard-core cartels. The primary findings are: (1) the median average long-run overcharge for all types of cartels over all time periods is 23.0%; (2) the mean average is at least 49%; (3) overcharges reached their zenith in 1891–1945 and have trended downward ever since; (4) 6% of the cartel episodes are zero; (5) median overcharges of international-membership cartels are 38% higher than those of domestic cartels; (6) convicted cartels are on average 19% more effective at raising prices as unpunished cartels; (7) bid-rigging conduct displays 25% lower markups than price-fixing cartels; (8) contemporary cartels targeted by class actions have higher overcharges; and (9) when cartels operate at peak effectiveness, price changes are 60–80% higher than the whole episode. Historical penalty guidelines aimed at optimally deterring cartels are likely to be too low.