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The stimulus given by the last war to the study of foreign industrial practice probably had much to do with laying the foundations on which, by the well‐timed action of a few enthusiasts, the first Aslib Conference was based.

The concept of organizational commitment has recently impacted the participative budgeting and employee performance streams of accounting research. Specifically, a series of studies by Nouri, Nouri and Parker have shown that an individual's level of organizational commitment negatively impacts budgetary slack and positively impacts employee performance (Nouri, 1994; Nouri & Parker, 1996a, Nouri & Parker, 1996b, Nouri & Parker, 1998). A related issue, which has seen little attention in accounting research, is the notion of what causes antecedes an individual's level of organizational commitment. The current study attempts to address this issue by investigating the relationship between an individual's perception of equity and organizational commitment. Using a cross-organizational design, measures of perceptions of pay and workload equity, organizational commitment, and self-rated performance were gathered from a sample of 105 employees from 15 organizations. In accordance with the study's hypotheses, results reveal that a significant portion of an individual's organizational commitment can be explained by his/her perception of pay equity and workload equity. Additional analysis reveals that perception of equity has a significant, direct effect on performance, but this effect is fully-mediated by organizational commitment.

Why did peasants in old-regime Europe scatter their land in small strips within open fields? According to an influential theory advocated by Deirdre McCloskey, the system’s main aim was risk reduction. By spreading out land, peasants were less exposed to the caprices of nature: heavy rains, droughts, frost, or hailstorms. In a time when other insurance institutions were lacking, this approach could be a rational solution, even if, as McCloskey suggests, it could be achieved only at the expense of overall agricultural productivity.

Over the years, McCloskey’s theory has repeatedly been debated. Still, it has never been empirically established to what extent the open fields actually reduced risk. McCloskey offered only indirect evidence, based on hypothetical calculations from short series demesne level yields. Risks on enclosed and open-field land farms were thus never compared.

This chapter presents farm-level harvest variation series, including observations from both types of land. It is based on tithe records of 1,700 farms in Southern Sweden from 1715–1860. Results show that scattering had a limited effect on agricultural risk. The system did protect against small-scale local crop failures. It was less efficient, however, when it came to the large-scale regional harvest disasters that constituted a much more serious threat to peasants of the time. From this perspective, the inner logic of the open-field system is taken up for renewed consideration.

Do the living arrangements of immigrant elderly differ significantly from those for non‐immigrant elderly? If so, are differences between immigrants and non‐immigrants due to population composition or immigration‐based cultural preferences? To answer these questions this research examines the living arrangements of Non‐Hispanic White, Hispanic, and Asian elderly using data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). The standardization and multinomial logistic regression results indicate that within each of the racial/ethnic groups immigrants, particularly those aged sixty or older upon arrival, are more likely to live in extended family arrangements and less likely to live independently than elderly non‐immigrants. Furthermore, these differences between immigrants and non‐immigrants are not due to differences in population composition, economic resources, functional limitations, or acculturation. The results suggest that immigration policies are influencing these observed living arrangement differences. The impact of increasing diversity among the older population and potential changes in government policy on the distribution of future elderly living arrangements is discussed.

At the present moment in this country, and it is inflation in this country that immediately concerns us, we are all aware of constantly increasing prices. There are two ways in which the change in prices is measured by the Government statisticians. The best known measure is the Index of Retail Prices which covers the main goods and services on which householders spend their money. Certain non measurable items are not included but the index does give the average change in prices of the items on which the index is based weighted according to their importance in household expenditure in the previous January. In calculating these weights the expenditure of householders where the main income is a retirement pension or where the income of the head of the household is above a certain limit (£70 a week at present) is excluded.

The aim of this review is to critically assess published articles on school-based nutrition education (NE) intervention to identify factors hindering or contributing to the success of interventions. School-based NE possesses the capacity to influence learners’ nutrition behaviours.

An electronic search of articles was conducted in Medline, PubMed, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature databases, Google and snowballing. Included in the review were school-based studies with classroom NE with or without nutrition services and studies published between 2000 and 2013. School-based non-intervention studies and interventions that did not include a nutrition teaching component were excluded in the review.

Thirty-nine studies met the inclusion criteria. Features of successful NE interventions included the use of behavioural theories, especially the social cognitive theory and the involvement of trained teachers in the implementation of interventions. Capacity development for teachers, time constraints, school policies and implementation problems of multicomponent interventions were some of the identified challenges encountered in the studies reviewed.

Trained teachers are invaluable assets in interventions to improve nutrition behaviours of learners. Challenges associated with teacher-oriented school-based NE intervention can be overcome by properly designed and implemented interventions based on behavioural theory.

The Royal Society Scientific Information Conference of 1948 was a top level attempt to look at scientific and technical information in the light of the post‐war growth of the literature. Some of the large number of recommendations have been made irrelevant by advances in technology, and some, for example those relating to bibliographic control of books and comprehensive collecting of scientific literature, have been overtaken by action. Most recommendations, however, are unfinished – some unfinishable – business. The recommendations relating to control over the number and format of journals and co‐operation between abstracting journals were never realistic. Issues that are still live include library co‐operation and copyright. The 1948 conference may have had few direct effects, but it helped to create a climate where improvements were easier to make. Political and technological changes in the world since then have led to a very different environment, in which information is held to have a commercial value, the private sector plays a greater part, and market forces rule. A similar conference in 1998 would have a very different agenda.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between empowering leadership and volunteers' service capability in the context of nongovernmental organizations. In doing so, the mediating role of intention to share knowledge was highlighted.

Data were collected from volunteers from two non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Greece through a web-survey tool. To test our hypotheses, we used bootstrapping analysis.

Our study provides support for the positive effect of empowering leadership (EL) on volunteers' service capability. In addition, we highlighted volunteers' intention to share their knowledge as an underlying mechanism that explains the above relationship.

The present study highlights the important role of EL in increasing service capability in the context of NGOs. Even more, the mediating role of intention to share knowledge provided new knowledge into why EL affects employees' extra-role behavior and more specifically, service capability.

People donate to charities with the aim of improving society. Yet, many charities fail to use donations efficiently or have ineffective interventions. The authors explore the strategic operational priorities and processes that enable charities to efficiently implement their interventions and have a positive impact on society.

The authors first review the literature on charities to gain a deeper understanding of the current state of knowledge on charity operations. The authors then employ the lens of paradox theory and perform a qualitative investigation of six case studies to explore various aspects of the operations of charities that are known for being cost-effective.

The authors reveal how the strategic operational decisions of charities, as well as the processes they implement, help them resolve the tensions arising from the cost-effectiveness paradox. The authors show that cost-effective charities make strategic operational decisions that help maintain two diverging priorities: prioritizing the status quo and prioritizing change in how they deliver value. Another set of strategic decisions helps balance these two diverging priorities. The authors then show how these charities create and then maintain cost-effective operations.

The authors address recent calls for research on non-profit organizations in the field of operations management. To authors’ knowledge, it is the first in-depth study of exemplary charity operations. The results can be used by charity executives as a benchmarking tool when they develop and implement their charitable interventions and by government agencies and potential donors when they select charities for their donations. Finally, the results should have implications for other organizations trying to have a positive societal impact.

The ability to attract and retain volunteers is crucial for not-for-profit organizations, and consequently, the need to understand and manage volunteers’ engagement is paramount. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of five volunteer engagement dimensions (cognitive, affective, behavioral, social and spiritual engagement) on perceived value-in-context, and its subsequent role for volunteer retention. Thus, providing for the first time an understanding of how unique types of value are determined through different facets of volunteer engagement.

To establish the nature and consequences of volunteer engagement, the authors collaborated with an Australian not-for-profit service organization. Using a survey method, the authors studied the organization’s volunteer workforce resulting in 464 usable responses. To capture volunteers’ degree of spiritual engagement, this paper introduces a rigorously developed unidimensional measure.

The results demonstrate the importance of the five engagement dimensions on volunteers’ perceived value-in-context, while highlighting significant effect differences including some counterintuitive consequences. The authors also establish the role of spiritual engagement and demonstrate the impact of value-in-context for volunteer retention.

This research explores the volunteer engagement-retention chain, by empirically studying the role of value-in-context. The authors provide first evidence for the relationship between volunteer engagement and value-in-context, examining the independent yet relative effects of various facets of volunteer engagement. In doing so, the authors offer new insight into the dimensionality of the volunteer engagement construct, broadening its conceptualization to include spiritual engagement as a core constituent. The authors further demonstrate the impact of value-in-context on volunteer retention, helping organizations to better make sense of meaningful volunteer experiences with long-lasting impacts and mutual benefits.