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This study analyses the determinants of the value of a portfolio of real options and explores implications for strategic management. It focuses the analysis on four elements: the number of real options in the portfolio, constraints on the number of options that can be exercised, the volatility of underlying assets, and the correlation between underlying assets. These elements are articulated around a trade-off between growth options and switching options and are applied to different strategic situations of technological, market, and macroeconomic uncertainty.

This study aimed to explore the understanding of Malaysian adolescents towards concept of physical activity (PA) and their perceived facilitators and barriers in practising an active lifestyle.

Using a quota sampling method, a total of 12 focus group discussions (FGDs) were performed at two secondary schools, which were randomly selected in Selangor. This study involved 72 adolescents (males = 51.4%, females = 48.6%) aged 13–14 years. Based on ethnicity, there was an equal number of Malay, Chinese and Indian participants (n = 24, 33.3%). For analysing the outcome from the FGDs, thematic analysis was applied.

The adolescents perceived exercise and PA as structured games. They perceived that exercise could have positive effects on the body, appearance and health, and PA as a daily routine. Common differences between exercise and PA were based on frequency, intensity, energy and venue. Perceived facilitators in practising an active lifestyle include concern about body or health, have companions, familial or peer influence, availability of facilities in the neighbourhood and have scheduled time for exercise. Time constraint, no motivation, physically unwell or tired, no companion, security issue at playground or exercise facilities or venue, and weather were mentioned as barriers in practising an active lifestyle.

This study contributed to an improved understanding of the adolescents’ concept of PA, as well as their perceived facilitators and barriers in practising an active lifestyle. The study suggested that health intervention should embrace a way of promoting the immediate advantages of practicing an active lifestyle in order to reinforce the importance of an active lifestyle among adolescents. Furthermore, future intervention should emphasise on educating the adolescents on ways to cope with environmental barriers when practicing an active lifestyle.

This paper reports on a survey of 17 value management exercises recently carried out within the UK construction industry. Twelve leading value management practitioners were asked to describe an example of a value management study which ‘worked well’ and one which ‘did not work well’. They were further asked to explain the underlying factors which they considered had influenced the eventual outcome of the value management study. The subsequent analysis of the interview transcripts reveals six recurring themes which were held to have had a significant influence: expectations, implementation, participation, power, time constraint and uncertainty. Whilst caution is necessary in extracting the themes from their individual contexts, they do provide a valuable insight into the factors which influence the outcome of value management studies.

Despite preventive efforts from some companies to offer some sport and physical activity (SPA) to their employees, French participation rates remain very low, which limit impacts in terms of health and economic benefits. The aim of this study was to better understand the factors influencing SPA participation in the workplace.

A cross-sectional study was conducted based on an electronic questionnaire survey disseminated to 24 companies based in France that offered SPA to their employees. An independent sample t-test was conducted to explore the differences between the most common facilitating and constraining factors, in relation to “being a sporty person” self-perception, leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) level and demographic information. Predictors of SPA in the workplace were determined using a binomial logistic regression.

A total of 1,318 employees completed the survey, of which 60% were women, mostly highly educated and white collar. “Being a sporty person,” self-perception has been a predictor of SPA participation in the workplace.

More multicomponent work-based interventions, including incidental physical activity, might be necessary to increase participation and overcome time constraint.

Although SPA participation in the workplace is considered to promote numerous positive organizational and individual consequences, this is the first study to assess the associations between facilitating and constraining factors of SPA participation in the workplace setting and physical self-perception.

In most theories of authority, normative regulation is the price that power pays for legitimacy. But what are the mechanisms by which norms regulate power and under what conditions do they in fact constrain its use? In an experimental study of a three-level hierarchy of power and authority, we found that the internal constraint of conscience alone was not sufficient to constrain the abuse of power by authority: Where authority had something to gain, one in four Ss abused power out of self-interest; where it had nothing to gain, one in three followed their own conscience rather than the situation's norms.But internal constraints are not the only constraints on the exercise of power by authority. The mechanisms of the normative regulation of power depend on the fact that the exercise of authority, at least in organizations, is a collective phenomenon. It is not simply a matter of a superior, A, exercising authority over a subordinate, B, but of multiple actors executing the directives of A in such a way that the behavior of B is in fact directed. The normative regulation of power depends on how norms regulate these other agents of power and how dependence on these other agents, in turn, controls the behavior of A.

This paper aims to present a model describing how women enact executive leadership, taking into account gendered organizational patterns that may constrain women to perform leadership in context-specific ways.

This paper discusses gendered organizations, role congruity theory and organizational culture and work context. These strands of theory are interwoven to construct a model describing ways in which executive-level women are constrained to self-monitor based on context.

The pressure on women to conform to an organization’s executive leadership culture is enormous. Executive women in strongly male-normed executive leadership contexts must exercise strong gendered self-constraint to break through the glass ceiling. Women in strongly male-normed contexts using lessened gendered self-constraint may encounter a glass cliff. Women in gender-diverse-normed contexts may still operate using strong gendered self-constraint due to internalized gender scripts. Only in gender-diverse-normed contexts with lessened gendered-self-restraint can executive women operate from their authentic selves.

Organizational leaders should examine their leadership culture to determine levels of pressure on women to act with gendered self-constraint and to work toward creating change. Women may use the model to make strategic choices regarding whether or how much to self-monitor based on their career aspirations and life goals.

Little has been written on male-normed and gender-diverse-normed contexts as a marker for how executive-level women perform leadership. This paper offers a model describing how different contexts constrain women to behave in specific, gendered ways.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

Since the 1970s, the healthcare industry has undergone significant changes. Using neo‐institutional and resource dependency theories, the purpose of this paper is to explore how managers perceive constraint and enact agency amidst these historic challenges – perhaps most significantly, declining funding and increasing regulation.

The data come from ten interviews with healthcare managers, spanning for‐profit, non‐profit, and government legal forms and hospital and nursing home sub‐industries in both Queensland, Australia and North Carolina, USA. The authors look for patterns across the interviews.

The paper shows that governments and umbrella “parent” organizations force managers to adhere to institutional expectations in exchange for resource investment. Managers navigate these environmental obstacles using a shared business‐minded approach and competitive differentiation. Yet various interest groups – including front‐line workers, physicians, and patients – challenge this paradigm, as they demand a focus on quality of care. Managers' efforts are likewise curbed by the very resource and institutional pressures they resist.

The authors understand changes in the healthcare industry as resulting from an increasingly powerful managerial logic, at odds with traditional professional and societal values. Interest groups are best positioned to challenge this logic.

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is an occlusive atherosclerotic disease that affects blood vessels and reduces blood flow in the lower limbs. It is estimated that around 200 million people worldwide suffered from it, with a significant number of older people affected. Walking is one of the first-line therapeutic measures for intermittent claudication (IC) in patients with PAD. Supervised Exercise Therapy (SET) programs effectively increase walking distances, however, remain an underutilized tool because they are not readily available in most clinical centres, are extremely expensive, and patient participation is low mainly due to socioeconomic constraints. Home-based Exercise Therapy (HBET) programs are an effective and low-cost alternative to improve both the functional capacity and quality of life (QoL) of patients with IC, as they are performed in the patient’s area of residence and not in the hospital. The WalkingPad program conciliated a smartphone app – the WalkingPad app – with behaviour change intervention to increase walking distances and decrease walking impairment as well to improve QoL at 6 months.

The central objective of this chapter is to develop a theoretical reading of the international and contemporary discourse of reproductive rights. My hope is that the perspective and analytical proposal set forth represent a contribution to the expansion and consolidation of the field of study, and renders useful for the analysis and evaluation of the situation of reproductive rights within national contexts.