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As pricing has evolved as a specialty over the past 20 years, there has been increased focus on the concept of value – what it is, how to measure it, and why it is important. Value is important not only for setting prices but for establishing product and negotiating strategies and tactics. This chapter first discusses the importance of value in the price-setting process. Second, it frames how to define and measure value. Last, it explains how value tools can help salespeople in their negotiations process. It will review the application of these value measures in a business-to-business (B2B) environment and report on a technique of value measurement called Case ROI™. This measurement is particularly useful because it calculates the value of new products, technologies, and services at both the segment and the individual customer levels with a higher level of precision and relevance than other methods. It is based on a field-value-in-use technique that will be discussed in detail.

The social innovation of devolving HRM responsibilities to line managers results in many debates about how well they implement HRM practices. The implementation constraints line managers perceive in their HRM role are researched by taking organisational contingencies into consideration.

We present four case studies in which our findings are based on quantitative and qualitative data from the cases. The qualitative data allow us to explain some of our quantitative results in terms of organisational differences.

The HRM implementation effectiveness as perceived by line managers depends on the line managers’ span of control, his/her education level and experience and his/her hierarchical position in the organisation. Each HRM implementation constraint knows additional organisational contingencies.

We did not consider possible influences of one organisational characteristic on another, and the effect of this combined effect on the HRM implementation factors. In order to overcome this limitation, we would suggest using a structural equation model (SEM) in future research.

This chapter offers HR professionals solutions on how to structure the organisation and design the HRM role of line managers in order to implement HRM practices effectively.

We see many differences on how HRM implementation is managed in organisations. This chapter offers solutions to policy makers on how to equalise the HRM role of line managers.

The focus of this chapter is on the line manager (instead of HR managers) as implementer of HRM and the impact of organisational contingencies on HRM implementation.

According to national statistics, small numbers of black American women earn science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degrees. Instead of focusing on this disturbing, well-documented trend, this chapter explores STEM career success among black female graduate students who enroll in and complete PhD programs. In other words, we are engaged in an effort to address how black women in STEM fields succeed in graduate school. This chapter presents a qualitative look at successful PhD pathways. It will provide data on the pipeline of black women at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels; describe programs that the state of Maryland has employed among its public research universities to recruit and retain black women in doctoral programs; present testimonials from black women who have participated in these programs; and offer an extensive case study of 15 black women alumni of these programs who now have PhDs and are establishing their STEM careers. Programs that will be documented as successful for recruiting, mentoring, and retaining black women in STEM include the National Science Foundation's (NSF) University System of Maryland Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Bridge to the Doctorate program; the NSF's PROMISE: Maryland's Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program for UMBC, the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP); the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Meyerhoff Graduate Fellows Program in the Biomedical Sciences (Minority Biomedical Research Support – Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (MBRS-IMSD)) at UMBC and UMB; and subprograms such as the Dissertation House (DH), the Community Building Retreat, and the PROF-it: Professors-in-Training program. The case study will include the following questions: What were some of the obstacles that occurred during graduate school, and what helped you to overcome them? Were there any issues that occurred that made you want to quit? If you stopped for a while, or thought about stopping, what were your motivations for returning? Where did you receive mentoring during your graduate school process? What advice would you give to young women who are just starting? The chapter focuses on a variety of methods and practices that successfully shepherd black women from undergraduate ranks to PhD-level careers in STEM fields.

This study illuminates how organizational actors use images in their struggle to define a contested industry. By leveraging social semiotics and visual rhetoric, we examine how multimodal texts (combining words and images) are used to label and reframe an industry using technical, environmental, human-rights, and preservation-of-life criteria. Building on theories of legitimation, we find that for this industry, contesting attempts at legitimacy work are escalated along a moral hierarchy. We offer an approach for examining how actors draw from broader meaning systems, use visual rhetoric in multimodal texts, and employ dual processes of legitimation and de-legitimation.

This chapter investigates the antecedents of individuals’ emotional outcomes from their dining-away-from-home experiences and conceptualizes how food and emotions are related and how travel and emotions are associated. The study applies the stimulus-response theory to set up the premise that emotions that individuals experience while dining out comprise a pivotal part of their emotional well-being and their emotions can be triggered by stimuli encountered on trips and in other away-from-home situations. Cognitive appraisal, arousal, and other causes that are responsible for awakening affective responses are utilized in developing six propositions regarding individuals’ emotional outcomes in travel and dining contexts. Theoretical and practical implications are suggested following the discussions on these propositions.

This chapter critically examines the dynamics that exists between employee well-being, line management leadership and governance as experienced and perceived by employees in the public sector context. This chapter is based on research into employee well-being and line management leadership with a British Local Authority in northern England, focusing on employees’ verbal accounts of their own experiences and perceptions of well-being, line manager leadership and corporate social responsibility. Twenty-six interviews were conducted from a diverse range of employees with each interview lasting (45–60 minutes), tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. The research investigated the subjective perceptions of senior managers, managers, senior officers and clerical/secretarial staff regarding their views concerning line management leadership on employee well-being at work. Using the technique of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) provided insight into the life-world of participants, providing the opportunity for employees to share their personal experience of leadership and governance on the front line and its implication for employee well-being at work. The data revealed line management leadership and governance emerged as central to influencing and enabling well-being at work and were linked to individual, social and organisational factors (blame culture, rewards, trust in management, support and communication). Employees’ accounts of line management leadership, well-being and corporate social responsibility identified salient issues, thus providing a basis for broader research in this area. Thus organisations wishing to enhance employee well-being could focus efforts on creating organisational conditions and line management leadership to encourage well-being through the six identified factors. This research has relevance for the employment relationship, corporate social responsibility, service delivery, performance and for practitioners and academics alike.

This chapter critiques the forceful institutionalization of gender mainstreaming into development programs.

The data was generated from literature review and a research-based case study of the World Bank’s Community-Based Rural Development Projects in a Ghanaian township using ethnographic research methods such as participant-observation, focus group discussion, and individual interviews.

Our study found that gender mainstreaming has become popular, with the majority of international development agencies, such as The World Bank, AusAID, USAID, and the UNDP, adopting it as an overarching framework for developing and delivering their programs and services. The concept has also made its way into government policies globally over the past decade and has a strong influence on aid projects, even on gender-neutral programs. Our ethnographic research revealed that it is problematic to simply use gender mainstreaming as a policy initiative. The research case study presented showed that, in their quest to involve women in decision-making processes in rural localities, officials who implemented the CBRDP targeted women, although improving gender equality (through the process of gender mainstreaming) was not an objective of the CBRDP project per se. As a result, the project was jeopardized, some local people misconceptualized the CBRDP as a “women’s empowerment initiative,” leading to apathy on the part of men, some of whom resented the CBRDP by preventing their wives and daughters from participating in it, ultimately causing a negative outcome.

We seek to alert international development organizations and practitioners that implementing gender mainstreaming programs and policies without considering local conditions and social relationships will fail to deliver the desired outcomes for the intended beneficiaries.