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Realist evaluation seeks to answer the question of “what works for whom in which circumstances?” through developing and testing middle range theories (MRTs). MRTs are programme theories that outline how certain mechanisms of an intervention work in a specific context to bring about certain outcomes. In this paper, the authors tested an initial MRT about the mechanism of participation. The authors used evidence from a participatory organisational intervention in five worksites of a large multi-national organisation in the US food service industry.

Qualitative data from 89 process tracking documents and 24 post-intervention, semi-structured interviews with intervention stakeholders were analysed using template analysis.

The operationalised mechanism was partial worksite managers’ engagement with the research team. Six contextual factors (e.g. high workload) impaired participation, and one contextual factor (i.e. existing participatory practices) facilitated participation. Worksite managers’ participation resulted in limited improvement in their awareness of how working conditions can impact on their employees’ safety, health, and well-being. Based on these findings, the authors modified the initial MRT into an empirical MRT.

This paper contributes to the understanding of “what works for whom in which circumstances” regarding participation in organisational interventions.

The purpose of the research was to compare web site designs used by the fastest growing companies in the USA to the largest companies in the USA and to benchmark those designs against best practices as defined by a leading consultant in the industry.

This approach surveyed the web site designs by each group of companies against a set of best practices and developed summary data about the observations.

The largest companies in the USA used designs that are more consistent with the best practices as defined by a leading consultant in the industry.

The fastest growing companies did not use best practices in their web site design and still maintained very rapid growth as evidenced by their national rankings. A poorly executed design was less of a detractor to the company's success than anticipated. Web site design may have a role (positive or negative) in the company's growth rate but further research is required to understand the scope and nature of the role.

The reason why a company maintains a rapid growth rate may be dependent on numerous factors and as such, a comprehensive evaluation of why a company sustains a rapid growth rate should be undertaken. The role of the web site in the company's success should be evaluated in more depth.

This paper has value for web site designers, entrepreneurs, IT management, IT consultants, and large company personnel involved with web site design.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the link between transformational leadership and depressive symptoms among employees is mediated by such personal resources as occupational self-efficacy, perceived meaningfulness of the work, and work-related rumination.

The study was conducted using questionnaires among 557 Finnish municipal employees in various occupations. The statistical analysis was based on structural equation modeling. A multiple mediation model enabled us to investigate the specific indirect effects of each mediator. Model comparison was applied to ascertain whether the mediation should be considered as full or partial.

Results based on model comparison showed that the proposed factors fully mediated the negative relationship between transformational leadership and depressive symptoms. Thus high level of transformational leadership was associated with high levels of occupational self-efficacy and perceived meaningfulness of the work, and low level of work-related rumination during off-job time, which, in turn, were associated with low level of depressive symptoms. The fully mediated model explained 36 percent of the variance in depressive symptoms. All of the three mediators made a unique contribution to this relationship.

The results imply that transformational leadership behaviors may decrease depressiveness among employees through strengthening the personal resources of employees. However, as the study is cross-sectional, causal relationships can only be hypothesized.

The study sheds new light on the possible processes through which transformational leaders may exert their health-promoting effects on employees even in terms of depressive symptoms.

An important sector that presents continuous growth year after year and one of the most notable economic sectors worldwide is hospitality and tourism (H&T). For this reason, many enterprises have been created and developed. Each journey could face several challenges, such as economic, social, political, environmental, and technological. This study examines research and case studies about H&T entrepreneurship and provides new insights into the current industry about all aspects that affect entrepreneurship development. Additionally, the impacts of the spread of COVID-19 in the current industry and the changes in the awareness of tourists to enjoy more sustainable tourism that protects the planet during their daily operations are addressed; this being a new opportunity for business so that entrepreneurs can compete in a hypercompetitive market.

The purpose of this study is to find the connection between leader behaviour and employee sickness absence in public administration.

The research data was collected with the help of an online questionnaire. The SPSS statistical programme and structural equation modelling in AMOS were used to analyse the data.

The research was conducted in public administration institutions, and 3,220 employees from public administration were included in the research sample. The author found a negative one-way relationship between certain types of behaviour and sickness absence. The author defines leader behaviour as a multidimensional construct in which each dimension represents a separate cluster of leader behavioural characteristics. Leaders’ “progressiveness” is the most important dimension, and a one-point increase in “progressiveness” (five-point scale) leads to a reduction of 2.8 days in sickness absence for one employee.

The author focused only on one segment of factors (the behaviour of leaders) that affects sickness absence. To explain the maximum possible measure of the variability in sickness absence, it would be best to include several different influencing factors.

The study represents a structured model of the link between sickness absence and leader behaviour. With the model, it is possible to determine which behavioural forms of leaders influence sickness absence, where leader behaviour is treated as a complex whole, and not as an individual behavioural characteristic.

The study addresses calls for research on the relationship between leader behaviour and employee sickness absence within countries.

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.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to existing financial literature within a less researched area through a systematic, organized, and holistic approach. This study advances the notion of considering terrorist attacks as a heterogeneous group of events by employing a multidimensional approach. The event study methodology was used to investigate the impact of 46 terrorist attacks occurring on the soil of OECD countries since 1990 on stock markets in US, UK, Spain, and Denmark. Thereby, terrorist attacks are considered as events conveying information to financial markets, which is processed by investors and subsequently reflected in security prices. This chapter is the first contribution within financial literature to distinguish and categorize terrorist attacks through several dimensions and investigate the effect of various characteristics on stock markets. The multidimensional analytical approach consisted of six dimensions, which included an examination of the national stock markets, differences across industries, the underlying threat characteristics, the size of the attack, and the development over time and geospatial aspects. It is concluded that terrorist attacks exhibiting international threat characteristics result in significantly larger and boundary spanning negative abnormal returns, which impact stock markets beyond the country in which the attack occurred. Additionally, the size of the terrorist attack amplifies the negative impact on stock markets. However, while the impact on stock markets was found to be immediate indicating that stock markets are quick and efficient in absorbing new information, the negative impact is likely to evaporate within five trading days.

Outlines the work of the Interactive Image Based Device for Effective Communication project [IBIDEM] in its aim of developing a video phone useful for lip‐reading by hearing‐impaired people, based on a new generation of space‐variant sensors and using standard telephone lines. The IBIDEM project is constructing a video phone using a camera with a retina‐like sensor, a motorized system for moving the viewpoint of the camera, as well as a display for the transmitted images which will allow high resolution in the area of interest i.e. lips or figures, whilst still maintaining a wide field of view. Experiments have been carried out to evaluate the minimum requirements for the video phone in terms of spatial and temporal resolution and the technical limitations which have to be taken into account in the design of a visual sensor.