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The purpose of this paper is to present a refined framework providing clarity in terms of the components of profitability and productivity change from the perspective of the firm level.

The literature is analysed with a scoping study and a systematic literature review. Productivity measurement approaches are compared using data at the product level.

The definition of total factor productivity (TFP) in the literature negatively affects the accuracy of profitability and productivity measurement. In the usual case of a dynamic output mix, TFP change encompasses biasing output mix effects relating to profitability, but not to productivity change. Therefore, this paper defines changes of a ratio of output quantities to input quantities not as TFP change, but as quantitative profitability (QP) change. A framework is proposed decomposing profitability change into price recovery and QP change, whereas the latter comprises of valid productivity change (encompassing technological, technical efficiency and productivity-related scale effects) and output mix change (encompassing proportion, quality, output switching and profitability-related scale effects).

Future research should include literature from the industrial organisation field of economics. The presented framework should be transferred to the standard production function framework used in economics.

The paper can help preventing faulty decision making or distrust due to the use of biased profitability or productivity indicators. TFP-based productivity indicators are unsuitable for most firms. To measure productivity meaningfully, firms should use adequate approaches (e.g. standard input- or adjusted total factor productivity-based ones).

The paper contributes to a more accurate performance measurement approach, as researchers and practitioners better understand the components of profitability and productivity change.

Donna L. Van Raaphorst provides a detailed statistical analysis of a large sample of Alcatraz Prison inmates using the Social Science Statistical Package. The data, drawn directly from the inmate files, is compared whenever possible with similar data provided by the Bureau of Prisons in order to determine if Alcatraz, often regarded as America's Devil's Island, really incarcerated the so-called “Worst of the Worst” in its time. The results would seem to indicate that Alcatraz inmates were, in fact, not remarkably different from those in any other Federal prison in the system.

Investigates CEOs and their pay along with the various scandals attached to the company position. Urges more transparency with regard to directors’ pay to ease tension among other workers. Looks at how CEOs seemed to stay long‐term at companies before being lured away to rival companies for higher salaries in some cases.

This paper analyzes two external costs often associated with port development, cost to fisheries from marine dredge disposal and damages from air pollution, using estimates of development and operation for a proposed (but since cancelled) container port as a case study. For dredge disposal, a bio-economic model was used to assess short- and long-term and indirect (joodweb) damages to fisheries from marine disposal of clean sediments. In the case of air pollution, estimates of annual activity levels and emission coefficients are used to estimate incremental annual emissions of three key pollutants (NOx, HC and CO) for trucks, trains, yard vehicles, and vessels. These estimates allow for phasing in of strict new air pollution regulations. For both external costs, sensitivity analyses are used to reflect uncertainty. Estimates of shadow values in year 2002 dollars amount from $0.094 per cubic yard to $0.169 per cubic yard of clean dredged material for the selected disposal site and from $0.0584 per mile (jor current control standards) to $ 0. 0023 per mile (after phasing in of new regulations) for air pollution from heavy trucks.

The purpose of this paper is to report the factors that influence Vietnamese students’ choice of university in a little researched context where the effects of globalization and education reform are changing higher education.

A quantitative survey was completed by 1,124 current or recently completed university students in Vietnam. Marketing approaches are drawn upon to inform the exploration and understanding of student choice and decision making.

The factor analysed data showed the nine key factors influencing student decisions, in order of significance, as facilities and services, programme, price, offline information, opinions, online information, ways of communication, programme additions, and advertising. There are significant correlations in the Vietnamese context between the factors of price and facilities, and services and programme, and differences between genders and types of students in choosing a university.

Whilst this paper is a starting point, more research is needed in the Vietnamese context with deeper levels of analysis including the differences between types of universities and fields/disciplines, in addition to wider sampling.

A greater understanding of the Vietnamese context helps to inform marketing practices in a country experiencing increasing competition in higher education.

Findings from studies in other contexts many not be directly transferrable to Vietnamese universities suggesting the need for a contextual understanding of these factors and a suitably nuanced marketing response.

This paper identifies the need for cultural understanding of little researched contexts and calls for further research which does not assume all cultures and contexts will have the same underlying Vietnamese model of university choice.

Hospital environments have changed dramatically over the past two decades. Hospitals now have to contend with the dynamics of regulation, market forces, and quality and cost‐conscious environments. The strategies proposed here emulate the changes pursued by much of US industry. Provides a framework for analysing hospital environments. Applies Deming’s total quality management concepts to hospitals. Also suggests strategies to deal effectively with different types of hospital environments.

The purpose of this article is to examine the inter‐war history of the Raffles Library in Singapore with the aim of understanding what the management of the library believed its role should be as well as the role others in that society considered that it should fulfill.

The article is based on historical research using archival sources.

To a great extent the management of the library narrowly construed the institution's mission in terms of appealing to that class of persons likely to become paying members – that is, the European elite and its high‐level local collaborators. Financial constraints, relations between the library and museum as well as prevalent negative attitudes regarding class and race in colonial society are likely reasons for the lack of sustained attention to non‐European populations.

The library history of much of Asia remains relatively unexplored, especially from a viewpoint that stresses the importance of social context to library structure and operation.

Auditing researchers have recommended that the use of audit decision models should be subject to cost‐benefit analysis. This paper provides insight into cost‐benefit analysis and its shortcomings as a tool for evaluating audit decision models. The paper also identifies and discusses the limitations of other evaluation methods. Finally, the paper suggests the use of model confidence as an alternative to model value and model validity.

Under this title an interesting article by Thurman B. Rice, M.D., was published in the July issue of the Monthly Bulletin of the Indiana State Board of Health. Dr. Rice tells us that it is customary in the U.S.A. for the Boards of Health to require certificates of health from all food handlers, and that a conscientious examiner would even refuse to issue a certificate if the applicant had eczematous hands or open sores on the hands or face. This seems a most excellent precaution and one which might well be studied with due consideration in this country. Unfortunately, certain unscrupulous physicians apparently overcome the inconvenience of giving a thorough examination, and cases are known where 140 blanks, certifying that as many persons were free from all transmissible disease, were signed in two hours—and also where pads of blanks have been signed and the names filled in later by the restaurant manager as employees began to work. After referring to the care and cleanliness required in the preparation of the food itself, Dr. Rice points out that, should a case of food poisoning occur, the health authorities should be informed immediately and all suspected foods should be interned and kept in a condition which will guarantee as little change as possible—usually refrigeration at a very low temperature. The layman, on hearing of a case of food poisoning, is very prone to suspect those articles of food consumed at the last previous meal—while the significant article may have been eaten a day, or more, before—or, in the case of typhoid fever, two weeks before. Dr. Rice continues by telling us that we should always remain in the most jovial of moods at the dining table, and that causes for anger, fear, disgust, or any other unpleasant major emotion should be avoided. Also complaining, nagging criticism and sarcastic remarks at the table are most injurious to the flow of the gastric juice. We refrain from comment upon the effect of the restaurant orchestra, which has at times, we feel sure, been the cause of much “ criticism and sarcastic remarks ”; also the most careful and jovial diner (even after reading Dr. Rice's article) surely cannot fail to stimulate a little “anger” at the waiter who served the latecomers at the adjoining table before his good self? As a means of preventing epidemics from food sources, Dr. Rice recommends cleanliness, character, intelligence and good health in the workers; adequate equipment, alertness and supervision from the management; and the practice of the principles of the modern science and art of epidemiology in the board of health.